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A jam submission

MAELTROPOLISView game page

Seas have risen, cities have fallen. Do you have what it takes to survive the Maelstrom?
Submitted by lkjNsiudy78ay98qmi3p4nskj — 1 minute, 29 seconds before the deadline

Play MaelTropolis

MAELTROPOLIS's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#214.2344.234
Audio#303.7813.781
Overall#333.7143.714
Game Design#383.8593.859
Fun#593.6723.672
Innovation#593.5943.594
Theme#1823.1413.141

Ranked from 64 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
The end of the world leads to the beginning of a new one.

With each loss, the player has the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the previous world and create a better, more resilient city, which is integral to the gameplay as the game is meant to be very hard making multiple playthroughs a core aspect of the gameplay loop.

After the end of each disaster, your city will be in ruins, starting the process of rebuilding a stronger city (From the ashes rises a stronger city).

Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
All the code is written by me. The music and models are created by DeejayTM(the game developer I worked with). The exceptions are the water shader and SFX's which are not mine.

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Comments

Viewing comments 60 to 41 of 60 · Next page · Last page
Submitted (1 edit)

Absolutely gorgeous, and pleasing to both the eyes and ears.  Took me a bit to figure out what I was doing but I really like this.  A very unique strategy game.  Plus, I love me some good water effects! (Deleted double post)

Submitted(+1)

Wow! Great game from the perspective of all categories of the jam, including the theme! Also feels extremely polished... However, it did take me quite a few minutes to figure out I need to drag to actually build something! Surely you can just click a build and then just click the area you want to build in or am I missing something? Nonetheless, one of the best submissions I've seen, good luck to you!

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

I finally have time to play through your game haha. Here are my opinions:

Presentation

Great aesthetics in the game - a consistent color palette, camera movement of the screen, and low-poly models with a minimalistic “stage” holding the city. Also having fish swimming in the sea and wind blowing - all contribute to an outstanding level of presentation despite the fact that it is just a 7-day game jam.

The BGM also provides a “dangerous ocean” vibe and creates an immersive and intense atmosphere for the player.

UX

Generally speaking, I think the UX is well done despite some of the other players thinking it is not. IMO it is quite intuitive. After reading the help section, I am able to quickly memorize the shortcuts to switch to different modes, select buildings, and understand what I need to do.

I like the hovering effects of the buildings. It was fun to just hover around.

I also like the “damage indicator” on a grid when a hazard event hit that grid; the warning sign shows up when the health of the building is below the threshold. These visual aids really help guide players in identifying which grid they need to repair.

Adding Shift/Ctrl + left click key combinations for survivor assignments so that players can add/remove 5/10 survivors at a time. Every time I build a building I have to quickly click 10-20 times to reassign survivors but I have already missed 1-2 ticks of production which is quite vital in your game.

Locking the survivor assignment buttons during the hazard event would be a good improvement. Don’t know whether it is intentional: when I was crazily clicking on the building to repair, I always accidentally clicked on the assignment buttons.

Contents

As a game jam game, the content is fairly enough for the core game loop. It has a relatively balanced economy overall.

As other people have mentioned, the survivor slot of the town hall is a trap. I thought it will speed up the recruiting process of new survivors. Maybe it is your initial thoughts on the functionality of the town hall? If not, I think it would be a good idea to gain new survivors based on the survivor assignment of the town hall, instead of gaining it in a fixed time interval.

Progression

I understand the game is meant to be hard. But IMO it is too hard for a game jam game, in which most of the jammers are too busy to play your game multiple times. I bet there are 1/4 of the players are patient enough to reach the maelstrom (i.e. Day 10 00:00).

I myself can’t get through the maelstrom since I am not able to level up my town hall to lv. 3. I think I did quite ok in terms of utilizing space and resources:

  • Stage 1 : 3 logging + 3 mines + 1 storage
  • Stage 2 : (Expansion 1) 5 logging + 3 mines + 1 storage
  • Stage 3 : (Expansion 1, Town lv2) 5 logging (2 lv2) + 5 mines (1 lv2) + 2 tungs + 2 storage
  • Stage 4: (Expansion 1, Town lv2) 5 logging (4 lv2, 1 lv3) + 5 mines (5 lv2) + 2 tungs + 2 storage (1 lv2)
  • Stage 5: Almost the same as stage 4, with more lv3s and stocked resources.

