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Critical Invasion's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #6 | 4.269 | 4.269 |
| Audio | #6 | 3.962 | 3.962 |
| Controls | #12 | 3.731 | 3.731 |
| Overall | #23 | 3.577 | 3.577 |
| Accessibility | #27 | 3.115 | 3.115 |
| Fun | #33 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
| Originality | #57 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
| Theme | #99 | 3.115 | 3.115 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.5
Wildcards Used
Middle Wildcard
The second wildcard (description pending)
Right Wildcard
The third wildcard (description pending)
Game Description
Space Invaders with X-Com Strategic Play
How does your game tie into the theme?
The player builds momentum with a combo system on successful attacks, while the enemy gradually increases momentum over time unless knocked back by the player, in both the action and strategy game layers (which influence each other)
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
SlightlyMadman
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
3
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Comments
Such deep game, with a lot of upgrades, strategic play, well done! I love the x-kom vibe. Difficulty is high or I approached the game in a wrong way, but had a blast. Congrats!
This game has a lot of really cool ideas and a great aesthetic. The core gameplay loop is quite fun and the world management is a neat system. I do think that threats pop up far too frequently and it wasn't clear what the consequences of ignoring them are (you can just farm infinite resources without engaging with any threats from what I can tell). I didn't have time to breath when trying to upgrade my countries. This may also be my fault but I didn't understand the purpose of the resources I was generating.
Thanks for playing! If you ignore a threat and let it expire, it does increase the threat level, so that's a reason to engage with at least some of them, but they are indeed otherwise optional for the most part. The only thing that you can't produce passively is moscovium, which is then needed to produce livorium, which is required for the later improvements that let you win the game (the security buildings). Of course none of this is explained very well in the game, which is on me haha.
Such a well designed game. Really cool and a lot of fun to play. The music was also incredible.
The concept looks very interesting to me
The UI looks great and really like the dashboard look and feel you created here.
The art is overall impressive tho the bullets could be a little bit larger
Music fits quite well but i had some troubles with the sound of clicking stuff and other effects where i think the i could not regulate on the settings but that might just be on my side!
Congrats on the submission!
Thanks for playing! Yes there's a bug in this release where the volume control for the sound effects is not working, I should be able to fix that after judging is over, but I don't think it qualifies as a game-breaking bug so I won't push to fix it now.
this was super fun to play! the art goes crazy and i love how as the invaders get closer to you the music pitch increases too!
If only we had a real world GoeScreen, where the world can come together, focusing on upgrades and bases that benefit all of humanity, not only the mech-endowed.
Fingers crossed for that alien invasion to save us all from ourselves.
I think starting with a planning/world map phase would have been a stronger choice. I can see some people getting space invaders as their first impression and walking away without seeing the broader and much more interesting xcom inspired portion. This is really cool and very ambitious!
Very ambitious and interesting, I could see this being really cool with each part a little more fleshed out. Amazing that this was done in 9 days, well done!
Absoulutely amazing but I can't see where momentum comes in
Totally understood, I think it suffers a bit from both a non-literal interpretation of the theme, and from the fact that a lot of the momentum mechanics are not obviously visible but are rather mechanics behind the scenes. When brainstorming the theme, I started thinking about idle games where you build up momentum by starting with small numbers and then snowballing, and then was thinking about arcade games like space invaders where the game builds momentum over the course of the play.
The player builds momentum with chained combo attacks, which directly multiplies your scoring, which in turn increases your strategic momentum by giving you more resources, and also reduces alien momentum. Aliens build momentum automatically over time, resulting in faster movement and attacks in the missions, as well as increased attacks and intensity in the strategic layer.
OHHHH I get it I was wondering why some attacks pierced right through enemies
Yes, I should have conveyed that better in the UI, but beneath the player momentum bar there are icons for your combo attacks that have a number on them, which represents the number of additional combos you need to unleash the combo attack. They work on sequences of prime numbers so your first attack will go every 2nd combo, the next you add every 3rd, the next every 5th, and so on.
