itch.io

Which recipe have you tried? I will re-check it in the game to reproduce the bug. In theory, any recipe can be replicated like xxAxx or xxxAxxx where xx/xxx are the recipe ingredients needed to make the unit, A is the arcane element, and following xx/xxx are the repeated elements used before the arcane (only elements count, so you can use different ingredients as long as they have the same element type).

Love it, would hack the codes again 10/10

The hard difficulty is officially beatable…

It reminds me of shapez io a bit, in a good way. Great work for a ludum dare

5/5 gambling, would roll again

Another interesting entry from a legendary LD fellow

I was waiting for 8-bitBot(11).zip for a while now!

I am glad you enjoyed it! I have plans to make a full-scale game out of these ideas in the near future. Some time after I release my current big project, I guess :D

I uploaded a post-jam version of the game.

• A couple of bug fixes
• Improved unit balance
• More units and ingredients
• More missions
• A more convenient recipe book
• Ctrl+numeric key to swap rune slots
• Difficulty options now affect the gameplay!

Yes, it is true that the first LD upload didn’t even consider your selected difficulty. I thought about implementing it, but ran out of time. :)

It’s a bug of the ludum dare build :D

I have many updates pending, this bugfix included. I am going to upload it somewhere closer to the ludum dare voting period. :)

More units, ingredients, levels, balance tweaks, bug fixes, and more

The art direction of this game is gorgeous. I love the Jester

So the QUIVBAB is a part of the compound puzzle, the out-of-level bonus unlocking thing.

The INPUT is usually an existing word to make the game significantly more realistic to beat. E.g. it would be a “DAGGER” instead of “DGRYYR”. The bonus-related unlocks are different as they may involve gibberish. They’re the ultimate challenge and they involve multi-level deciphering (and they unlock bonus levels after that!)

So even if the OUTPUT matches something, what you need to do is to find a correct INPUT, the decoded keyword.

There is a word pool for every level, so re-running the level might give you easier words (relatively speaking). Also keep in mind the in 99% the input word should be a normal English words, like “animal” or “strike”.

Some levels have ambiguity in them that can only be solved via word/letter enumeration (e.g. narrowing down the candidate list) or through the extra powers of “console” (if you already unlocked enough).

If you attach a screenshot I can take a look and maybe there is something sneaky going on.

https://github.com/quasilyte/decipherism-game/ Sources

https://github.com/quasilyte/decipherism-game/blob/master/_docs/running_custom_levels.md This is an incomplete instruction on how to create a level :D

You can use Tiled to create levels

I am eager to see your levels! Let me know if you have questions

That was one of my intentions - to make this game interesting to solve using programming :D It’s not required, but it’s a legit way to play it

Nope. I ran out of time while making the game for this jam. :(

krutoblin

You have a 5/5 rating from me for this cool tool :D

The new cover is a banger (and the header as well)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/pit

You actually can, although it’s not a convenient feature in this build: ctrl toggles between the movement and rotation. As a side note, rotation takes 1 action point only, so it can be used as a poor man’s “wait” command which can be handy (as opposed to “guard” that would give extra def and flanking resist bonuses, but it will eat up the entire turn).

It’s a good thing I’m not ever gonna work on this exact source code of the game, because this bug seem to be very hard to nail down. :D

I would make a game from scratch if I ever want to make a real game out of it. :D

The gamejam coding is at play here - only bad code, only fast decisions. :D

Thank you. I used the markdown link syntax. :)

I’m surprised someone dug that much into a ludum dare game of a noname developer like me. :)

I’ve added a stats info to the game page as I can’t modify the game until Ludum Dare rating period is over. It’s amazing that you figured out what things like CON do xD You literally guessed the exact mechanic.

I thought about adding an event log, so the player could see what happened (this is mostly useful in the beginning), but it wasn’t the highest priority.

I got to the first level featuring Reapers, and killed all enemies, but it keeps giving my units new action points instead of ending the scene, making it impossible to proceed without reloading the game.

This is a bug I was aware before publishing the game, but I failed to reproduce it… Maybe it is connected to reapers somehow? You gave me a hint to look at. :D\

The second item slot reads “Need unit level 5”, but actually needs level 6 to unlock.

Ah, a classic off-by-one mistake from me. The levels are 0-based, so whenever I display a level, I add +1. But sometimes I get confused and require an actual level 6 instead of 5 :D

Do you have your entry for LD57? I would play and rate it

Having itch io players rated #1 in the global leaderboard confirms that it was a good idea to port the newest version of the game to this platform. :D

Keep it up! It makes my day to see a new person claiming some top score.

