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Ice Miners's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #755 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Artistic Style | #970 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Playability | #1486 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- With everything being small, it was super difficult to navigate the game. For the next jam, see if you can learn how to implement a "fullscreen mode". That would just help me, the reviewer. The overall gameplay loop was fairly slow. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing other than sending my SVC to gather more minerals. There was no detail on which building did what before I clicked them. The idea is really neat. I love RTS games. I also enjoy the music. Keep at it! I hope to see what you can do next!
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
yes
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
yes
Tell us about your game!
It is a resource managing game where you command an army of ice planet miners to collect crystals on a dark and unknown planet. Monsters begin to emerge and you must handle them before they over take you.
You navigate and play with a mouse. Hold down right click to move around the map. Click a base, click the crystal, and click the monsters. Once you have enough monster cores, you can mix them for powers or use them to build a new base!
Extra Notes
llama
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Comments
This game is hard! But not overwhelmingly so; I think there's a number of bugs that prevented it from being a really sleek experience - sometimes my dudes would get hung up on trying to deliver minerals to a depot, sometimes (it feels like) monsters would be just immune to damage (no feedback will do that to a player - they'll be assuming the worst crimes on the game's part). And having each depot its own separate counter of minerals for when it's allowed to spawn, and having a TOTAL between all depots displayed in the screen was very confusing - at one point I had two depots and 39 crystals, but couldn't spawn from either of those :D
Also, it's a bit confusing that dudes are "bound" to a depot and when you're giving an order to attack a monster, only dudes from the currently selected depot would attack (and there's no way to select a depot WITHOUT spawning a new dude if you've got resources for it, but that's a nitpick).
DESPITE THAT. It's been a wonderful tiny little strategy game that I'd honestly play much more of once it's streamlined a bit (add feedback to the player, please! HP bars/numbers, sounds upon miner/enemy death, other game events) and there's a bit more content (the idea with the research tower, "prospecting" building that spawns/discovers minerals and the depot is nice, and there's definitely space for more!)
Congrats on delivering this game to the jam :)
I appreciate such an in depth reply! As I mentioned in previously replies, quality of life changes such as better path finding, appropriate monster quantity spawning, enhanced GUI, better feedback to the player, and better interaction for switching between bases are all things I've wanted to do, but ran out of time.
I also would love to expand the mixing lab where combinations of all sorts could be made.
Again, I appreciate all of the work and effort you've poured into your comment! These are all issues I would love to have updated after the voting period is finished!
Very cool game! Building up an army of miners and bases while fending off the monsters for special crystals is a fun loop. Experimenting with mixing the crystals for different effects is a nice a touch too. Music is also a bit of a bop, great work!
I appreciate the positive feedback! Obviously just a 2 week, 1 man project. Glad you had fun and hope you come around next game jam too!
It took a little bit for me to get the hang of things, but eventually I started to understand how everything fit together. When I started focusing my miners into simply mining a lot in the beginning for me to hire more miners, things started to really grow in scale! It also took a little bit for me to be able to understand the Monster Part mixing. If anything, I wish there were already descriptions in the Monster Parts mixing menu, though maybe the point of it is to try combinations and discover it as you go. I definitely did not expect the effects of the Blue and White mix!
Another little thing to point out is, as I improved my research and more crystals would appear, at times I couldn't click some of the bases because the crystal collider seems to take priority over all other colliders, something that also stopped me from being able to attack a monster.
Honestly, something that really impressed me was the Fog of War shadow effect! It looks really nice and fits perfectly with the pixelated style of the game. Can't imagine where to even begin to get something like that going. Really good work there!
Commanding the miners generally goes pretty smooth, and the only factor that sometimes gets on the way of that is when there's an overlap of a base with something else, because other than that, they follow everything perfectly. The art's nice, gets the point across and is quite expressive, despite the size! The music is also pretty chill. It's kind of a relaxing game. I like it!
Wow! All I can say is wow! I appreciate all of the feedback! I can tell you've spent some time playing and even more in your comment!
I do wish I was able to spend some more time finding a way to communicate the specific details to the player better. For the monster mixing, the point is supposed to be a mystery. The blue and white is supposed to be a bit of a surprise, but I think it might've been a little too much, lol.
Something else I wish I was able to spend more time is the way my random spawning worked. Currently there is no check to see if some is occupying the area first, so the is so overlapping.
For the Fog of War, I applecrate the kind words! The Fog of War kicked my butt for a long while in development and time was sacrificed from a tutorial, gui, and tweaked monster mixing.
I am a little proud of the miner commanding. I wish I would've spent more time to have more advanced path finding. I made all of the art and music. The goal with the art was supposed to be more casual and not so intense. My thought process for the gameplay was "what if Starcraft was relaxing and didn't take as long".
It appears to be a bit broken, first the monsters killed me too quickly, then my miner got stuck inside the base (I think it's because he tried to mine a crystal that was right next to it). But the concept is very cool, I liked it.
Yeah. The issue with the monsters is how soon they spawn. I had the spawn rate a little higher in the beginning due to testing, but forgot to readjust before submitting. For the miners, the issue there is prioritization and path finding. Sadly the "Fog of War" took way longer to implement that it ate up so much dev time. I love the feedback and hopefully I can keep these concepts in my head for the next game I develop.
My last game was lacking the fun factor, so I did my best to focus more on playability this time, and I think it was achieved. I will make sure to create a good balance b between everything next time.
Great concept and love the artwork :) Was a little confused how to get my base up and running without dying too quickly - perhaps some more instructions or general tips and tricks?
Unfortunately, the tutorial part of the game was rushed/non-existent. If I had more time before the submission date, I would've loved to have a more in depth tutorial!
Very ambitious game! Love to see it. The characters are very cute, don't know how you pulled that off with so few pixels.
I find creativity in the limitations I set. Such as the 5 color palette and the size of the characters. I appreciate the kind words!
I had 39 crystals but I still couldn't make another miner. The instructions weren't very precise. I liked the soundtrack and the animations though, I didn't get to mix monster cores but shadows were fully present :D
Yes. It can be a little confusing. The total crystal count at the top is the combination of all bases. Even if you had 39 crystals total, one base may only have 20, while the other has 19, so neither could spawn a new miner.
If I was was able to create a more in-depth tutorial and more easily readable GUI, I would try to achieve better communication of these nuances.
Oooh, I see, I'll try again later <3
Reminds me a bit of the old Lego Mars brand :) like the bobbing of miners and monsters great fun :)
Yes! That is the whole inspiration! It was a mix between the Lego Ice Planet 2002 from 1994 and Lego Mars Mission from 2007. The music has inspiration from other sources, but I still feel the vibe and aesthetic went well with the color palette and art.
I like the gameplay loop. I think this would make a good colony sim
It would make a great colony sim, pretty funky beats too haha
I was going for a colony-sim type game, but funny enough I don't even play those games that much, but I love playing turn-based army/colony games (i.e FireEmblem, Advanced Wars, XCOM, etc.) and I tried to put those characteristics into a game that I enjoyed played.
It was tons of fun to make! I am so thankful for the kind words! The last gamejam, my gameplay was lacking, so I put a lot of focus on the gameplay loop and not making it so extensive, but still fun enough to waste 10 minutes.