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The Mediator's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #740 | 3.870 | 3.870 |
| Overall | #1098 | 3.589 | 3.589 |
| Presentation | #1241 | 3.681 | 3.681 |
| Enjoyment | #1596 | 3.217 | 3.217 |
Ranked from 69 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?
In most games about war, conflict, or politics, you usually play the role of the warmonger, or someone on the ground fighting against the enemy. However, you rarely play the reversal of that: the neutral party. You don't play Paradox games to play a historical game of Switzerland or to pretend to be the League of Nations or the UN. You don't play historical first-person shooters to negotiate peace. In this game, you are that neutral party, trying to prevent other nations from delving into war.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
We used pre-existing art
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
Am I the only one who feels it's on easy side? Granted, I have only played four rounds (with all four rounds ending with peace), but I just get the strategy of just sending money away, and stop anyone for building up their army and looking at others' clay. And if I need money, I'll just ask anyone who is still cooperative.
That being said, it is a novel idea to add things in, like giving the player more actions (some kind of hotline?), related event tree ("one important person have been killed,""Possible false flag (and 'real' event to spice things up)," "Setting / Changing alliances," and possibly too more to add), and possible middle ground between total war and total peace (Possible war between two nations with little commitment).
It is a fine game for the first game, and there are still many interesting idea to explore. :D
I feel that this can be considered as a spoiler. So, just in case. Contains major game mechanic and a fool-proof strategy (100% success rate, 5 sample).
Some analyzing:
The game actually starts at month 2, as the introduction is counted as an month. (I was kind of surprised by greeting with peace while expecting for month 16.) The intro event gives 500K, the game initializes at 100K, and each month provides for another 100K, for 700K starts in month 2.
There are four events in the game:
And there is an option for requesting cash: +100K for -10% Coop.
And my personal simplification: I consider 100K as one point, 10% of Coop as one point, and no point for Power. (There really isn’t anything about balance of power or whatever, since I always choose option that does not change the power meters.)
So the game start with Almatstan’s 4 Points, Ardoirre’s 7 Points, Estenmont’s 6 Points, Kaccia’s 5 Point, and 7 Points in Beorland’s bank, for the total of 29 Points.
And for each option (with each month’s income considered): Economic Support: -4 / -4 Army buildup: -2 / 0 Independence: -1 / +1 Claim: -1 / +1 And Request: 0
For Economic Support, I always choose bailing them out; for the other three, I just reject their request.
My last playthrough (the only I recorded) has 5 Economic Supports, 3 Army buildups, 4 Independences, and 2 Claims. So: 29+(-4)5+03+14+12=26… (Kind of surprised to me, actually. Barely anything changed?)
Of course, it required a good balance of “Economic Support” events: Something like Great Depression will definitely lead to war, but all three other event will have -10% to -20% of Coop, which Economic Support helps (by taking other powers’ money and gift to the one).
The mechanic of Requesting Funds becomes a method of transferring Coop… Which makes the total Coop level… also a money tank? It certainly is a powerful tool.
It is a Game Jam entry, though, and extra time will always help.
pretty difficult game and fairly text based, perhaps some sort of diary/notebook/history can be implemented so that the pages dont take up too much space. On top of that i think the reading area (the place where the pages are) should be much bigger. other than that its a fantastic concept and id love to see it expanded upon!
A neat little game. It definitely feels overly difficult, but it feels thematically accurate. I noticed that, excluding options that cost you money, all the options result in at best a net-even result (i.e. the gain of Coop for one nation is matched by an equal loss of another's), which certainly leads to a sense of "everything is slowly falling apart." My biggest issue with the game is the accessibility issues with the map. The text is rather small, making it hard to read many of the place names, especially at the default resolution. Additionally, marking the countries by color was a problem for me since I'm colorblind. Notably, the colors for Beorland and Estenmont look pretty much identical to me. I suggest trying to keep accessibility in mind for future projects. Also, a minor bug: pressing "Toggle Music" wouldn't bring the music back for me after I turned it off.
I'm absolutely sorry about that whole color thing; that never came across my radar as a possible problem during the jam. For the map, it isn't necessary to read the map to play, but I can see that being frustrating for people who do want to read it (for immersion, etc.), which might be fixed by just scaling up the image (or it might break everything, idk). For the music, I think it might just take a couple seconds to kick back into action after toggling off and then on again. Thanks for the detailed feedback and for playing!
well built!
good work!
Neat idea. Sometime, it felt as if I had no choice in the end (a sort of soft-lock) in situations where I couldn't afford to do anything because it ended up causing my ruin.
I added a section on the game's main page talking about not getting the good ending; check that out if you have time. Thanks for playing!
Read it!
I really enjoyed it! I found it hard at first but I got the hang of it after a few minutes. I really like strategy games and this one stands out for me as my country (Malta) Was ruled be the UK and we helped each other a bit during that time. Well Done and I hope you continue working on it!
As a swiss person, i am delighted finally being able to play a historical game of Switzerland!
Really cool idea and good execution. Probably still needs some balancing and some more events to make it as addictive as it could be, and i had some trouble on the browser version dragging the newspaper into view, but nice game overall!
I am a sucker for strategy games, so I really appreciated this take on the genre and the role reversal implementation. I think the game is very well presented, and as a result, easy to pickup and understand. I especially loved how the situations that played out got news paper articles, and that the map would change based on the rulings. My big feedback is that the newspaper was probably more difficult to open then it aught to be. It would routinely get stuck, and not drag out properly. Perhaps making it open with a click, and then drag it to the trash when you are done. Overall, one of my favorites from the jam, I played for a good solid 40 minutes, and I have every intention of replaying.
Very interesting concept! With some work can become an educational game!!!
One of the most unique concept I've seen for this jam! Suuper well done ;D
Great presentation, and I liked the use of countryballs. Very difficult though!
Really nice game. I went full support-mode and instantly lost (lol) in the first try. That was fun to play.
Good job!
Nice game and idea. It would be nice if things were made clearer at the start, but I understand how hard that would be. I love the use of country balls, as well.
:D
Pretty cool idea, reminded me a bit of Papers Please. Some interesting decision making with the different effects of each choice. My biggest problem was that the interface with the papers at the bottom felt pretty buggy; I'd often try to click on one and it would snap the previous one I had touched to where my mouse was even though my cursor wasn't on it, making it hard to see the page I wanted to look at.
Love the idea, a big fan of 'Grand Strategy' games. Had fun playing and would love to know more about the development of the project, how it was made!
Really nice game! Had fun playing although I am not really into politics!
It feels like a very finished game with the added music and sounds. Also I love how you implemented the papers please theme in here. I love that game!
I didn't get far but it is definitely worth continuing working on!
Thanks also for the feedback on our game!
Interesting take on the theme! This was fun to play, great work!
Very fun and original spin on grand strategy games. It really makes being a peacemonger fun
Great spin on the grand strategy and politics simulator genres. Also, amidst a bunch of fake countries one the territories being straight up named Poland made me laugh harder than it should have.
Very neat idea, really like the diplomacy and resource management aspect!