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A jam submission

Steel NomadView project page

A solo tabletop game in which you travel the nuclear wasteland in your trusty Mech.
Submitted by InsidiousArts — 1 day, 10 hours before the deadline
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Steel Nomad's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun Factor#1181.4292.333
Audio#1211.0211.667
Originality#1221.6332.667
Overall#1231.4292.333
Visuals#1271.0211.667

Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Is your game a video game or a physical game?
physical

Was your game made solo or in a team?
solo

Did you use any third party assets, if yes what assets did you use?
no

Did you choose from one (or more) of the optional secondary themes?
no

Does your game contain 18+ content (Nudity, Gore, Language)?
no

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Comments

Submitted

I didn't have much time to review before jam end but here's my thoughts.

I've played a few adventure novels before, so I began quite enthusiastically but then became frustrated with a few things.

  • There is a lot of random number generation just to get started. (I ended up with Pilot: 2 Eng: 3 Dip: 2).
  • I wasn't sure if I could re-roll for weapons slots until I was happy, but basically I got two high cost weapons, couldn't fill my third slot and then ended up with a speed of one.
  • I had 4 areas for merchants and finds (both gave me high cost weapons I already had, but not sure if this was an RNG problem.
  • I got a battle with a Military Officer in Area 5. Having to roll for their stats and mech makes sense for replayability, but I personally would have enjoyed some pre-made enemies to make things slicker.
  • The enemy won every initiative but I lucked out with him getting diplomacy. I stopped playing at this point.

Hope that helps, I would play the game again after some tweaks and without trying to squeeze a quick review out in time, but my preference would be a little more narrative and maybe a smoother way to generate everything at the beginning.

Submitted

I enjoyed giving this a shot. I ran into a similar issue to JetDungeonDragon, in that it's relatively easy to break combat. I had some slight questions: namely, with the merchant, it tells you to roll a 2d6 despite only giving 6 options total. I sort of assumed it was a type for 1d6, so I just went with that.

I think having more variety in events could have made this  really special: I think solo games work best as a way for the player to build this character they create in their mind, make some sort of story out of it, and that just doesn't really happen here. 

Mechanically, the central loop of it all makes sense, and works well. I commend you for making a game like this general within the timeframe.

Would absolutely love to see this expanded on, maybe given a bit more variety in encounters if possible, things like that. Still, I think you did something neat here. Good job!

Developer

Thankyou very much :) That is indeed a typo on the merchant table. I'm currently playtesting the revised version and the main change I have made is that Weapons no longer explode at 0 HP, they are just disabled and can be repaired. It fixes most of the problems with combat.

As for the events, the original idea I had in mind was to have 52 unique events that could be triggered by drawing from a deck of cards. Perhaps even 52 per Area type... As I knew I could not write 52 good events before the deadline I chose not to attempt this system. But I may do this for an "advanced" version of the game when I have the time.

Thanks for the feedback  :)

Submitted

So during my first fight, I blew off my enemy's only weapon. and he appears to have become helpless as he can no longer attack. Finishing off weapons if there are few seems to be a fairly optimal strategy as combat breaks without weapons. I'd recommend having some kind of melee attack there in these cases and have a way for enemies to react to it. I'll post the stats I ended with by the time that happened.

Pilot - 3

Engineer - 4

Diplomat - 4

Food - 8

Frame - BLD Strider

 HP: 20/35

 Speed: 6-5=1

 W. Slots: 2

 Weapon: sm-7i Popper ; M.Gun; 2d6; 9 HP; Speed: 2

 Weapon: Newton Z-R Grenade Launcher; Rocket; 3d6; 14 HP; Speed: 3

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. You're very right, there does need to be a ruling for when an enemy is unable to defend itself. For the moment, if in this scenario, treat it as though the enemy has made a Diplomacy attempt (page 16), meaning you would either let them go or continue to fire on them. Sorry for this oversight.

Submitted

Gotcha. Thinking about it, couldn't you just spend the time to repair to full while ignoring their enemy's attempts at diplomacy?

Developer

Yes, I see what you mean, rather than playing out the rest of the fight, just decide whether to let them go or finish them off. I'll be putting out a revised version of the game with a few extra rulings when the jam is over.