Play game
Metal Mode's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #30 | 4.167 | 4.167 |
| Presentation (graphics, audio) | #37 | 4.370 | 4.370 |
| Fun | #67 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Theme | #101 | 3.741 | 3.741 |
Ranked from 54 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game represent Mode?
You can change the mode of the Dice to change your chances, and the main point being that you send out "Metals" (Tank-like things) with 2 modes that you can switch between; each having their own special abilities and stats.
Leave a comment
Comments
A cool concept but it would benefit from a bit more explanation/tutorialisation
Yeah. Tutorial came last, so wasn't able to get it in a great spot. Though, everyone so far has understood it eventually.
I'm working on the tutorial and new mechanics for a full version, so it shouldn't be an issue in the future.
Thanks for playing! :D
Very cool. You don't see many strategy games in these types of things
I've actually ran into a good number of puzzle games in this jam.
I guess that's close enough. lol
Thanks for playing! :D
This game is really great. very well made. amazing presentation, very deep and good gameplay and mechanics. this genre isn't my thing though, it's too complicated for my monkey brain, so i didn't play it a lot. very awesome work. this game can win the whole thing.
Part of it's my fault. The onboarding is like a slap to the face with info.
But glad you liked it even if it wasn't your cup of tea! :D
This game is an absolute banger! There is so much variety in what you can do. It was a little overwhelming at first but after a few attempts, I was able to really get a good grasp. I love the ideas for all the little tanks and their properties. I could not get enough- everything in the game loop is so satisfying!
Maybe I missed it in the tutorial, but I think it could be more clear that you can buy additional dice slots on the bottom. It felt like a whole game changer when I found out I could buy more.
Really amazing game.
Yeah. I'm currently working on the onboarding. I might go the roguelike-unlock route, where you unlock them over time. Maybe a free-play mode too. Plans for the future! :V
You didn't miss anything, that's on me. lol I forgot to say you could buy more dice.
Thanks a ton for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it! :D
Wow, what a really incredibly game. Sometimes I look at jam entries and I feel like they more so "can be classified as games", but aren't necessarily fun or repeatable; this one is definitely not in that category. Very entertaining gameplay that can definitely get very addictive. You need some time to take everything in, and I think this game would benefit a ton from introducing the various mechanics gradually rather than all at once, should you decide to keep working on this further (which I think you should). I didn't really get a good grasp of the modes and I sure as hell wasn't good at deploying the troops well and managing the resources properly (at one point I ended up with -99 energy. No idea how that happened, but I knew I was doomed from there). My only point of criticism was that it's not easy to tell that the small yellow things are enemies that need to be destroyed unless you're told directly. Other than that, greatly presented, polished, surprisingly deep original gameplay that fits the theme well. Amazing work.
Yeah. The tutorial came last on the docket once I had the mechanics in, so I ended up doing a no-no with tutorials, and hit the player with a bunch of info at once due to time. I'm currently working on it further, and am gonna tackle that stuff in smaller bites though!
The -99 energy was a bug caused by the KING. If you used a normal attack with it, it would take away from your energy and not the attack GRIT, which meant that attacking with it a lot meant you went into the negatives, which meant you couldn't deploy since they all needed energy to deploy. lol
I'll have the tutorial say they're the enemies. It shows them in the tut, but I don't think it directly says the dots are the monsters.
Thanks a ton for playing, and thanks for the feedback! :D
Very cool entry! This one really sinks its teeth in and ends up being surprisingly addictive. I think this is a cool idea that really has some legs. The tutorial really helps but as others have said it is a bit rough to start, but it does really click eventually. I really liked being able to upgrade your dice and increase the amount of them, it's almost like one of those idle cookie clicker type games but the currency is actually going toward gameplay. There was still some ambiguity for me by the end of my play session, like how much damage the home base can take, what the lightning bolt thing does besides creating more tanks, and the benefits of other tanks over shoot, but overall I feel like I got pretty effective at the game. When I realized I could click and drag to roll all the dice in one sweep I actually gasped that was so satisfying haha. Nice entry, good work!
The lightning bolt was Energy, and was used for Abilities. You hold Right Click on a Metal and it activates it. Some target a tile, and some activate right away. It's the most unintuitive control I have in the game, but since I wanted to stick to just the mouse, it was difficult to make a way to use the ability without a popup menu every time.
