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Fall of The Cog's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Impression (score low for unimpressive, high for impressive) | #1 | 4.679 | 4.679 |
| Originality (score low for unoriginal, high for original ideas) | #2 | 4.714 | 4.714 |
| Legitimacy (score low for jam-spam, high for authentic "in the spirit" entry) | #4 | 4.679 | 4.679 |
| Adherence (score low for poor theme implementation, high for sticking to theme) | #14 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
Ranked from 28 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Fun strategy game; the concept reminds me of the board game "Spirit Island". :)
Yeah, I think someone on discord mentioned Spirit Island during the jam when I was describing this concept. I didn't play it but there's a digital version too so I watched a couple of gameplay videos. There are certainly some parallels there, although Spirit Island looks like a much bigger and more complex game. I'll check it out when I find time.
Very fun. Played for a long time to figure out the strategy. Was very satisfying, trying to maximize the damage. Would cause the fall of a civilization with natural disasters again, haha.
Thanks! Glad to hear that. Maximizing the damage to civilisation is where it's at :)
Thumbs up! :)
Thanks!
It's fun, but somewhat difficult.
There's bit of a learning curve involved. You need to be familiar with the rules to beat it. Check out the rules info on the game page. And be sure to start with easy mode :)
Fantastic game!
Thank you!
Gotta love simple designs that have replayability and are challenging. Truly a masterpiece! (Btw, my best score on hard was 9 so far :P)
Thank you! My best is 9 too.
This is something special.
Addicting gameplay.
I would suggest changing a bit of the randomness of card draws. It might work better as an actual 'deck' of cards. Dealt from a stack than shuffled etc. So you would have a deck of
fire 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6
hurricane 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6
earthquake 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6
flood 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6
for example. So, you would never get a hand of flood 1, flood 1, flood 1, etc..
You could even add modifiers like a real deck building game. Something like, each time you obliterate 10 cities, you can choose a bonus, with a condition.
Removes all 1 disasters from the deck, but 1 cities always grow to 3.
Add a Hurricane 7 to the deck, but 7 cities spawn 2s.
Coastal Cities take double damage from Hurricanes, but none from Fire.
Something I found not fully explained is that order is important. For example, if you use a Hurricane on a 7, and a Fire next, and the fire is barely touching the 7, the 6 it turns into may be to small to touch your fire. Very tricky.
Really solid game even without any changes.
Thanks yariplus. I really appreciate this kind of feedback.
Yeah, cards should definitely behave like an actual deck. I had it in mind from the start. Current "blind" rng is just a proxy for that. Too bad there wasn't enough time to implement and test it. I don't have much experience with deck building games so I didn't want to improvise. Any suggestions regarding card mechanics are welcome.
I also thought about some sort of bonuses/modifiers. Most obvious one being an extra card draw per X cities obliterated in a turn. This would give player more power to recover from crowded situations and probably eliminate the current (nasty) point of no return at about 35%. It may make game more engaging as it feels good to turn around nigh impossible situations. I'll actually test this asap.
Deck modifiers you mentioned also sound good. I'll think about it and test some of the possibilities.
I had an idea similar to yours that disasters could cause bonus damage depending on where you place them, but couldn't really think of ways to do it for every type of disaster without introducing more terrain diversity. This was too much for the jam version as it adds a layer of complexity that'd probably be hard to balance without extensive testing. However if draws are coming from a configured deck then there is no need for symmetry of power between various types of disasters. If, for example, flood is the only type that gets a terrain bonus, its power can be balanced out by having fewer of them in a deck. This all sounds good and is surely worth exploring.
I kept the order of disaster placement rigid because it forces you to think and combine in advance. Which is accordant with the jam theme. But also simplifies interaction.
Mid-turn city shrinkage ended up a plausible gameplay element which, again, forces you to account for it in advance. On the other hand, the rules regarding this could be made strict so that city radius doesn't shrink in-between disasters. Could work both ways.
Similar to this, there's one other thing whose importance may not be obvious - oscillating disaster radius. This is the only "real-time" element in the game. Which may be weird but I think it works. Some modifiers could perhaps be introduced here too, e.g. bigger radius amplitude at the cost of faster speed...
The repeatability of this game is something you should be proud of. Simple but beautiful.
Thank you!
My wife got hooked and plays dozens of sessions every day. What have I done? :)
Very well made!
Thank you!
beautiful game! Great Work
Thanks!
This game is a lot of fun and very polished, finished it on hard in 21 years.
Thank you! I'm really happy when people beat it on hard.
This is excellent. Just completed medium, and looking forward to hard next! :)
In the meantime... you've beat it on hard. Thumbs up!
:)
Man, how can anyone compete with this masterpiece?! 😂 Damn fine job, right here.
Why, thank you for such esteemed compliments, good sir or madam. Mucho appreciated ;)
Very cool concept, the visuals and audio are very nice as well
Good Work!
Thanks. I made all sound effect with bfxr. It was suggested in discord chat, cant remember who mentioned it - but thanks. It's a neat tool, perfect for this kind of thing. Saved me a ton of time I'd have otherwise wasted looking for sounds online.
Really fun game. A lot of replay ability, art style reminds me of flash games
Thanks! Game visuals are almost all vector graphics. Everything is drawn at runtime using turtle style drawing commands. Since flash was also vector based there may be some mystical kind of semblance :) But my main visual inspiration goes into history way way beyond flash. Color palette is a nod to ZX Spectrum, specifically monochrome games like Knight Lore. They were pixelated but I kind of wanted that same retro punch of single saturated basic color against the black background.
Wow, this is addictive and very fun! My favourite entry so far :)
Thank you. I'm glad you're having fun with it :)
Have you managed to beat it so far?
Yep, though just on Easy and Medium. My strategy was to target specific continents for a few turns, then swapping to the more populated ones, repeat 'til obliteration :D
That's a good strategy I like to clean them continent by continent too. There should be no difference as they can move instantly over the sea. but somehow I feel stronger using that approach :)
Really fun and accessible strategy game. I don't usually have the patience for strategy games, but this was very easy to get into :)
Thanks! I'm not big on the strategies either. Don't really know how I ended up making one. The initial idea just pulled in that direction. I tried to make it as casual as possible.
Good job!
Thank you. Glad you liked it.