Jamie McClenaghan

Periodic Pirates was created during the 40th Ludum Dare. The theme was ‘The more you have the worse it is’. A pretty obscure one eh. Once again we wanted to take a new approach and add a twist to theme; we also wanted to make a space themed game.

The main of the game is to trade elements to gain money but the more elements you have the faster they lose value. It’s a weird twist of the theme but we wanted to create a ‘money’ mechanic as well as a ‘market’ mechanic in our very first game. 

In Periodic Pirates, you are a space traveler and courier trading atomic elements across the galaxy to make money to pay of the galactic Mafia. You will have to travel to various planets to get the best trade deal as some planets sell/buy a certain element for cheap while others may sell/buy it for a higher price. Planets may have a certain desire for a specific illegal element in which you must track down and trade it. However if you only trade in illegal elements some planets may be reluctant to trade with you as the galactic police will be looking for you. It’s all about risk and reward.

Keep an eye on your inventory though. As these elements can be volatile and will deteriorate over time.Resulting in a reduce of value which could potentially leave you with less money. Even worse, these elements like to react with each other. So, having large amounts of them will increase the rate of deterioration. 

Make sure to keep up to date with the galactic news as these events will alter the value or risk of an element. For example: A particular species may need an element for their new space program or a particular element could be banned altogether.

The game was play tested by multiple users which has a variety of useful feedback. Here are a few:

Fantastic. Even though the graphics weren’t the best, there was a lot of different choices you could make and background sounds and voice over was fantastic. Great work. - TheLukker

Good game, nice in depth mechanics and a large variety of options make for fun gameplay with a high retention factor. - Roka Josh

With a little more polish it could become the next Europa Universalis Lite. - Sir Daniev

The idea is really good, it tooke some time to figure it out what to do, but after that I enjoyed a nice game =) the art doesnt help, but the gameplay and good sounds make this game very fun to play. - SVR_Audio

DTTD was created during the Ludam Dare 39th game jam in which Mikkel Rohde and I took part it. Mikkel was in charge of Audio and Design where I was responsible for Programming, UI, Audio Implementation Design and Project management. 

The theme was ‘Running out of Power’. We wanted to do something different and with a twist so we settled on DTTD. The aim of the game is to appease your population throughout the years to ensure you maintain power over your kingdom.

The games scope was much larger than we could complete in a 48 hour game jam so we had to cut it down a lot.

In this smaller version of the game your population is randomly divided into 3 classes. Military, Religious and Scientist. Each class has a happiness value and influence value. You issue policies to either increase/decrease a classes influence or increase/decrease a classes happiness but you must balance out each policy to ensure no class becomes dominant.

For example: Say 80% of the population is religious. I must keep this population happy or they will riot and protest however if they are too happy the class continues to grow and gain more influence. If a class gains too much influence and are unhappy they can over throw you and the game is over.

Throughout the game there random events and natural disasters which influence the game dramatically. For example: A plague might strike which will first reduce the population. Religious class will gain influence as people go to religion in a time of need, Science class gains happiness as they can study the plague, Military class looses influence as they lose soldiers to plague.These natural events occur randomly in which the player must be prepared for.

You are a leader of a village/town/city etc and you are slowly running out of power. You have to either stamp down riots and people who oppose you or appease your people to keep control of your throne. But all segments of society must be balanced or you will run out of power!

“Taking on the role of a powerful dynasty with unique traits your goal is to achieve the highest possible Power score.

Beginning in the Medieval era and all the way through to the Future you must find balance in your rule. You must control and balance the happiness and influence of various different segments of your population. This is done by issuing policies which affects the population segments in different ways.

Be aware that things can get out of hand when “Random Events” occur and if you fail to balance happiness and influence your people will start to rise against you, diminishing your Power.

[15/09/2017]

Fixed bug where Arcade buttons would scale up for ever

Added ball drops on main menu

Tweaked options menu

Changed UI format

Tweaked global gravity

Added drag to background balls

Fixed bugs with Xbox 360 controller

Optimised code

Adjusted bonus balls. You now get an additional multiplier for when you collect the points ball

To allow the community to get involved with Frantic there will now be a Development Log in which you can read to see the development of Frantic. The log will be posted every 2 weeks with the latest news from Frantic.

So to kick off the log here is the latest news.

[24/08/2017]

Added textures to special balls

Added random rotation to balls

Tweaked spawn chances

Tweaked spawn times

Tweaked frenzy spawn times

Added quality setting

Tweaked lighting

Added donators page

Edited main menu

Added button animations

Added tips text

Added easter eggs

Added background animaiton

Added how to play screen

Fixed bugs

Frantic - Frantic is a retro themed game which focuses on quick reflexes. Its a mix between the iconic arcade games Pong and Coin dropper - http://kck.st/2u6W8EL