ALPS by GameDevDan
This was the kind of thing I was expecting from the theme.
Starts off with a fun little intro, good dialogue.
During the tutorial, some text was cutoff, going offscreen. I think there may have been a scaling issue(I'm on my laptop, 1366x768), so I missed some information, including whether or not I was supposed to shoot stuff like trees? That made the first few stages a bit confusing at first.
Loving the art style, a nice refreshing pace from so many pixel games. The cartoony hand-drawn aesthetic is very appealing and you do it well.
The little explosion effect looked great, loved all the sprites.
The 3D effect(actual 3D or sprite stacking?) was done really well especially with the camera turning, everything looked great(The San Francisco bridge in particular was a nice landmark).
The controls were ok but I would have liked the option to use WASD(left hand movement preference) but this still played good cross-handed.
The shooting and punching were fun and satisfying, a good balance between range and power. Though the turn speed sometimes felt a bit slow but any faster may have made it too easy.
For such an advanced species, seems odd that the space vehicle was so limited in it's mobility, no strafing?
The range of the tank's shell explosion was a bit misleading(at least to me), I was getting hit well outside of the sprite.
Good variety of enemies, though they could shoot through buildings and that felt unfair.
Boss fight was great, a bit easy since you can punch the bullets, but still fun.
Axem Conquest by TheMiningBoyAlpha
The art was a bit rough, but I sort of dig the psuedo 3D angle of the backgrounds and tiles.
Combat was a bit poor, you just mash the ctrl keys until they die, enemy AI ranging from walks at you and stops to attack, to completely ignores you as it walks side to side attacking the air.
Beating the levels by literally beating the flag made me laugh.
Sound effects were odd, but fit with the graphical style. Needed some music though.
Platforming was basic but fine, jumping felt good.
Not really feeling the theme, it's a bit of a stretch in my opinion.
Overworld map screen was very nice, sort of pointless but cool.
Banana Toss by Toque
Overall style was cool, going all in on that Game and Watch aesthetic but a little nicer looking.
All the art was nice, good sprites. Sounds were ok but some music would have been great(I know old G&W games didn't really have any though)
The gameplay was simple, and once you figure it out, maybe too simple. It could have used more elements to mix it up, though the addition of moving enemies and mole people were good.
Eventually, I just kept getting the same fight over and over.
Looks like you were fending off pesky explorers, good simple use of theme.
Bow before the Queen by The M
One of the more unique takes on Conquest, very refreshing.
The idea itself was great, and didn't take too long for me to pick up how to play.
The management and dialogue were good, it was a fun idea juggling everything.
The music, sprites, and backgrounds were good and consistent, sound effects were nice too.
Your font choice was pretty, but I don't think it agreed with your choice of resolution and as a result was blurry and faded, making it annoying to read.
Really needed an option to kill that poet when he keeps interrupting every day
Was the only way to get more money to raise the taxes? I got to 0 money and the Queen kept saying to keep the taxes as they were :/
I'm not sure if there is a win or lose condition since it crashed on me twice, but I *did* get the option to choose the Bendran guy who said they surrendered so I'm just going to assume that was a win(Crashed there on my second go).
Overall it was neat, maybe the core was too simple, I think it would have been nicer to give us options on how to respond sometimes, but I also understand that increases the complexity a tonne, so it's understandable you went this way.
I got a similar error both times I played.
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_visitor:
Variable obj_dialogue.diplomat_statusC(100036, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Script_create_dialogue_diplomatC
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_create_dialogue_diplomatC (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_visitor_Step_0
Britskrieg by Allison James
Wow this is a big game.
The presentation is great, though I'm not a fan of this cutout filter style.
Controls were great, the wheel thing was a good idea.
Game seemed straightforward enough, but it took way too long to do things.
I realised this whilst sitting watching my armies grow for like a whole minute or two without doing anything myself that whole time.
Seemed like an interesting idea, but maybe a bit big for a jam game. Impressed that you mapped out the whole world to conquer!
CardQuest by VagrantWhaleGames
Simple gameplay, the idea was interesting and fitting for Conquest.