Thats a really cool way of making the combo work but wouldn't that system make it possible to do a combo reset (Kinda like a a sprint reset if you play Minecraft) by purposely missing so the prime number combo resets and they can alway get a piercing hit every 3 shots?
It's always better to keep the combos going since once you're in the momentum-flow, you'll get the piercing hit ever 2 shots. In fact, once you have a few combo attacks unlocked, almost every attack is a special attack after you've started momentum.
I feel like those mechanics could be better explained in an instruction menu (Or in your case a mission briefing?) or the description
They definitely could be, lol. I tried to do way too many things in this jam and I think if I'd focused on fewer features I would have had time to polish and explain them better. Lessons learned for next time!
Its insane to think that this was done in 9 days, it seems really, really deep!
Amazing work!
Some issues I had were:
The Bullets you shoot are really small, and somewhat slow. So consistently hitting Targets AND building Momentum was tough. The other thing is the World Map Stuff. Which seems like its very well thought out, but due to those popups, it was very stressful to try and read all of the texts. Which is a shame since i liked that part a lot, but i always felt "chased" by the next popup. Maybe a feature to "pause" would be good, so i can immerse myself more!
Thanks for playing, and for streaming it as well (I just watched your VOD this morning)! I think your feedback is very accurate, and probably a perfect example of the kind of issues I might have avoided if I had scoped the game a bit better. If I continue to update this after the jam, I'll for sure make the bullets larger. There is a repeatable research option to make the bullets go faster as well.
The strategic layer is a bit faster than I'd originally intended because I know in a jam people only play a few minutes, so I wanted to be sure they experienced the full system flow, but fwiw there is actually a pause button in the corner of the map (I should have called that out in the game or made it more apparent, I think).
Also regarding your confusion about the mission scoring, it's mostly based on your momentum and combo chaining. The more momentum you have when you kill an enemy or pick up a power-up, the higher a score you get from it.
Had fun playing the game, the implementation of geoscreen and upgrades were great. Really nice BG music
You created a full atmosphere and world for your game which is cool. I like looking at all the upgrades and research and stuff. The upgrades gave me a good chance at winning and it was fun getting stronger. good job.
I really liked the graphics and music!
big stretch on the use of the 'momentum' keyword .. sound was incredibly loud, even on the lowest setting :D
fun twist on a classic
Thanks for the report, I did confirm this issue with the sound effects slider, so sorry that it caused a bother for you!
Regarding the theme, I appreciate the feedback. I generally don't like to interpret themes literally (because all the games in the jam end up being very similar), but I do agree that this one is a bit weak. I had initially been thinking down the path of idle games and how you start with small gains but build momentum over time (which is where the idle mechanics in the strategy game came from), then ended up thinking about games like space invaders where the momentum of the gameplay gets faster and faster. Combining those two was the idea for this game, but if it's not apparent while playing then I clearly should have done a better job in communicating the thematic elements. Thanks again for playing and for the bug report!
I don't think stretching the theme is necessarily a bad thing.. otherwise everyone would be making a 'physics based <insert game genre>' for this jam, so you get extra points for originality just because of that :D
Wow! A lot of stuff going on here, at first I was confused after I was dropped into the map after the first battle but I really enjoyed it once I got into the flow of doing battle and managing my resources, really cool game!
I forgot about the jam theme when playing your game and thought of the combo system to be a very refreshing twist on Space Invaders. Now with the jam theme in mind, even better! The mechanics outside the core game make it an insteresting package, very cool. I like the art style and also that the player isn't just a space ship. Also a nice touch that the music get's faster when the game progresses. Good job!
Thanks for playing! I wanted to do something a little different since I figured so many would be taking more literal interpretations of momentum, but I was getting worried that people wouldn't feel like it fit the theme. The music syncs with the alien momentum, so you can keep your eyes on the action but still know when you're in trouble.