Pirate Software - Game Jam 16

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A jam submission

BlunderbustersView game page

A micromanagement strategy game about shooting your friends at your enemies.

Submitted by fourfortyfour — 13 minutes, 1 second before the deadline

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Blunderbusters's itch.io page

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

There was a lot put into this game in such little time, it has a nice art style, the gameplay is very interesting and its a nice take on the jams theme. I liked that the mechanics are simple, you click they shoot, but you can add even more stuff like making them do piercing damage or increasing their overall damage. Something I had a problem with was I was running out of busters very quickly and I felt like the enemies were coming faster and stronger then I could keep up. over all this game is very good, the art style is nice, the sound design is done very well, the only other thing I can think is the tutorial text is a bit blurred from its double text effect.

Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XIGrm45aqmGOXMbEz4Z0r6zzmmuTHav80TvLN9lsKT8/edit?usp=sharing

Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes

Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes

Summarise your game!
Blunderbusters is a micromanagement strategy game with an emphasis on wave survival. Players will manipulate creatures (called “Busters”) to fight off waves of enemies. By default, Busters will simply launch themselves at the waves of enemies, but players can manipulate the Busters by building structures that will allow the Busters to take on increasingly deadly waves of enemies.

As players defeat enemies, they will gain coins, unlocking new upgrades and structures to help them defeat more enemies. The enemy waves grow increasingly powerful, eventually overrunning the player, hopefully after they have built a powerful and satisfying Buster pipeline.

The game is controlled primarily by mouse. Busters can be dragged around or structures can be clicked to draw busters toward them. I'd recommend playing in Fullscreen, if possible.

Please explain how your game fits the theme:
Players regularly have to choose between improving their Busters/Base or taking out enemies. In order to damage an enemy, a Buster must be sacrificed. In this sense, the player telling their subjects, "No, YOU are the weapon".

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Comments

bake12345678Submitted1 year ago(+1)

This game was really fun, enjoyed it thoroughly , theming was really cool, and tutorial was nice to be able to pick up and play easily

Submitted

inkyenSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Lil Guys THE GAAAME. This game is so cute. The pixel art, music, and sfx are done so well. I love when you touch them and some of them say undoubtably and other phrases. The tutorial was pretty straightforward which I appreciated and felt no confusion in what was instructed. Font was a little hard to read. I would suggest a toggle to switch from stylized to something with less glow? Overall great jam entry and ty for letting me push the lil guys around on the start screen.

Submitted

Nymphaea (Game Jam Version)

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks for playing! Bonus for noticing that the menu is interactive!

Definitely taking the feedback about readability to heart. In my post-jam build I've overhauled the UI to make it less harsh. I'll try to post an update to itch if I have the time :)

BalgrimeSubmitted1 year ago (6 edits)

Very nice game, I had lots of fun with it.

(I was able to go infinite though, to the point I had to stop because the lag became too much)

Super fun game, I like those kind of strategic games, good job!

To give some feedback, I think : players will usually never want the blasters to come out of one building once they settled in,

when a building gets empty, it's quite tedious to have to reassign the blasters to it nonstop.

Also, when you have blasters that deal more damage (for instance),

it would make sense that they are preferably picked when clicking on the guns (instead of regular ones). Generally, I think it would make sense that your blasters run to any empty building on the map,

and they would only remain static if no building at all has blasters around it.

Submitted

Atemly GamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Congrats on finishing the jam! I really enjoyed this - there wasn't really a dull a moment between managing your little guys and keeping the waves of enemies off. +1 for moustache

I think the art was well done. It was simple enough to get the point across without clogging the screen with a lot of noise given you need to resource manage your Busters. Music was fun. Maybe it would be nice to have some additional SFX.

One bug I found was that the music would only repeat the first 10 seconds. A refresh solved the problem.

It would've been nice to be able to move the buildings after they were placed and it would've been nice if the Busters had a stronger pull towards the enemies. When they start overflowing it was nice that they would push themselves into other buildings maybe focusing on that for automation and placing of buildings would be good. I wish that when you clicked on the buildings that it would take from the larger overflow areas instead of necessarily the closest.

Another thing that might help is "parking lots" for Busters ready to fire to go. You could have them auto load into the guns which might give a little bit of breathing room to construct your village.

Great job!

Submitted

GanosSnapSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Very enjoyable and not easy in the slightest. You weren't lying when you said resource management, but it was just the right amount of challenging in my opinion. Im not exactly sure how the busters work on their own though, id prefer them to go into unoccupied houses if possible, but they usually hovered around the house they were birthed at making a lot of clumps i wish were streamlined. Great entry!

