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A jam submission

Storm-DeckView game page

Play cards to build your city and survive a storm
Submitted by raghunandan (@raghu_games) — 10 hours, 32 minutes before the deadline
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Storm-Deck's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#14.7144.714
Fun#14.7144.714
Overall#14.3144.314
User Interface (UI/UX)#24.1434.143
Visuals(Graphics)#34.1434.143
Sound/Audio#43.8573.857

Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

DevLog Link
https://raghunandan.itch.io/storm-deck/devlog/810142/storm-deck-city-builder-card-game

Developer Feedback Questions
Was the gameplay easy to understand?
How difficult did you find the game?
How much was the variation in difficulty across runs?
Was it easy to follow the changes happening after card placement?
Any other thoughts/feedback.

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Comments

Submitted

I played and wrote feedback for this game during Brackeys Jam, so now focusing only on your feedback questions:

Understandability: Gameplay is mostly easy to understand, but having to hover on the environmental elements to know what they are is a bit unintuitive, probably because the text doesn't show up immediately.

Difficulty: Took me 4 times to beat even though I played this before in the Brackeys Jam. You really have to understand those environmental elements if you want to beat the game. At first, they seem like hindrances, but there's a few ways you can use them to your advantage.

Difficulty variation: Some runs felt impossible, others felt much easier. Since your cards, the storms and the environmental elements are all randomized, I think this is bound to happen. This often happens in roguelikes and other games with randomly/procedurally generated content.

Following changes: This was confusing at first, but I got used to it. When I placed a card next to a swamp, and it effected other cards, I think those effects should have happened first, before the swamp moved the card.

Overall it has clearly improved from the Brackeys Jam version, even though the original version was already very good!

(1 edit) (+1)

Great job with the game! Simple but engaging idea, and I had a good time playing. It reminds me of games like Minesweeper and Solitaire, and I could totally imagine playing this while taking a break from working.

Some specific things I liked:

  • There was a good amount of variety in the different cards. I rarely ended up drawing the same buildings more than once.
  • The card art and icons are simple, but I thought they looked nice. The visual identity was very cohesive.
  • Music was pretty good! I think it fit 
  • Everything seemed to work as intended. I didn't encounter any bugs to report.

Some things I think could be improved:

  • I had no idea what the icons on the map meant until I stopped playing and looked in the menu. In general, there's no way to figure out what is on the board already. I think you should add a tooltip that explains what the environment aspect or building in the tile is.
  • I played three times and got close, but didn't manage to win. One reason was that my buildings kept getting moved and having their score lowered by the jungle and something else. I didn't realize that was the issue until I got frustrated and checked - leads me back to the previous point.
  • I think you could go a little further with in-game feedback. I think more reaction from the cards being hovered over or placed would go a long way!
  • Lastly, I couldn't always tell what was going on between the end of one turn and the start of the next. There were a lot of little actions happening. Sometimes, they were expected, like the greenhouse gaining power, but sometimes they weren't. It would be nice if you added a little dialog panel, or something similar, that just logs all of the things that are happening in the game. That would make it easier to understand, and I would remember for the next time I played. I see in the dev log that you mention that the building causing the change was highlighted, but I actually didn't notice that.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this game. There's a lot of potential here and I think there are a lot of people that would enjoy playing a game like this.


Edit: Just revisited the game and realized there IS a tooltip. For some reason, it didn't trigger when I played before.

Developer
  • Regarding terrain cells, I'll put that in a tutorial in future versions.
  • Yeah, there are quite a few things happening upon card placement. Sure, I'll consider an event log that you can refer to as the game is going on.

Thanks for playing and the detailed and encouraging feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Realy good game

All people slhoud play

Developer

Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted

Your welcome you doed the same think so

Submitted (4 edits) (+1)

What I liked about this game:
-The gameplay
-The gameplay
-Ah, and also, the gameplay

What I think could be improved upon:
-This game desperately want more depth. This game can accommodate way more than 41 cards. The same four starting terrains especially are a big limitation to replayability.
-There are no fairies in this game :-(

Dev Feedback Question:
-It was pretty easy for me to understand how the game worked
-I got 145 points on my first try, 147 on my second, then I never lose a game
-The more hard runs where by far the ones with swamp badly placed (like in a corner and next to the jungle), and the ones with no early obelisk/longhouse
-No problem with that

Random thoughts:
-Most of my games where easily won by abusing the combo between the swamp and the obelisk/longhouse.
-I think a bit more could be done to make level 3 storms feel worse than the level 2 and 1 ones
-The grassland explanation wasn't pretty clear to me
-Seems like you can win if you play the nuke plant on your last turn
-What happens if you have no more building to play, but haven't completed any of the finish conditions (if you duplicated clocks to have no time issue and duplicated castles to give yourself enough space)?
-I see what you are trying to do with the pagoda, but it is quite hard to get good value out of it


As a bonus, another win end screen:

Developer
  • Glad to know you liked the gameplay :)
  • I'll work on adding more cards, specially terrain.
  • Swamp and Obelisk/Longhouse is a powerful combo.
  • Grassland explanation is a bit long. Is it easier to follow once it is triggerred? Will work on making the explanation more intuitive.
  • Yeah nuclear plant can be played on the last turn bypassing the turn penalty. I felt the value of 15 was reasonable for that, since playing on the last turn is also a restriction of some sort.
  • I considered the running out of buildings situation, but didn't give it too much thought as I felt it was unlikely. But clock and castle combo is a good one! If that happens maybe the player should lose?
  • For the Pagoda, I had more mechanics to refresh the hand, making it more likely to draw it again. But it was a bit excessive so I removed them. Will add in some stuff to assist Pagoda in future.

Thanks so much for playing and the detailed feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I think you could say "When a building is placed nearby , transform a random other card of your hand into a copy of the leftmost card of your hand". That would make the terrain effect clear before trying it out.
If the player has no card left to play, the game should probably just end with a defeat.

Don't forget the fairy. ^^

Developer

Thanks, I'll work on rephrasing that.

Oh yes, the fairy. The game only has buildings/structures right now. But if there's something associated with fairies I'll be happy to include it in the game :) I already have Tree-House. Or Mushroom-House. Can call either of these Fairy-House. Or Fairy Castle, etc.

Submitted

Maybe a fairy forest?

Developer

Hmm... would that be a structure? Or could be a terrain?

Developer

Also if you have ideas on a suitable mechanic/effect for it that would be cool :) I'm not too knowledgeable in fairies. But considering they're into magic and such it should suit a bunch of effects.

Submitted(+1)

It certainly should be a terrain. A bunch of effects that would suggest trickery or randomness would work, my first idea was "when a building is placed nearby, give -3 if it has an uneven number or +1 if it is even)"

Submitted(+1)

Infinite clock towers combo is very fun

Developer

Haha! Nice :)