I think it needed better balance and something else to keep you more engaged. I found my best strategy was to save up my mana and spam villagers.
It seems like there is all this wasted space on screen with the bulk of the action taking place around the bottom. The background art was nice and all but I feel like there should have been something else there, or the scale of the game should have been adjusted. Everything was pretty small.
The game also gets off to a slow and boring start with only one unit type available until you level up.
The variety in units however was nice, it was very obvious that their stats were widely varied.
Chroma Crown by JacobV
I can't tell if this is supposed to be another sequel, or if it's just your art style. The guy looks a bit like a boss from one of your other games.
The sprites are animated well, which isn't a surprise, and the effects are nice.
The platforming is basic, as is the combat. The colour switching mechanic initially seems like it might be interesting but I found it to be a bit annoying, especially the delay, which was probably just a wee bit too long and jarring.
The enemy variety was good.
I feel like it is strange that the enemies aren't stunned at all by your attacks, but I guess you maybe wanted to force people to use the colour switching.
No sound effects was odd, and no music until suddenly yes music, that was very jarring... The boss music did not fit the game at all, too upbeat and jazzy.
First boss fight was ok, I quit on the two giant blob enemies though. It was hard to know how well I was doing, and those guys only did the one thing.
Also, why not just have autosave in each room instead of manually having to activate the save points? If it's about the health refill then you could have automated that too, unless for some reason you wanted healing to be optional? I can't see a good reason for that unless it is some sort of self-imposed challenge.
As for the theme, I see less Conquest and more Contrast...
Click to Conquer by 2Dspessman
Almost like one of those idle clicker games but not as bad.
I'm not especially fond of mashing my mouse buttons, but having to dodge those projectiles was an interesting twist. I would have preferred just holding the mouse over a region instead of clicking it constantly.
Art was uhh... there.
Sound and music did their jobs.
I played like 3 rounds of this but there didn't seem to be an end, just an increase in difficulty.
Not sure it's really Conquesty, but I guess it sort of works.
Conquer the Treasure by Apapappa Games
This was a great little game with good polish. The sprites and backgrounds were very well done.
The extra effects like the jump dust, the grass and tree sway were all very nice.
Sound effects were good but the music felt a little out of place and maybe too ambient.
The AI was amusing, sometimes they'd kill themselves and other times they'd just run to a corner and hide.
The level variety was nice, a good sense of progression with added obstacles and multiple loot, though some levels were just plain annoying instead of challenging(that last one was both! Haha)
The platforming felt good, had a nice sense of weight to it, especially the landing lag.
The controls had some odd choices though. Why would you have separate buttons for picking up and throwing the treasure? Surely that would have made more sense to map to the one key since their function is linked. And R to restart makes sense to a certain degree, but I am already using three other buttons, perhaps using jump or grab for restart if you fail, and keep R for a secondary restart(like if you wanted to restart without failing first).
Not quite sure I see any use of theme, stealing loot hardly feels like any kind of conquest.
Conquest of Lem by Dengar
Default foooooooooont!
Ahhh! All my guys! They are idiots! Is this the point of the game? Having to carefully guide my guys around the map? No thanks.
It took a really long time to get anything done.
No sound or music either unfortunately.
I will say that it was at least fun spawning endless guys and watching them push each other off the level.
Conquest of the Olympus by Super Pancratio
Wonderful presentation, those larger graphics on the side were very nice, and gave a good impression of the story.
The music and sound effects were ok, they fit the game very well.
The controls were good, felt good. The attacking and jumping worked great.
The AI was a bit easy after the first one, though I didn't realise straight away that I could charge up my shot(or jump), but it seemed easier to just spam attacks quickly to defeat the birds.
Sadly where this falls short is the variety and length. The game just kind of... ends, when you get to the top and there's nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. All it really needed was a cool boss fight, and maybe at least one other enemy to fight.
Conquest Royale - Booty of Treasure Island by Misty
So actually this was a complete and utter mess. Assets from all over the place, no clear style or cohesiveness anywhere.
I thought it was broken at first with the ugly map and the weird shi[ flying about, it made absolutely no sense.