Then I got rekted by the maelstrom within a few seconds and all my stocked resources turn to negative numbers somehow. I can’t repair my town hall or do anything besides watching my city being torn apart. I know it is intentional because players are expected to upgrade the town hall to lv3 and build the anti-shock buildings. I am just venting haha. Don’t know whether I am in the right direction for beating the game.

I built more logging than mines since the town hall requires more wood than stones to upgrade.

I think the difference between town hall lv1 and lv2 is too huge. Leveling the resource building need a very small amount of tung but it enhances productivity a lot, but there is no way to get any tung besides waiting for sufficient resources to level up the town hall.

I think the tips you have mentioned on the game page would not be applicable to most of the players (like me) because I just can’t find a way to upgrade my town hall fast enough. Also expanding the border to max seems a bit pointless for me since I don’t have that many survivors and resources to utilize in new spaces.

RNG

I found that the sea rise event is the easiest to deal with since it involves the least RNG. I just need to repair all buildings, as for other events, sometimes it will somehow hit the same building multiple times within a small interval, so the building will be destroyed and I lost all the survivors inside it.

Currently, the replayability of the game is relatively low since the hazard events seem to be the only random element.

Conclusion

It is the most all-rounded impressive game I have played in a game jam. And it is made by 2 people only! What a talented team! Hope to see your team again in the next jams!

P.S. This game reminds me of my cursed Frostpunk playthrough in which I didn’t upgrade any of my houses but ended up overcoming the great blizzard, and won the game with most of my citizens becoming disabled lol.

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

This is a really cool (albeit really hard) game. 

Some things I noticed:
 - When trying to delete a building, sometimes I would click through the 'tower' and destroy the building behind it
 - Repairing during disasters turned into mindless frantic clicking for me - I'm not sure whether that is part of your goal or if you want the player to be a little bit more thoughful
 - The game throws you a bit into the deep end - it took me a bit to notice the help button, and even after reading through it, my first playthrough was a lot of confused trial and error
 - Some mechanics (wetness protection and armour) weren't really explained
 - It didn't seem clear as to whether there was a point to putting people in the town hall
 - Moving people into buildings was a bit finnicky - you would have to hover over the building and then move the mouse up to where the building moved to in order to click the + or - . I also found myself clicking and holding on the + and - sometimes to try and add or remove people - my guess is the root cause is the method of adding and removing workers needs to be simplified/streamlined

Overall though, I liked it and it was a really great game, I loved the visuals and tone!

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

Wow what a polished game! I was a little confused as to what but I was able to get going and build a pretty sizable city. The music and models were really good too and the overall level of polish given the time frame is very impressive. Great job!

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

The game feels very polished and the aesthetic is very good. My main concern is on the onboarding stage, because I could not figure out what to do. I tried to read the tutorial but I am still lost. For example, I don't have any resources to build my first building and I don't know how to gather any resource. I put all my people in the town and I'm not sure what it does. There are so much room to work on but the idea is great. I love this type of game but too bad I could not play it properly the way you design. 

I'm very impressed only two people worked on this game. Good job guys. I would love to give you more feedback but sorry I got a blocker.

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted

Nice game bro.

You must try my game.

Here is my game - https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1933204

Submitted(+1)

This game is really well made. The graphics stand out as the highlight.

Anyways nice if you could pop by and check and rate my game too!

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

It's been 5 days since I first saw and played this gams, and I'm surprised that this still haven't got 100 ratings yet despite its fun gameplay and how much effort you have put into attracting players!

Deleted 1 year ago
(+1)

Oh wow, i really love this game, i am a fan of base building / colony survival simulator genre, and this game have such a good visual and gameplay that is hard to believe can be made in just 1 week, the polish is also quite good.

