Wasteland recollection - MiniLD49

Wasteland Recollection is our entry to miniLD49.

I worked with @Sean Noonan and this week-end we made the first playable version of our idea of a survival game based on resources/time/health management and memory match mechanic.

Play the game

Don't hesitate to give us feedback !

very cool, I was playing 40 minutes, hypnotized

Nice one. I had a very cursory playthrough; lasted 2 days because I didn't realise I was dying >.<

• Gotta start with food. Having none in the beginning means everyone's first playthrough (i.e.: when they're still figuring out the game mechanics) is more challenging than it should be.
• It wasn't immediately obvious what I should do. I suppose that's not a bad thing with this sort of game, but perhaps a quick overview of the controls at least would be handy. For example, it didn't feel immediately obvious that I was on some sort of "overview" map of the world. Maybe that's a scale thing.
• The card turning animations need to be at least a million times faster. They look nice but they're painfully slow.
• It wasn't obvious that I was dying while playing the memory match game. It seems odd to me that this could happen, but it is a nice approximation of the idea of spending more time scavenging for stuff. With that said, a memory game on its own can either be completed, or not - I don't like the implication that I should only have a few tries at it before setting off if I'm not getting anywhere fast. There's a lot of guesswork in these games - especially at first - and you're basically damning the player for playing a memory game the way it's meant to be played - thoroughly.
• This could be alleviated by providing some sort of "cheat" system for the memory game that could be attributed to improving the character's survival skills.

gillenew: Thanks for the nice comment, glad you liked the game.

GeometriX: Thanks you too for the constructed comment.

The game as it stands is not really balanced, nor complete.

Thank you for your remarks we will take them into account in the next iterations.

For the memory game, you can come back to the tile and "profit" from the fact that there are less tiles later/on another day.

Also, once you have "secured" a shelter, there is less need to move around, until all useful resources are gone. You can "camp" the tile until you feel you've gathered enough.

It's kind of part of that mechanic. You are really collecting/gathering resources through your skills/strategy, not just by clicking "Harvest".

An issue with the current version is that the resources aren't well distributed according to the tile's description/type. Each tile will provide all resources.

In a next iteration, there will be a better distribution (you'll only be able to find can foods in certain tiles/areas for example) and balancing will be more effective.

And from that point on, maybe indeed the "harvest for days" strategy won't be the most efficient anymore.

There is obviously balancing to do between action/scavenging/number of resources and the amount of time/vitality/hunger that goes on.

Once again thanks for the suggestions, we will be looking at improving the game according to those.

Some great feedback so far, hopefully we can respond to it in future versions