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How does the game fit the theme?
You may need allies to survive, but every alliance can become a threat. Rulers can help, betray, declare war, or turn against you once the common enemy is gone. In Crownreach, trusting the wrong person can cost you the realm.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Built with Unity.
Third-party assets used include:
GrassLand 2 & Village asset packs — RafaelMatos
Bandit asset pack — Sven Thole
Music by Walen, Pufino and Aetheric via FreeToUseMusic
How many people worked on the game?1
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Comments
Holy moly, what an amazing game! Played through three campaigns (and three skirmishes), the last campaign (on hard) I actually won, that was really fun! First the orcs got squashed, and then the human leaders, one after the other, betrayed our alliance and I managed to be on the winning side in each matchup. At the end, it was a 1v1 with equal number of lands, but I had levelled them more and got the upper hand. Great game, crazy that you made this in a week!
Some suggestions: The diplomacy part could have more weight. Alliances are easily broken and once an all-out war starts, there is no way to befriend one nation to fight against the biggest competitor (or something like that).
Also, I didn't know what the different units do, some explanation there would be nice.
I did not really use the zoom-in mechanic, it feels really cool to have something like that, but I feel like it is kind of unnecessary (at least as of right now).
Anyways, I am excited to see where you bring this game after the jam, there is a lot of potential here.
Oh, and this game reminds me a bit of LandGrabbers, but with more layers of complexity involved.
Thank you so much! 😄 And wow, three campaigns and three skirmishes is way more than I expected anyone to play during the jam, so I really appreciate that!
Your last campaign also sounds pretty much exactly like the kind of story I hoped the diplomacy system could create - first dealing with the orcs, then alliances slowly falling apart until only two kingdoms were left. :D
I completely agree about diplomacy needing more depth. Right now alliances can fall apart quite quickly and once the map turns into a big war, there aren't enough tools to change the political situation again. I'm already working on a post-jam update and diplomacy is one of the main areas I'm expanding - things like military access, stationing allied troops, reinforcement requests, better alliance interactions and more meaningful AI decisions.
I'm also adding clearer explanations for units, buildings and upgrades, because that is definitely something the current version doesn't communicate well enough.
The zoom-in view is another thing I'm reconsidering. Originally I wanted the close-up world to feel much more alive, with little NPCs, animals and environmental activity, but I already had to fight quite a lot with WebGL memory and optimization just to keep the larger maps from running out of memory during loading. :D So I may simplify that part and move it visually closer to the hand-drawn style of the main menu instead.
The post-jam version is already growing quite a bit - improved diplomacy, Heroes that can stay in settlements or travel with armies, regional ownership bonuses, more UI clarity, better army/battle presentation and eventually a more interactive battle system are all on the roadmap.
And thanks for mentioning LandGrabbers! I haven't actually played it, but it looks interesting and I can definitely see the similarity. :D
The games that inspired me more directly were actually the mobile game State.io and, on the other side maybe also the Total War series :D
Thanks again for playing so much and for all the feedback.
Yoo I had so much fun playing this game!
I mainly played quick skirmish matches, the one on Hard difficulty is when it gets really challenging and satisfying.
I like how there's so much depth for such a simple game, and how there's different playstyles to choose from, depending on if you want to turtle or go aggressive.
I'm not sure if I just missed it but I have no idea what each building or upgrade does, that would've been helpful. The zooming mechanism blew my mind at first. Music fits the game very well, but some sound effects, like swords clashing or battle cries and stuff would have been great.
Top marks and I'd give Enjoyment a 6/5 if I could!
Thank you so much! 😄 I'm really glad you enjoyed it.
And yes, you're absolutely right about the buildings and upgrades - the game currently doesn't explain them well enough. I'm already planning better tooltips / descriptions so it's clearer what each building actually does.
Sound effects are also on my list! Battle cries, swords clashing and other combat sounds should make the battles feel much more alive.
The zoomed in view is currently more of a visual effect than a fully developed gameplay layer. I simply ran out of time to finish it properly, and especially for the browser version I probably couldn't make the world as visually detailed as I originally wanted anyway, because I was already fighting quite a lot with optimization just to stop the game from running out of memory during loading. :D
My original idea was to have little NPCs living in the world - lumberjacks chopping trees and walking around, animals moving through the forests, hunters tracking them, and similar small details that would make the map feel alive. I may rethink that approach though and make the close up world much simpler, maybe even visually closer to the style of the main menu. :D
6/5 enjoyment is the best score I could ask for :D :D
Very ambitious game for a jam, but i you have pulled it off well. I really liked the artstyle, very ms paint like.
Thanks for playing! And yeah, I’ve actually been thinking about using that MS Paint like style for the whole game, not just the menu and character portraits.
It looks simple, but it actually took quite a bit of time to make. I originally even wanted to animate the characters in the main menu, but I ran out of time for that.