What is even more inspiring is that they used a “build” that was not considered meta. I kinda see what they did there: they covered many tier 3 recipes, meaning their fleet has a very good late-game potential, although getting evolution points to quickly promote them would be impossible, I think. Perhaps they found out a good trick to play around that. Maybe at some point, they maxed the evolution rate priority (coupled with blue drones that boost it as well)? Interesting…

Thank you for trying it out! The game is quite rough and not very user-friendly as it’s an early prototype made for a game jam. :) I never came back to it to turn it into a real, polished game.

Thank you! I’m glad to hear that. :)

The sound design and the atmosphere remind me of Inscryption. :D

I’m not sure if you need nitpick-level comments, but it’s very easy to click through the text accidentally, especially the black-screen text. In a game that has good text, it could be an issue. Why it happens? Because the player will tend to zealously skip through the text they’ve already seen (e.g. the “your estimations were…”), but then sometimes there is something new in-between or after the sequence and they end up skipping the new stuff.

I was somewhat confused to read about the compass tool before it was introduced into the game, but it’s probably a jam build limitation.

The different scale shapes confused me a bit at the start. For some reason, I thought that I should draw these triangle-shapes to calculate the distance while I was expected to calculate the total length of a shape. Since it’s possible to lose very early in the jam game, I guess the main game would introduce these new mechanics in a less punishing way.

The compass is quite cool, I liked using it. It wasn’t very convenient to use it from a laptop without a mouse, but otherwise the controls were good enough (although I couldn’t see what RMB does). Maybe it would be cool to have a pen in my other hand to make a mark while holding the compass tool?

I find it quite hard to be spot-on precise (unless you already know the answer). It’s usually +/-5 or so. It’s not a big deal, but some players will want to have a 100% score and I wonder how possible that is with the precision of tools one has. It’s probably much more realistic when you get a compass as it can be used as a ruler tool.

Other than that, it’s an interesting idea for a compass tool. Drawing on a map is also fairly entertaining. Do you know the direction you’re going to extend the game? Will it have more map/route related features? Is it going to be focused on the story (could be challenging without introducing more elements, like the actual character or cutscenes, etc.)

Ahaha, so you implemented the reversed pipeline from the game, kinda. :D

It’s especially good that you handled 1->n transformations and managed to work around the loops.

It’s cool that you used your programming skills to aid you! I wonder how much code you had to write to solve it, which libraries were used, etc.

Well, it is possible to solve the puzzles by hand. A “terminal” panel gets upgraded as the story levels are cleared. It gives the player hints about the level that should help in manual hacking. It might require a text document for some levels with ambiguity (there are only a few) so you can track multiple branches.

The game was created for a game jam (although a long and chill-paced one), so the game lacks the polish. The difficulty curve is also all over the place.

The bonus levels are opened if you manage to decipher the compound cipher of associated story levels.

It requires a lot of effort though. :) There is a single hint about the compound cipher in the in-game manual I think.

P.S. - finishing all story levels is an accomplishment as well as the second half of the game requires a good understanding of the game. Nicely done!

Here is my LD56 compo game, and it’s a deeply tactical one. Just how tactical is it, you ask? Well, as deep as Ludum Dare compo games go I guess!

I would make many things differently, if not the time constraints, but at least the combat part is good enough to make me feel proud. Many levels have at least two optimal solutions and it’s also possible to play against an army that is a counter-pick to yours if you’re extra careful.

I would like to know what you think!

And by the way, this game is made with Ebitengine. The engine that is, unfortunately, doesn’t even have a tag here. I would really like it to be a first-class engine for itch io, because it has many-many games published here.

Thank you for playing and providing the feedback!

The “change units” option was added near the deadline as my friend pointed out that there is a high change of soft-locking the player without it (as they might make a big mistake, forcing them to start the game over again). Since it’s just a little jam game, I though it’s easy for me to allow a 1-level re-roll.

The card selection is awkward. :D The closest thing to a card re-roll is “surrender” during the battle, “retry” after you won the battle and “continue” after you lost the battle.

I love this set. I used it to learn how to draw spaceships myself. Thank you.

Not gonna lie, this is pretty impressive for the first game.

Make animals poop and let the player clean this mess up and you get a Cult of the Lamb lol.

I think the game difficulty is more of less static, this is why I felt overpowered after a few upgrade levels. The main danger is your own army because in the end I was surrounded to submission.

I recorded myself playing the game if you’re into that weird kind of stuff (such as watching other people play your games):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3SVna1wLuM

This game is heavily inspired by Space Rangers. :D It was hard to implement all of the ideas in a given time span, but the game does handle the world simulation quite fairly.

Oh, this is quite a good first entry for an RPG!

I’m just jumping in here to say good luck and have fun. 🎉

I got to a second level, but the game crashed when I entered a boss (?) battle.

By the way, I maxed the bomb skill near the beginning of the game and it carried me along up until this crash. It 1-hits everything on the screen and there is no need to ever do anything else during the combat as enemies never get their turn. :)