Then you fly down and wander around some ugly giant map until you eventually see enemies.
The sword attack looked completely ridiculous and out of place, and the hitbox for it seemed much larger than it needed to be.
The enemies would just spam that when you were in a certain range.
The gun aimed in weird ways away from the cursor sometimes.
The treasure or whatever was always in the west, the notes all basically just said that.
The mountain dew vuvuzela parts were just... what the hell...
Typical Misty game, a bloody mess straight out of the mind of a madman.
Better put conquest in the title because that's the only time the theme is present in this game.
Everything is better with a Trebuchet by Ghandpivot
Cool idea, and amusing story parts.
Game was so slow though, having to wait for the boulder to roll to a stop before retrying...
I had a lot of trouble aiming, the snap felt too quick sometimes so I was always over or under aiming.
Art was hard to look at but at least it was consistent.
The buildings often felt *too* strong. Like I'd expect a direct hit to a beam to do more than make it slowly fall over.
That said the first level with the cat was amusing and a good introduction to the mechanic.
After that though, despite the amusing set ups, the levels were the same kind of boring thing one after the other, with the exception being the final level in the police station. More levels like that would have been excellent.
Music was great, I thought at first that you had stolen some Toejam and Earl music, it was just so Sega funky. But I checked out your credits! Man, sounded so good.
Goating Up by iBlackpen
Loving the art, it was very well done.
The gameplay itself was a bit uninteresting, just dodge the things.
Lack of sound really hurt too.
Not sure why goats, or why I was dodging things, but at least it looked great. All the sprites and art were great, I know I already said that but they really were.
Conquest? I don't really think so.
I'd Move Mountains by Lt. Farfetch'd
"I'd Move Vountains" Maybe use a font that shows up cleanly.
It's like one of those ice/slide puzzles but needlessly frustrating.
The controls are terrible, specifically the delay before you can press a button whilst the golem transforms.
If you're going to have such a large delay for that, maybe you could have implemented some sort of input buffer, or just checked for key held instead of key pressed. It was very frustrating mistiming that input press, often destroying your progress through the levels.
The falling speed was too static, it looked and felt wrong, and made timing some of those specific movements annoying.
The art seemed a bit inconsistent. The main tiles(which looked great), the background, and the player sprite all looked like they were from different games. This could be because the pixel sizes seemed to vary between them or because the golem itself didn't seem as detailed as the tiles. The background was just giant pixels.
You say to take your time, but then make the time the golem can cling very short... This made a few moments very anxious. I'm not sure I see the point in making the cling ability so short.
The idea of the movement mechanic was really interesting but ruined by the implementation. I'm surprised I had the willpower to finish it, that said, I don't understand the ending but it was nice that you had one. So many games don't bother with any kind of ending(I am sometimes guilty of that)
Music was pretty good!
The difficulty progression in regards to the puzzle solving for each stage was done really well, got steadily more difficult seeing the path needed to win. Towards the end I had a few head scratching moments. Sometimes it was a bit punishing how far back I would fall(sometimes to my death, right near the end of the stage!).
Another game with a more unique take on conquest, so that was neat.
Island of Risk by Oliver Stogden, matharoo
At first I was prepared to be a little bit bored given the setup, but the battle system was quite enjoyable.
I lost the first time because I had briefly forgotten how to play Risk, but smashed them the second time.
The little soldier sprites were cute, but their squareness was a bit offputting.
Played this on my laptop which has a resolution of 1366x768. Meaning that the window didn't quite fit on screen, I went into full screen but unfortunately you used Draw GUI without accounting for scaling so UI elements anf buttons were not where they were supposed to be. So I had to play in windowed mode with part of the screen cut off.
AI not getting a full turn meant that they were perhaps a bit too easy, but generally worked well.
Despite being mostly just Risk, this was a good entry with good literal use of the theme.
Reeeeally would have been nice to have some end conditions, even just a "You Win/Lose!" screen goes a long way.
King of the Ant Hill by Relic
This was something more like what I was hoping to play this jam.
Use of theme is expected but great using ants.