SHOT's just way too OP and the others are too underpowered right now. I'm currently changing them for a full build, so the issues should be fixed by then.
Thanks a ton for playing and enjoying! :V
i had a bumpy start into this game but with time I got to appreciate it more. Especially its depth. This game was really unique.
The onboarding's a bit shaky, but I'm fixing it for a full release.
Thank yuh for the kind words, and thank yuh for playing! :D
Wow, seriously one of the best games of the jam! The presentation was perfect (pretty much release-level), and the way the depth of the mechanics revealed itself as the game commenced was awesome. It was certainly complex, which made it gratifying to make it to the end.
One thing I'll note is that some of the balancing for the different weapon types could use some improvement; I ended my run with all "SHOT" metals, as its low-cost firing and special ability were incredibly useful against the hordes of monsters. Rebalancing may also give me a bit more incentive to switch between modes with my units.
Still, I had a ton of fun with this one, and was surprised with just how much time I spent playing it. I hope this one does well. Excellent work!
Yeah. SHOT was way too OP. I've changed it some in the current build I'm working on for a full release, as well as adding some incentives and reasons for switching. You can scroll down to my longest reply (Just under yours), and I go over a lot of the changes I am planning.
Thanks a ton for playing! :D
I had seen your game floating around and was excited to finally get around to playing it. Very cool concept. Plays like Into the Breach combined with tower defense. I find this game really interesting and I hope you don’t mind me spilling my thoughts (feel free to ignore, honestly!). I’ll try to avoid any comments that have been made already.
I discovered the KING glitch on accident, then started fresh and beat the game using only SHOTs, then played and beat again without using any SHOTs.
The whole idea of modes for metals is interesting, but I found myself almost never switching modes. I’d say a big reason is the 3-turn lock; imo staying in one mode and focusing on its playstyle is simply easier than the hassle of switching modes only to regret it a turn or two later.
Being able to explore/uncover the map was really neat. From a visual standpoint, I think there should be a clearer change in what a tile looks like before and after it’s been “uncovered.” Also, once you’ve sent a metal into the depths of one maze-like branch and defeated the hives there, it feels useless and just sits there (unless you feel like wasting a bunch of movement grit). I really liked that units like the ROOK can only push one unit into the darkness but can move back into known territory two spaces. Helps combat that issue a bit. Otherwise maybe being able to scrap a metal for resources could be useful?
Healing seems to have very little use since enemies don’t attack metals off the track (except for the flying guys). It makes me wonder why the ROOK is the only metal with self-healing, yet it comes with the most HP—I cannot imagine a scenario in which I’d need to use it.
I found the flying enemies to be very overpowered, at least compared to the metals’ abilities. Travels over barriers and heads straight for the base, moves multiple spaces, and damages metals in its path.
There’s some info that’s always shown that could probably be hidden. In my experience a small amount of the game is spent launching metals, so I don’t know if the UI for launching them needs to be on-screen for the entire game. I’m not sure why the launch cost for metals is shown on the upgrade page, considering it’s already been launched. On the topic of upgrades, I only found myself needing to upgrade damage. Any other metal upgrades (especially upgrades to special abilities) seemed expensive for little reward. Dice upgrades also seemed too expensive for the return on investment.
Again, I love the game mechanics and concept. The entire aesthetic is excellent. I am super envious of your choices for SFX and music (thank you for introducing me to Ruskerdax!). I bet you have a lot of interesting ideas up your sleeve and look forward to seeing your game develop.
The feedback is always useful, so no worries! But all of these things are actually being tackled. Though confirmation on the issues is helpful since it solidifies what I've been choosing to fix, and how to fix them.
KING was a bug, which has now been fixed in the full version I'm now working on.
SHOT was OP and just needs some nerfs/balancing.
I may separate the armors so each has its own, as well as other ideas I'm cooking to give more incentives to swap. I did consider just taking out the swapping altogether. But with the newer changes, as well as some stuff I'm going to test, and how the idea was to mix movement Modes with Attacking modes, I may keep it.
