Empire of Dirt
Your sister has cast a spell and turned you into a frog, stealing your empire out from under you. It's time to amass a bug army to take revenge.
NOTE: If the gameplay feels slow, [Shift]/[Right Trigger] can be used to speed up time! Play the "Introduction" first and use [Esc] on keyboard / [Start] on controller to see and learn the controls as you go.
Please report any bugs/feedback in the comments or @ mention us on Twitter. Thank you for playing!
Controls
The Game
Ben Pence (itch) (twitter): design, development, art, voices
Ben Hopkins (itch) (twitter): design, art, music
This collaboration was made in Unity and Blender over May 2-15, 2022 for Buddy Up Jam: Spring 2022. It's amazing how powerful computers are today!
Ribbit's Lament
Why I am the size of flower,
find myself bereft of power,
when it was reverse just an hour
ago?
Although I do remember
tied down in a cold December
morning's bed, oh did I feel dread
while my dear, beloved sister
stoked embers under a cistern
to cast a spell from depths of hell,
and take from me (how I did plea!)
my empire.
On fire, I feel now
and in front of bugs I will avow
to take it back and give a whack,
to that sister of mine's behind,
and write this epic’s last line.
Download
Comments
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Can't get past the introduction - how do you pick up the food types?
Sorry the instructions weren't clear enough. You need to put down a nest down next to its bug's corresponding resource: termite <> bamboo, grasshopper <> wheat, stink bug <> fruit. You can change which bug nest you're placing by using [Left Bumper]/[Right Bumper] on controller or [Q]/[E] on keyboard.
I probably just glossed over the instructions! For future development, some reminders of what to do and feedback coaching me to use the correct skill might help reinforce the concept.
As they say in my homeland "Cheap and cheerful". Simple strategy, amazing cute beetle voice, cool low poly graphics and a bit simple GUI make the game really fun! I like it! The game can become a serious project if you add more sounds, music, effects, lighting, animations, levels and rework the GUI into some cute cartoon style... Yes, the game really has potential :)
I think a little bit of user onboarding will elevate the experience a lot (to let the user know what's the goal). other than that it's a really good game, like the lofi-look particularly! Looking forward to the next upgrade.
Hi! Nice graphics and overall design. I just dont know if this is the right game for me lol or I'm just a noob. I spent time just holding Shift to gain money, it felt like a waiting game xD But overall good job :)
Review Time!
This is probably the best game I've played in this Jam so far. A simple, but addictive strategy game about killing bugs and taking over their resources. The mechanics are all intuitive and destroying nests is incredibly satisfying. Since this game is so simple, there isn't really much I can say. The game is just simple, relaxing fun.
I have two critiques, though. I don't think you should be able to die, because avoiding enemies is extremely easy, since they don't follow you at all. So you will always die for a stupid goof across what was basically a breeze. I like the idea of eating your own bugs to recover your health, but when you have so many bugs, it can be abused effortlessly.
I also think that for a simple game like that, it is just SO. LONG. I think twenty to thirty minutes would have been fine for a game like this, but it took me fifty minutes to get a thousand bugs. Because of that, the game ends up not being that replayable. If playing this game for fifty minutes straight taught me anything, is that this simple formula eventually gets old.
Despite all of this, this is a pretty enjoyable experience, and I have to say I would really like to see this worked into a full game! New types of bugs could be added, there could be game modes where bugs try harder to kill the player, and the required time to beat it could be honestly much shorter. I wish you luck with your next works!
Thank you so much for the detailed review! Yeah we should have highlighted in the tutorial that there's a speed up button which helps a bit with the time issue. But even still, the game could definitely benefit from more depth when the goal is as high as 1000 bugs (like your suggestions of more bug types/more challenging AI).
Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed it :)
There's a speed up button? Good to know, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere.
I really love it, I think with a bit of polish a bit of more content it could be a perfect 2$ to 5$ game.
Something that I would like to see are:
Bars over nests which tell me when the next bug will be spawned
The bugs health
I'm a bit stupid so didn't fully understood the arrow thing, when is good to use it and how to use it properly, I don't know if a my thing, but just to let you know.
Hope you the best, and that you continue the development ^^
Thanks for the feedback! Ya the timer for nests could be useful as each bug type actually has its own spawning interval.
<3
I like it!
nice game , keep it up !