The gameplay itself is very simple yet I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I expected.
I got wiped out on easy but still had fun.
I didn't fully understand what I was doing, If I sent ants out without the line returning to a hill, they just wander around until they die? Shouldn't they be able to follow their trail back?
It would have been nice to see previous upgrades, I lost track of how much I increased attack, etc.
Music was amusingly appropriate.
Art was mostly good.
Can you make this into a full game? That would be cool.
Kingdom Conquest by Braydee Johnson
I didn't understand this at first, there was no read me or in-game instructions so I had to go into the games topic just to find any information of the game.
There seems to be no real challenge or point, as I was easily able to just eliminate enemies by capturing any of their coloured squares. So the game ended quite quickly. Building buildings seemed pointless when you could just destroy everyone at the start so easily.
The art was nice, good consistent voxel style, and the music/sound effects matched up nicely.
Mini Civilizations by Lukan
Looked super unfinished so I had to look it up to be sure I wasn't missing something.
Could have been interesting if there was something to do.
My Righteous Conquest by SamSam
I had a bad first impression of this, but in the end I really liked what you were trying to do.
Firstly, no sound or music really hurt this.
The main idea at first seemed silly, but made sense as I played further and upgraded. The more you upgraded, the bigger the city, and the less of the tree you can see, and thus less apples. Very cool.
That said, dragging apples to the icon was a bit naff, I'm sure given time you could come up with a better mechanic for picking apples/food.
The mining was a fun mini-game, I liked the idea of micromanaging by carefully trying to choose my route whilst also keeping an eye on apples to pick.
The upgrades eventually made that too easy but it was still nice.
Oh, and the art. It looked great, I loved the sketched look of the home/city. Not sure if that was placeholder or intentional but I really dug it.
I maxed out the upgrades and the game froze, so I guess I win!
To me, I feel like the game was about how society impacts nature and how it's not all that sustainable. And I feel like that's an aspect of conquest that is unique to this entry.
I feel like you could spend some time polishing and fixing this up and it would turn into a neat little game.
Oh Canada by Silas the Dev
I tried this 3 separate times and could not progress.
Nothing happened on the empty ocean screen, I went up and down and all around looking for anything.
Sprites were ok, but the ship backgrounds clashed with the sprites.
Music was appropriate, but got annoying very quickly.
Pixle Cleaner's Pixel Conquest by Bart
The intro music made me concerned that I was about to stumble into some sort of situation where my client couldn't pay me with money and suggests another form of payment...
Idea was neat in theory, but oh boy was it boring.
The actual brush thingy seemed to be a bit fiddly, having very stubborn pixels requiring me to move about on the spot aiming randomly until they disappear.
The shooting thing would have been more usefull if it's trail was wider.
The bugs just sort of do their own thing until you kill them, I would suggest something like making them move faster and in non-predictable paths.
Art was ok, as was the music and sounds. The effect of cleaning up worked pretty well though.
Wouldn't really say this is much of a conquest either.
PONTATOT CONQUEST OF DA MOON by dadio
*Heavy sigh*
I thought you were making a proper game this time.
Professor Heinous by HayManMarc
Oh man, that menu background was beautiful.
I really enjoyed your character design, he looked great, it'd be even better if he was fully animated.
I feel like this could have been a really great idea if you finished it, and as silly as it was it was still very fitting for the theme.
Sci Dominion by Nizitowns, Purul3nt
Firstly, why Enter to start if the rest of the game is mouse only?
Sprites and backgrounds looked good, as did the menu.
The concept seemed simple but interesting enough to play.
The pathfinding for the minions was incredibly frustrating, constantly getting themselves stuck and going off where they shouldn't. In a game like this, I think it's reasonable to expect at least a little bit of AI pathfinding and not have to guide them step by step around obstacles.
I really wanted to like this and keep playing but it was just too frustrating to play.
Music was chill and very sci-fi, fit great with the art.
Simple Village Conquest by Mikeey Bikeey, Nacky Slocker
Controlled quite well but I think the mace was OP, especially since it could go through walls. Made the levels easy.