I need to add more details to split the undiscovered and discovered. Saw that when someone was playing, and they thought they uncovered a spot which happened to also have a Hive. lol I DO want people to miss a Hive while moving, but not because of being mistaken for a discovered tile. I want the experience to be, "I don't need to go back for that clearly undiscovered tile. It's one tile. What's the harm?" I am also adding a new mechanic to deal with the "Metal at the dead end". I am also going to MAYBE allow scrapping a Metal, but I might make it more as a way to free a slot than recover resources. But there can be strategies in gaining resources, so it might be a little amount.
HP was a side-addition due to how the design was building itself, but grew further.
The process was:
- You can move a Metal.
- Can Metals move onto the path?
- To cross the path, yes, especially since some only move 1 space.
- You can move a Metal onto the path.
- Should enemies damage a Metal if the Metal is on the path?
- Add HP so Metals can be damaged as an added risk.
- But HP doesn't feel significant enough.
- Add events that can damage the Metals so HP now plays as a new resource to keep an eye on.
The issue was more balancing the Events and the HP. The most destructive event (Scrap Storm) was actually nerfed just before the deadline because someone said it did too much damage. I ended up nerfing it too much. That'll change, and there'll be new special enemies that deal damage to Metals not on the path.
The flyers are probably the biggest threat. I even purposefully designed it to where you'd have to explore to see the other side of the wall to see them coming. But this is another balancing issue. Things like making them slower, weaker, less HP, etc to get them just right. As well as variants with better/weaker stats.
I just wanted to fit it all on one screen, so the Launch info was always there. But it's changing to a tab that you click to go between Metals and Launching, which gives me more room to add new mechanics in the menus.
Upgrades were kind of tricky, and they weren't as strong as I set out for them to be. Like fire is a joke, and though neat, is too underpowered. I am fixing that- as well as a lot of the chance stuff and all that. Although, the two main upgrades were damage and range. I am tweaking the upgrades though and making each upgrade fit their playstyle more, as someone wanted FROGs to be a viable strat, which has led to focusing each of their upgrades to cater to strategies- but not TOO much. I still want players to mix and match them.
Balancing the dice is probably one of the bigger things I didn't know how to do. I've learned a little more about how I'll change things up from watching people play and am changing some of the dice mechanics due to it. But yeah, a lot of balancing was needed, but I didn't have enough time to dedicate to it. But now I DO! :V
Rusterdax is amazing. I have so many of his songs downloaded and they work amazingly well for atmosphere. But if you wanna see more of my stuff, I have some unfinished things in my profile. I'd recommend "Knight of the Living Dead", "Medieval Dead" (Which is a full demo), and "Tim's Paradice". Tim's Paradice is where I discovered my animation trick for dice, though all my old stuff could really go for some touching up with my current dev skeelz.
But all in all, the feedback is useful! Thanks a ton for the kind words and thanks for playing Metal Mode! :D
Impressive submission! Core mechanics are very fleshed out and everything is so deep it feels like something thats been maturing and in development for way longer than just two weeks. Perhaps a bit too much to take in in the beginning, but I learnt everything eventually just by playing. As others have said previously the tutorial could be better, but the mechanics definitely seem a lot more understandable in hindsight, so the core game itself is pretty much solid.
In a sense, I suppose it was. I used past experiences from some of my other games and I've been wanting to make a good turn-based TD game for a while. I sort of made one before, but it had very different mechanics and I didn't like how it turned out. This was just another experiment that seems to have been a success!
And yeah, it's a "Once you get it, you get it" sort of thing. Which seems to be a theme with every strategy or tactic game I make. lol
Thanks for playing though! :D
took world’s longest time to do so, but i finally figured out the game! yay! i think my main issue with learning it was that i didn’t realize i could attack the bugs themselves - i thought i was only able to attack the hives. i was under the impression the little yellow guys were unstoppable once they were spawned! ^^” once i learned that, it really opened up the game for me. it was a lot of fun! making EVERY SINGLE THING in the game use the same four resources is a really clever idea, it forces you to think super hard about how you use them, and i love that! i do wish that there was more of an incentive to use units other than the basic SHOT, but i’m really happy to see that you’ll be working on it more. i’m so excited to play this with even more of a planned-out strategy!!! looking forward to it!
Hmm... An invincible unit. I could make that an enemy, or at least, one that goes invincible for a short time.
And yeah. SHOT was way too broken and was the best unit. That one is definitely going to be nerfed, and the others will be buffed.