Am really surprise to find a base building colony game in game jam as usually this kind of game require a great amount of effort. Really well done, one of the best game i have played in this jam.

Just to give some longer constructive feedback since you are doing it for many ppl too:

The in game text that is tied to the tile (the one at the side of the cube tile, when you hover over a tile, it float up and reveal those text) appear very blurry and unclear to me, i actually cannot read anything thats on it. Not sure if thats a problem on my end on what

Would also prefer building have larger health pool but also need to cost more to repair, currently everytime a disaster struck i just have to spam click repair which sound a bit unfun in a colony sim game which i would say planning and sitback to watch your city handle itself is more fitting gameplay than become an action clicking game , or maybe some sort of auto repair feature can be setup?

Its really hard to nitpick anymore because it is really good, so i will stop here lol.

Keep up the great work, definitely feel like there is a lack of good colony sim / citybuilding survival game nowadays.

oh by the way, i feel like i encountered a bug whr if i demolish a building, the population inside is also gone? Maybe i just didnt count carefully, but mayb you could do a double check lol

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

Hey, great submission! Some feedback:

1) The building's rising animation, while providing nice and unique visual, creates problem for selecting a building. 

2) There are no music and sound volume controls.

3) The art is nice, chromatic aberration gives a nice polished feeling.

4) Could use a better tutorial, integrated into gameplay. And a pause and exit button.

5) Needs a key  modificator for adding/subtracting 10/5 at the same time, like shift or ctrl.

6) Repair all button or/and an upgrade for automatic repair.

7) Speaking of repair, since you can't see building's HP at all times, acid rain time becomes click-all-buildings time even with visual cue that building is being damaged since the damage is big on early levels.

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted

Yeah, it comes from my preference for automating everything lol. I think that the damage to structures could be reduced by like 20% to make them destroyed after 3 drops rather than 2.

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

Loved the concepts, this kind of games are both a challenge and really Chill to play, really enjoyed it. 

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

Superb graphics, nice game desing, kinda wonky controls.

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted

Maybe it was something wrong on my end, but had a hard time selecting the buildings.

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

Great job on the game! The graphics and sound are both fantastic, and it's very entertaining to play. However, I noticed that the earthquake ability seems overpowered compared to the others, so maybe some balancing could be helpful. Overall, well done!

Deleted 1 year ago
(1 edit) (+1)

Gameplay
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Okay
☐ Bad

Graphics
☑  Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Bad


Audio
☑ Amazing
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Bad

Pros: The gameplay is fun and strategic, and every action has to be considered carefully. Catching on to the game mechanics and goals is relatively straightforward. The visuals and aesthetics are serene including the remarkable audio. Overall it's a great and intriguing game. 

Cons: ¯ \_(ツ)_/¯ None.

Deleted 1 year ago

There are no negative aspects. I simply did not complete the game, therefore it wouldn't be fair to fully judge. However, after completion I found Maeltropolis entertaining and will be rating it 'Very good'. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Submitted(+1)

Really enjoyed the playtest. The graphics are amazing ! However, I feel that the disasters are too strong compared to the price to pay to repair the buildings. 

Deleted 1 year ago
(+2)

Honestly a very nicely made game with only a few issues. The lack of a volume adjustment setting for the music and such made it a bit painful on the ears, but otherwise everything else gameplay wise was phenomenal! ( It's Halo btw). 

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

The game is very nice and well executed, but it has serious issues on the UX (user experience), I cound't figure out the gamplay mechanisms even after reading the help panels. I have played many strategy/building games so I am familiar with the genre, but this was a bit tricky.

Also, theme wise I think, that it would be nicer if I can feel it in the gameplay too, and not only in a background story .
Awesome game, I think this can be published as is , if the UX issue will be solved and become more user friendly

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted(+1)

Your project is one of my favorites at the moment in jam.The skeleton of this game is good, it can make an exciting gameplay.Good job!

Deleted 1 year ago
Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

One of the best games in this jam

Lacks some optimisation tho

Deleted 1 year ago
Viewing comments 60 to 41 of 60 · Next page · Last page