Submitted

Experimental Existence

lolkira24Submitted1 year ago(+1)

A lot harder than it looks! I kept running out of busters on my first few attempts. It was nice to be able to click instead of having to drag the busters, as sometimes the busters would move around too much and it would be difficult to click on them. I think this game needs to allow being able to delete buildings. Overall, the game was enjoyable!

Submitted

Experimental Existence

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing! Deleting buildings is definitely the most requested feature :)

qtipbluedogSubmitted1 year ago (2 edits) (+1)

I really loved this one. So many houses ;) SFX and music were great. I loved the busters saying stuff like indubitably and PEW! Cute simple art that conveyed all the meanings. Think your UI was well done!

The concept is pretty simple, but already feels like it's indepth enough to strategize how you want to setup your buster pipelines. Having pointy ones to break through the smaller guys and your angry drunks to beat the big numbers felt good. Dragging feels great! And I love that you can just click on the buildings and the busters go in there.

Played three rounds and it's a fun game. A few issues I had were actually keeping up with getting my Busters to the cannon and if my structures were too many close to the homes they would all eventually leave and not prioritize repop. I fixed this by spacing my buildings, but eventually ran out of space, haha! Wondering if having a holding place for busters so it makes it easier to separate them out instead of clogging up with all my regular busters might be a good idea as the game gets more complex.

Super cool concept love it!

Submitted

DrillSoft GamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I really enjoyed your use of busters as an all-in-one resource! Very creative interpretation of the jam's theme with a great sense of style and progression. It was really fun to slowly watch the screen fill up with little guys and buildings. Clicking to assign busters to buildings felt intuitive and responsive.

Submitted

SubLuminarySubmitted1 year ago(+1)

This game reminds me of lemmings, I think the sfx for the Busters should be a bit quieter. Nice job :D

Submitted

Math and Guns: First Shot

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks, I'll note that for the post-jam changes. For now you can change the volume of the SFX in the options menu :)

FailCowSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Very Fun! After I got my first upgrade I could no longer click on the buildings to put people in them though so I couldn't play anymore. I played again and ran into the same bug

Submitted

Twourath: The RPG

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago

Really appreciate you taking the time to play through it far enough to get to an upgrade twice! Sorry about the bug. I've just given it a few tests and can't replicate it. If you have the time, do you mind letting me know what browser you were on and what your first upgrade was? (if it was the same both times). Many thanks :)

SamStallionSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Super cute, really unique idea and gameplay. Sounds & music were great too!

Submitted

AlexSubmitted1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

If you ever were wondering how many busters it takes to make the game unplayable, it's around 350 LOL. Love the game, makes me kind of think of A World of Keflings for some reason. I wish I could destroy buildings to make space for the cooler ones (the bar is the GOAT). 10/10 would play again!

Submitted

Become The Weapon

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago

That's a wild screenshot, thanks for sharing (and thanks for the positive comments). Deleting buildings is a definite post-jam priority!

kingzustinSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Really cool! I had a bug that made it difficult to grab busters. The style and gameplay is engaging. Great work :)

Submitted

Objectively Possessive

grantlerrSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

My little dudes kept running back into the house when they came out. was hard to pause in time to grab them and put them in the gun. The art is nice, and i think the idea as a whole is neat! Really good job!

Submitted

Pogo Boy Saves The Day!

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing!

That's intentional, the houses are little engines that continually generate more Busters. You can click on the guns (or any other building) to have a nearby Buster fly towards it, no grabbing required

Rakudajin1 year ago(+1)

The game almost crushed my browser on load - I gues that's something to do with particles loading? I don't know, but it took like 3 minutes to load and I couldn't even switch the tab.

But I quite liked the game! It was a bit confusing that they disappeared in the bank etc., but it gets smoother when you learn the things :) It would be cool to be able to destroy buildings, though. And also I wish bank wouldn't take by upgraded guys to exchange for coins :) But that's a jam, so it's totally understandable. I'd also choose a different place for your tutorial, though - it conceals too much of the screen.

That said -it's a really cool game, it kind of combines the colony-sim-like game with base-defence. I'd be happy to play a polish version!

Also, kudos for Godot!

fourfortyfourDeveloper1 year ago (1 edit)

Thanks for the detailed feedback, sorry about the load time! I also suppose it must be the Godot particle bug even though I had tried to prevent it.

Destroying buildings was definitely on my mind, just a stretch goal that never quite got there!

jSpeakSubmitted1 year ago(+2)

Really cool game! There's a great sense of urgency that keeps it engaging. I love how it fits the theme and I love the art and color palette.

Submitted