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Luck of the Wasteland's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Submitter's Choice Award (top game overall) | #2 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Best use of: Post-Apocalyptic Desert Madness | #4 | n/a | n/a |
| Best use of chosen theme(s) | #9 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Use of themes
Apocalypse: setting is in a post-apocalyptic wasteland after a rogue AI destroyed the world // Desert Madness: setting is in a post-apocalyptic wasteland // Too Late: each turn in the game is timed, and you have a limited time to play as many cards as you can // Transhumanism: you build up your deck using "mutations," "tech," and "gear," technically improving your body & abilities over time
Content warnings
N/A
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Comments
Oh boy, that game is really good with time pressure!! I definitely think that the time pressure is essential to the game - but I also feel like it might be helpful for new players to slow down the first two fights at the beginning a little, giving the player more time to get into how this game is played!
I can see a really fun gameplay loop in this game, especially with more polish! :) It immediately reminded me of Inscryption, one of my favourite games. I also liked the little map that the game generates and that the player can reroll - It has a very good board game aesthetic!
If I am perfectly honest, even after a few fights, I still don't know where I can see my energy-meter and how much energy I have left :x
All I gathered is that there is a set amount of energy each turn that I can spend, but that's about it. I feel like especially under time pressure it's really hard to parse what is going on exactly. (But that might also only be an issue for me!)
Otherwise, all my other points of critique have already been said in the other comments! Especially turning card rewards down after winning a battle - or maybe even selling particular cards from your deck - would be great!
Yeah, I admit that I didn't really test the game with anyone else, so it may suffer from being "easy for devs, hard for everyone else," haha. the time buffer for the first couple fights does sound like a pretty good idea, though, I'll try implementing that in the next update.
...I hate to admit it, the "map reroll" wasn't supposed to be in there, that was only meant for debugging & I must have forgotten to take it out. Oops.
If it's on, the energy meter should be right above the player. It may be off-screen depending on screen size, I'll have to check up on that.
Thanks for leaving a review, really glad you liked the game!
Very interesting real time card strategy game! Played through it on difficulty 1 and 2.
Difficulty 3 seemed impossible, because once you had 4 enemies against you with just the starter deck, they'd kill you in one turn even if you go for full defense. I also only played with card cost on.
It would be great to approximately be able to see how much damage the enemies are going to deal (maybe in a range from y to x), just so it's easier to decide how much you want to shield up in a round.
Another thing that was rather frustrating than fun was, that single target damage would switch targets. That essentially made single target damage very weak compared to multi target damage, as you are never able to kill anything.
I prolly experienced a bug at the final boss, because cards I played kept returning into my hand. So I could quickly stack infinite energy and shield with two cards and just steamroll the final boss.
You always healed to full after a fight, so healing at the campsite is prolly a remnant of earlier development.
I'd also wish to be able to deny card rewards after a fight, because some good decks of mine got ruined by suddenly getting 6 repairs from 2 fights :D
But all in all a fun entry, and I can see it being developed into something very fun.
Yeah, I never really tested "balancing" for any of the difficulties, just wanted to get something mostly functional & unbroken for the jam. I'll need to figure out more balancing later down the line.
Having the single-target attacks target random enemies was meant to be an intentional choice, I thought it would use up precious time during fights trying to strategize and figure out who should get attacked, and it would be easier for players if they just kept throwing out cards as fast as possible. However, I'll try a build where you do have to target enemies later down the line, see how people like that.
Not sure about the bugs about returning cards & healing after a fight, I'll have to look into those. Sorry about that!
Yeah, it sounds like being able to remove/sell reward cards after a fight is a common criticism, I'll be sure to implement something to fix that in the near future.
Thanks for checking out my game!
It's definitely still a great game, especially after that short amount of time!
Looking forward to seeing what you can make of it.
Cool dynamic card game! I actually thought it was fun to play (but I had to play on difficulty 1, R was too hard). It wasn't clear to me why sometimes I wasn't allowed to use any more cards, it's like even with card cost off there was some sort of limit on how many I could use. That, or maybe it was the enemy's turn without me realizing? I later turned card cost on just to see what that looks like because I thought I was somehow still energy-bound even with card cost off.
Would be cool if the game had its own graphics and music! I understand you probably just took images from somewhere to get a proof of concept going.
When I made it to the final boss, the place where you have to drop cards on him wasn't where I expected it to be and I kept missing it at first. This resulted in me having a plethora of cards, at which point I realized 'Claw attack' and 'Shield' looked identical when you have too many cards, so I never knew which one I was grabbing.
Overall, I think it's fun to play and has potential. Nice work!
Not sure what keeps happening with being unable to play cards without energy costs, I'll have to look into that. I also had a problem like that, but I thought I just hadn't dragged the card into the area.
And no idea what happened with the boss fight, that's something I'll definitely look into.
Thanks for checking out the game!