Dang, what a great entry! The art is stunning, all the sfx and music were spot-on. I generally don’t play city builders but this made me want to understand all the systems.
Play game
The Moving Sands's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.019 | 4.019 |
| Audio | #1 | 4.222 | 4.222 |
| Graphics | #1 | 4.889 | 4.889 |
| Theme | #2 | 4.422 | 4.422 |
| Controls | #6 | 3.867 | 3.867 |
| Originality | #10 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Fun | #27 | 3.556 | 3.556 |
| Accessibility | #27 | 3.178 | 3.178 |
Ranked from 45 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.5.1
Game Description
In "The Moving Sands," you're tasked with helping a civilization thrive in the desert. But decay is inevitable, and the sands will claim back what's theirs.
How does your game tie into the theme?
All the buildings decay each turn and generate Decay ressource. If we have too much we lose
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
blatalzar
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
Comments
Loved it! That felt like a small but very polished game, I wouldn't have been surprised at all to see it in a mobile app store or pre-installed by Microsoft lol. I genuinely had a great time, and I think this is the first jam game I played all the way to the end.
The winning strategy for me was to just drop a temple on top of growth, slowly build domes as I came across them, and sit until I had enough gold to spam buildings for the easy win, but I had fun building some very cool synergies once I felt like I had it in the bag.
When I tried to play it "correctly", it really fought me and I couldn't even get close to beating it. Maybe giving the player 1 free Raze per turn might make it more practical? Or at least having the Hive demolish itself? Then again, I realize now that I never checked if ruined buildings count toward the goal. I kept trying to build a stable system, but maybe that wasn't the actual goal and I just needed to survive long enough to get a bunch of ruined buildings on the board.
Growth and Expand do not stack, which is probably a good thing from a balance perspective, but made me sad.
Submitted
HauntiquitiesThank you very much for your comment! It's very interesting. I had not thought of this combo before, what a wonderful way to win, well done!
Yes the ruined buildings do count toward the 20 buildings goals :) It would be way too hard otherwise (unless we use your combo!)
Ahah yes they do not stack, I wasnt worried about the balance but more about the UX, how to make it clean that there are several events under there.
Artwork, sound, SFX, theme, and controls all brilliant. Some glyphs (1) in the UI I couldn't figure out but the aim of the game was easily understood, maximise red and minimise green (decay).
Pulled out all stops with the graphics, and then decayed them for a highly professional theming.
Submitted
Galactic GarbageNothing much else I can say besides BRILLIANT. Simple idea executed perfectly. Artwork, music, and SFX all on point.
Submitted
Bulb Boy Outruns the ApocalypseAmazing art! Also loved the background ambience and sound effects. The UI is really well done, and the animations are awesome. I loved how the buildings would get sand build up and look more and more like ruins with each turn.
I wasn’t able to win (my best was 17/20!) but I had a great time trying. Overall an amazing entry!! Super polished and fun to play!
Submitted
Fungal JungleThis one felt really cohesive. This game would honestly make an excellent mobile game with a bit of polish; the loop is really short and sweet. Great work!
Submitted
A Soul DecayedBeautiful game! Everything felt so cohesive, and I appreciated how clear the resources were with the color palette. I did find the text size a little challenging to read, and wonder if you develop this further if you could have some font options, or zooming in.
Submitted
Broken PedestalI agree with a lot of the other comments. Artwork is superb and I could definitely see this game being further fleshed out into something incredible, like an alternative version of the Civilization games.
Submitted
Bo: Defender of the ForestArt is just something awesome! That was hard to understand how to win, I just get bored in few minutes and clicked a lot of times and get 500+ green stuff points)) But on second run I payed more attention for description and understand a little bit more.
Good job!
Submitted
Inkhedoro [Jam Version]Amazing work! The visuals are fantastic, and the game loop feels really solid. Congratulations to the team.
Submitted
Fungal ProtocolWOW!!!! This is easily one of the best games I have played in a jam. Such a simple, cohesive and amazing loop you have created that challenges the player just enough to get them to keep trying. I love it! This is a top contender for me. I hope y'all continue to develop this. It could easily be a full release, it's already so polished! Super awesome job on this, y'all should be super proud!
Submitted
Burning GuiltGorgeous, well done very polished looking game. I'm not particularly good at these types of games, but it seems to have been implemented well, I feel like there was some nuance that went over my head, but I'm pretty sure that's a me issue. Excellent work!
Submitted
Malformed Malpracticethe use of theme and level of polish here is really impressive. Took me a minute to understand the systems but then i was away
Submitted
URANIUM x PITBeautiful art, music, and sound effects! The art style is amazing, and I loved all of the different variations on the buildings to show what state they were in. Everything about this game looks and feels so polished. This is a really good concept, I could definitely see it being something you could expand into a full game. Great work!
Submitted
Through the NightAs someone with bad sight, I was having a pretty hard time reading the card descriptions because text and icons were very small. That made it a bit harder to understand the game, but I still enjoyed it
Overall, loved the graphics and sound design, those were easy 5 star to me :)
Submitted
Late StageThe art in this game is absolutely STUNNING, everything is so clean.
Gameplay is super interesting and fun, SFX are nice and even if there's not much happening music wise it fits the game perfectly, I honestly think this could be a really good full game if properly expanded!
One of my favourite from this jam :)
Submitted
Rover
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.