Sprites and art were ok, got the job done.
Music looped too short very annoying and repetitive.
Sound effects were good.
The main game was fun, kiting enemies and smashing a big group with the mace was very satisfying.
Boss fight was a nice addition and parts were done well. The hands being a good idea, but a bit more of a visual indicator that they were on the ground would be better. The boss itself was too easy once the hands were down, I just smashed it over and over with the hammer.
Nice complete little package here.
Spirit of the Forest by elijahmmin
I dug your overall theme, protecting the tree with more trees, and I don't mind a good tower defense game every now and then.
At first, I thought it was unfinished or broken because I was unable to place mushrooms, making the assumption they have to be placed on the path same as trees. So my first playthrough was purely tree-based.
The issue here is I eventually realised I could just fill up the path with strong trees and that got the job done. The I just sat my cursor over the first path square and kept clicking so it would repeatedly place a new spike tree when it dies. Felt like I could do that forever if I wanted to but I eventually quit.
My second playthrough, I finally realised I could place mushrooms outside the path and that made the gameplay make more sense.
Anyway,
The variety in trees/shrooms was nice, but I think there needed to be more information on what each type did. Mostly I had a pretty good idea, but I still wasn't sure what each tree was doing exactly, like, did the tough tree do any damage like the spike tree?
The art was simple but nice, consistent and got the job done.
Menu was good, nice to have brief goals and controls on there.
Would have really been great to have some sound and music, it can really make a large impact on your game.
Overall not a bad idea, seems fitting with Conquest, but on the receiving end which is neat. Some balance issues but good effort for a jam game.
Spirit Walker by Bingdom
Halfway through the games and my first readme file! Finally!
Oh you totally stole this idea from my pirate game a few jams ago
Ugh, too many spikes, man. I really wanted to see this through, but that was just not fun at all.
Spikes and limited vision is a bad combo, it's no fun getting caught by spikes I hadn't had the chance to see yet, and then thrown back to the start of the level.
The platforming was nice, but maybe a bit too fast, could just be preferences but I would have liked more hang time and maybe slower descent.
The art was cute, the hair was a nice effect.
The music was way too repetitive, the loop was way too short with no variation.
Sound effects were ok, got a bit of a Banjo-Kazooie vibe off the text noise.
I feel like given the amount of dialogue you were using per encounter, those textboxes were way too small.
Not really feeling the theme, the gameplay was typical platformer.
Stellar Destiny by Dr. Wolf
Almost lost me straight away since I could read the menu buttons on my 1366x768 laptop monitor. If you had let me enable fullscreen with alt+enter then there would have been no issue, but I had to right click the application and use the move option with the arrow keys to temporarily move it up enough to see which button may help me(because it snaps back to make sure the top of the application window is in view). So I found the options menu and guessed which button was the confirm button, which was lucky because I would have given up right there if I guessed wrong. Anyway...
Music was well chosen, and that starfield looks great.
Sprites was a bit basic, but that works.
I clicked manual and had forgotten you like to make pdf manuals, which, if this wasn't a jam game I would totally love it, but it annoyed me that it took me out of the game and that I would have to read all of that just to understand the game. Mostly because little of that information is in-game itself. Even the controls were absent, which, luckily it's a mouse game so it was easy to figure out.
The little tooltips over the buttons for shortcuts were nice though.
Once I actually got playing, I got bored very quickly. I enjoy a good turn based game but this was just too slow and fiddly. I seemed to have trouble clicking on my ships to select them(Though that could just be my mouse, so I didn't think anything of it) and then that little info window pops up every time for the unit and I have to manaully close it even though I just wanted to click the guy to move him.
In the end it was just too slow and boring, it was very well made, and I appreciate that but it wasn't fun at all.
Super Mana Force Ultra by Jordan Robinson, Anokolisa
Very nice art, can't get over how nice those trees are, though it would have been nice to have more than the one tree tiling around.
The ground tiles are nice and varied with the grass and little flowers, looks very nice.
Sprites are good too, the animations are sparse but nice.
Music is ok, sound effects are basic, but they all get the job done.