Thanks a lot for the feedback!
Such a cool game! I loved the portraits of all the kings, and the zoom feature was really impressive. I was a bit lost at first, but I got the hang of it soon enough. I was so expecting the humans to stab me in the back because it's exactly what I had in mind in my game lol
I will say that the text was kind of small on my monitor, and honestly I only found out half of a way through that you can upgrade buildings, set alliances, have different troop types etc.. Also I didn't understand why my troops are not attacking until I saw that they're "rallying", which I guess mean assisting my ally defending it's territory, although they stand in place? Also a "your being attacked" sound could be nice
The diplomacy system was very welcomed in a game like this, but I didn't engade as much with the other systems. Still, any game which I can paint the map in my color is good in my book!
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback! :D I definitely agree that the game needs a proper tutorial and more sounds for different situations. Because of the limited time I only managed to add the background music, so there’s still a lot of room for improvement there.
I also agree that systems like diplomacy and building upgrades can currently be skipped too easily, and the player can mostly just rush into taking more territory. That’s something I’m trying to rework and improve quite a lot in the next update, which I’ll release after the jam ends.
The “rallying” was added so that the player (and the AI) can’t just spam attacks with 1-2 units and block the enemy’s progress that way. :D It still needs some tuning though, and the loading messages are also more like debug text for now. :D
Also, if you managed to conquer the whole campaign map and didn’t get any message saying that you won, then that was actually a bug that I’ve already fixed in the meantime. :D
Thanks a lot for playing! It’s obvious you spent quite a bit of time with the game, and I really appreciate that. :)
I had a ton of fun with the campaign, orcs overrun me on the first try haha
Thanks for playing! I’m still working on the balance, especially around the orcs, so hopefully the next update will feel a bit better tuned.
I'd say it is quite balanced, on the first try I wasn't aware that orcs were a hauge threat and I was attacking some of my neighbours
On the second try I focused on keeping the alliances going until the horde was dealt with and the difficulty felt reasonable
massive work! But don't run in the browser, pretty sad :(
love your artstyle, simple but stylish!
Thank you! I’m really glad you like the game and the art style.
I actually spent quite a lot of time optimizing it so it would also run in the browser. It works pretty well for me at the moment - I’m using Chrome - but I definitely can’t rule out that there are still some issues on certain setups.
I’ll try to improve the WebGL version even more in the post-jam update. Thanks for letting me know!
wow. that was fun. this is probably the best game i have played so far. I didnt even realise how an hour passed by. theres some cool features you managed to squeeze in like the zooming in and being able to see the fight and your base. thats really cool and to do this in a week? insanely impressive. good job man
Thank you so much! I’m really happy you enjoyed the game and especially that you ended up playing it for so long.
I’m already working on a post jam update where I’ve fixed and expanded a lot of things, and I’ve also reworked the diplomacy quite a bit. For example, you’ll be able to ask an ally for permission to move through their territory, station your own troops in one of their settlements, and later withdraw them again if you need them somewhere else.
Thanks again for playing!
I love a good strategy game, its got potiential
Thanks a lot! I’m glad you think it has potential. 😄 I already have a long list of ideas in my head for improvements and future expansions, so there’s still plenty I’d love to add. Thanks for giving it a try!
That main menu is 10/10! I wish the actual gameplay was in a more similar style and had a bit more of a tutorial. Very overwhelming at first with the amount of cool systems you built.
Clearly a lot of big visions for this one - very ambitious for a weeklong jam game. You basically recreated Civilization.
Thank you so much! 😄 I’m really happy you liked the main menu. For the zoomed-in gameplay world, I used existing assets this time because there was simply no chance I could finish everything within the jam otherwise. But I’m seriously considering reworking the whole gameplay visual style to match the hand drawn look of the main menu.
And yeah, I completely agree about the tutorial. There are already quite a few systems in the game, so throwing the player straight into everything can definitely be overwhelming. A proper tutorial or more gradual introduction is high on my list.
great game not sure how it fits the theme , and the campaign kept on crashing
Thanks for playing! 😄 I tried to approach the theme through diplomacy and betrayal. Even your allies can turn against you in the struggle for power and territory, and you can also be the one who betrays an ally if it benefits you.
And yes, the Campaign was crashing in the WebGL build because of an out-of-memory issue. I’ve worked on a fix and it should be much better now, although the Campaign can still take a while to load in the browser, so sometimes it just needs a bit of patience. I’ve also added a Desktop build, where the Campaign loads much faster and is the recommended version for now.
thats make more sense , anyways its one of my fav games from the jam , ope to see more games from u
looks intersting not a bad idea
Thank you! 😄 Looks like we had a pretty similar idea for how to approach the theme. I’ll definitely give your game a try too!