It's fun, but somewhat difficult.
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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.
Comments
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.
Submitted
Future MouseThanks 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...
This game is a lot of fun and very polished, finished it on hard in 21 years.
Submitted
Final FrontierThis is excellent. Just completed medium, and looking forward to hard next! :)
Submitted
Drum CloudVery cool concept, the visuals and audio are very nice as well
Good Work!
Submitted
Decorator 3DReally fun game. A lot of replay ability, art style reminds me of flash games
Submitted
Crack Addict RPGThanks! 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 :)
Submitted
Run The SingularityReally fun and accessible strategy game. I don't usually have the patience for strategy games, but this was very easy to get into :)
Submitted
Future PathsGreat concept, hard to master and fun to play... Well done :-)
Submitted
Baby Bottle Bullrush!It's not hard. It's just that you're a baby. Damn babies ;)
Sorry, couldn't contain myself there. Your entry was just too funny. Anyway, yeah I was aiming for that elusive "easy to play, hard to master" sorta thing, which is hard to attain even when you have months to conceptualise and prototype. I'm happy if you got at least a bit of that vibe.
The initial concept was much more elaborate, with more mechanics involving disasters in the future years. I had to scale it down considerably if I was to meet the jam deadline, keeping just one core mechanic that seemed to have some potential for emergent gameplay. It was actually a good thing as it made the game easier to get into.
Thanks Justin.
On hard, you really need to consider your moves. But it's mostly beatable if you play carefully. I can beat it 9 out of 10 times in about 20 to 30 turns. There's a tipping point though. If free land falls below about 35% it's very unlikely you can recover. Maybe if you're lucky and get strong cards several times in a row. There's also a balance point at about 55% mark. Here it can go back and forth for some time if you don't press decisively.
Thanks. I'm happy you liked it so much. We'll see what happens regarding the further development if enough people like it.
The initial idea was that it plays on a globe, but had to turn it into a makeshift 2d thing to save time. Most of the jam time was allocated for prototyping the core mechanics. Graphics were kept super simple for that reason.
Making a spherical version with flashier graphics is definitely something I'd consider doing... in the future :)
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