The thing that gets me, is the art is great, but the font use for the stats is so bad and boring haha.
The main mechanic is interesting, and the way it bounces leads to some fun gameplay. I think it could really benefit from some sort of combo system for hitting multiple enemies with one attack, some sort of bonus.
It wasn't immediately obvious what the upgrades were doing just yet, though I did seem to unlock a multi-ball attack at some point so that was cool.
Doesn't feel like any interpretation of the theme is present unfortunately.
Tank-You by EvanSki
Took me a while to figure out how to get out of the corner. You really needed a readme or some in game hints.
The tank controlled ok except that the turning was way too slow.
The enemy tanks always turn to face you no matter where you are as they sit still so they have the advantage. Except that they go down in one hit so no real problem there.
That was it really, killed them all and nothing left to do.
The Conquest of Castlecrest by Caoin Forde
Nice menus, and how to play screen. Transitions, music, and all. So I appreciate that.
Gameplay was a bit basic and boring. There didn't seem to be a point to charging up your bow. I would have considered having a charged shot hit multiple enemies. if they were lined up, or give some enemies more health so that a charged shot could potentially take them down quicker.
In the end it was just a survival game, there wasn't anything overly interesting about the gameplay.
With games with movement like this, you have to be careful with your movement code, you can move faster diagonally and that's not always ideal.
The little variation in enemies was nice, the sword guys looked cute walking around pointing their swords.
I feel like the enemy arrows were too slow, it looked strange.
This was a bit tricky to play with my trackpad, but I won't hold that against you.
The Empire by TinyGamesLab
I like the concept, but it was maybe too basic and the pace was perhaps a bit too slow.
The clean art was a nice refreshing pace from all the pixel games we have gotten as per usual.
Music was very spacey and chill, very fitting.
The board size was too small, and there wasn't enough variety in planets and actions.
Interfaces were very clean, but I feel like it was too fiddly. There is surely ways to reduce this. I mean, you have to click on a planet, then click the arrows up or down, then click move, and finally click a destination. Some click and drag may have helped, but that was too much unnecessary clicking around.
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Alarm Event for alarm 1
for object o_controler:
Variable <unknown_object>.<unknown variable>(100014, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Script_ai_move
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_ai_move (line -1)
gml_Object_o_controler_Alarm_1
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object o_planet:
Variable o_rock.orign(100033, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_o_planet_Step_0
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_o_planet_Step_0 (line -1)
The Imperialist by Azure Knight
I guess I was conquering the battle zones? It's a very basic implementation of the theme, but that's ok since the rest of the game feels so complete.
The background was cool but weird, not sure what it was supposed to be.
Sprites were nice, music was ok but could have been better though it fit well. Sound effects were good.
Controls felt good, steering and acceleration. The option for tighter turns was a nice touch.
Enemy AI(or lack thereof) was disappointing. Battlezones became areas where enemy ships zip in one direction all over the place. Not all that challenging or fun by itself, some variety in enemy types(both visually and behaviourly would have been great).
Shooting felt really good, nice bullet speed and feedback from the sound effects.
The hitboxes were too big and unforgiving, I was constantly getting hit when I feel like I was just far enough away to miss.
Missiles seemed a bit pointless despite their power.
It appeared this was endless survival from battle zone to battle zone. Which is fine I guess, but would have been good to have some over-arching goal or win condition.
These Planets Are Mine by Baukereg
Cute graphics, but needed sound badly.
Not sure it really felt like any kind of conquest, just a bunch of boring fetch quests.
The stars background was cool, and the controls were good. The gravity effect near planets was a nice touch, good safety net for bad aim.
Some more variation would have helped, I mean, it makes sense that the desert planet would only want ice-cream, but maybe shake it up a little bit.
Victory by CardinalCoder64
This game controlled well with movement, not sure why you chose to have shift ready the guns when I could have just shot with Right click without that step.
Having to click right mouse button constantly is not fun, especially towards the end when the enemies are just damage sponges.
Art was good, loved the subtle water effect and the boat trails.
This was a good game that was really let down by the annoying shooting.