Play game
Cult of Taal-zuz's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #172 | 2.286 | 2.556 |
| Innovation | #197 | 2.087 | 2.333 |
| Gameplay | #211 | 1.988 | 2.222 |
| Audio | #217 | 1.292 | 1.444 |
| Overall | #219 | 1.848 | 2.067 |
| Graphics | #226 | 1.590 | 1.778 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Neat idea. With some more SFX and art this could be pretty cool.
Very interesting resource management game. Decent start of a project that has potential. A bit unforgiving, maybe add the option to go back a turn in the future.
GREAT GAME!! the concept of this game is cool
Glad you like it! It's probably not gonna do great in the ratings (for starters, there are 0 sounds, and that's a whole rating category) but I don't care, I've been wanting to make a management game along these lines. I've actually made some improvements already and am thinking of publishing a post-jam update, but I don't want to confuse voters.
well I posted the post-jam updates I've made so far https://tokkitron.itch.io/post-jam-of-taal-zuz (password gdjs2024) your rating should still be the jam version ofc
I like idea of your game and you've done some cool cover art. I found the game itself a little impenetrable though. I think a quick tutorial could have definitely helped here. Or a quick story beet about why we're doing a ritual of summoning. Congrats on finishing a game within the time.
Thanks for checking it out! One simple thing (obvious in retrospect) that would make it easier to get into the game would be moving the instructions from the start screen into the game itself. So the start screen would just be the first couple sentences, while the rest are arrows actually pointing at the relevant buttons. oh well something for a post-jam update
nice game
I liked that it is easy to balance the resources at first (thanks for the tip on collecting food), but I would have liked more of a challenge after a while. Having random events that affect the resources as you mentioned is a good idea. For example, there could be storms that destroy the shrines, or rats eating the excess food.
Even though there is a lot of information on screen, there are some data that I would have liked to have, like the number of turns (to compare how well one did after winning a couple times), how many followers/prisoners are free out of the total (no task assigned yet in this turn), how much food is produced with the current amount of farmers and how much food is needed at the end of the turn to keep all followers alive. Some data, like how many of the farms are occupied in the current turn out of the total, don't even need to be precise, a progress bar would be enough.
To make it more appealing, I would keep the left panel with the general information and actions, but replace the main screen area with a simple map with the farms, a forest, a delimited empty space where you can build the mines, other space for the shrines, etc. So you can, for example, click the farms to see the farm information in a popup, and there add farmers or cultivate more land, and so on for the other places.
Overall, I liked the take on the theme and the genre choice. Also the game works and I could not find any bug, so well done!
Glad you liked it! For sure I would want this game to be more graphical if I weren't constrained to the jam deadline (and I'm likely to keep working on this post-jam) so thanks for the suggestions.
well I posted the post-jam updates I've made so far https://tokkitron.itch.io/post-jam-of-taal-zuz (password gdjs2024) your rating should still be the jam version ofc
Cool! I gave it a try and now I can tell you it took me 32 turns to perform the ritual. The information on the left side is way more clear now.
wow, it takes me like 40! And this is still mostly stuff I was already planning before the jam, I'm going to get to your other suggestions too.
nice
Prob not my type of management game without more graphics. But I think keeping the game easy to understand would make this game better. To be honest , I dont know the losing condition.
well the losing condition is if everyone dies. Since that happens if you run out of food, that's why the tip says to spend your first few turns just gathering food. On reflection, it is a little too easy to build up plenty of food; in my post-jam update I'll probably make it perishable (like you lose half your stored food each turn).
A little strange, but captivating. It gave me some Oregon Trails vibes for some reason. Good work!
y'know that's one influence I hadn't considered (I was thinking about games like A Dark Room) but now I want to add random events, and one is dysentery that kills off a bunch of your followers.