Thanks for playing! :D
A very well polished and nice looking game. The gameplay loop was also satisfying. Only difficult part is getting the hang of it initially.
Yeah. The onboarding REALLY needs some work.
But now that I plan on making a full version, I'll be able to have more time to plan it out and make it! Woo! :V
The tutorial you made was by far from bad, it was good even! It's just that your game really does have a lot going on in it for a game-jam game. Good luck.
I got my ass kicked so much, and I loved every second of it.
Hell yeah! :V
Such a creative idea with a lot of potential, I'd love to see a full version of this!
I plan on it, so be on the lookout! :V
Thanks a ton for playing and thanks for the encouragement!
I can see myself playing a lot more of this one. Big fan of Into the Breach, the additional upgrades and dice elements work really well. Can be pretty tough though. Some small bugs like the King ruining my energy stat every time it attacks. Also if there's any indicator of how many hits the base can take, I couldn't find it.
I forgot to put the Core HP indicator, though a part of me kind of wants to keep it like that. lol
I'll probably change it though.
And yeah, the KING is a known bug. I'll have to fix it. Until then, just call it KING mode and see if you can beat it with just a KING. :P
Thanks for playing!
Oh man this is so complex my brain is actually brain not :"D Reminds me a lot of Advance Wars/Wargroove.
I'm actually enjoying it though! In the beginning it took me a bit to understand the mechanics properly, but once I got the gist it's pretty easy to go. The UI is really tidy and I love the sound effects. The dice is giving me a lot of joy whenever I click on them.
This is very good and I might give it more play later. So far I think the only dice that's almost useless to upgrade is the one with lightning? I might have missed something, but everything else have other use other than for unit launch.
Big props to you for this making a game this complex under the jam, really.
Those two games had some influence on this game! As well as a bit of Into The Breach and Chess.
I'm big on UI myself, so I always try and make sure navigation and using the UI feels good.
I'm also big on sounds, so I took extra care to get the Dice right and get them to feel weight.
The lightning (ENERGY) wasn't explained all too well, and it used an input that wasn't intuitive. (Hold Right Click on a Metal)
Each Metal had an ability that used ENERGY, and helped mitigate some of the ATTACK GRIT.
Had a ton of fun working on it, and glad you enjoyed it!
Lordy I can't fathom how you got all this done in the time allotted. Feels super complex and satisfying and balanced. Really great music to fit the theme and interesting graphics with great contrast. Great job!
A mix of knowing the engine really well, using experience on old games, and pixel art.
The systems also compound on each other, which adds to the complexity.
It was a somewhat happy accident that it all worked well together when I was designing it.
Thanks a ton for playing!
That was pretty great,I would've just liked a bit more of threat towards the end
I like the art and the music+sounds fit really well
Didn't think upgrading dice was nearly as good as getting another 3 for the same price, but rolling feels so satisfying
also it can be a bit hard to tell if you missed a tile while exploring
Yeah. Them being so far away makes the threat less of an issue near the end. I'll have to figure out a solution for that one.
I'll probably do a little more with revealed tiles so they differ more from the black background.
Thanks for playing!
This game was very fun. First run I got wrecked but the second time I cleared it. The difficulty and complexity were perfect. Buying additional dice and upgrading your dice and metals was really fun and satisfying, especially upgrading and buying more income dice. All of the interactions and sounds were very meaty and satisfying - I particularly enjoyed rolling the dice. Great job!
I put a lot of time and focus on the sounds as they are one of the most important parts of a game in terms of "support polish"; to me at least. And with all this feedback I've gotten, which convinced me to make a full version, I'll try and make it even more perfecter. :V
Thank you for playing!
Managed to clear /win the game in my 3rd try. My strategy was focusing on getting as many dice rolls as possible for attacking and moving. Worked out in a battle of attrition lol. The gameplay is very fun once you figure out how to play. The balance between using resources for movement/attacking/launching new units is very interesting.
Really cool execution. Hope you can make this into a fully fledged game! Has a lot of potential! Great Job on the gameplay and the overall presentation!
I do indeed have plans to make a full version!
And I'm going to simplify some stuff while keeping the core idea intact- that's the hope at least.
Also, not many beat it without focusing the wrenches.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for playing!