Dis Island: Takeover

I really enjoy the gameplay. I played this with a teammate. Gameplay wise, I don't think I have any issues with it.

I think I mainly had issues with the visuals. Personally, I think the colours should be more contrasting. Maybe pick colours whose values are very different from each other or on the opposite ends of the colour wheel. I think that really helps make pieces easier to read on first glance. That way it is even clearer what is your piece, and what is the enemy piece. I think that would work out really well as your game is about territory control too where colours are pretty important.

Also feel the shapes need to be more distinct. I get it is abstract strategy so you don't have to define the pieces... But I think it would help people to visually identify them better. Chess names its pieces after distinct roles. A "Bishop" doesn't feel in the same category as a "Knight". I think naming the pieces "Small", "Mid", "Big" is makes it harder for the player to distinguish them because they're all names of sizes. So even though flavour is just a little dressing, I think it makes for a better user experience. When you think "Knight", you think oh this piece can jump over others because it is a horse. I wasn't sure why a "Big" would convert and die when it hits a mid. I'm sure playing it more would make it more intuitive though.

I did have issue with the wording on the Big. "If a Mid is in its path, it will automatically die". I interpreted that to mean the Mid would die. So was kinda surprised when my Big died instead.

Having the sprite shapes be a little more distinct could help out too. I found it difficult to distinguish the pieces immediately. I think having the squares be larger too would really help out. Territory is important but I found most of the board is empty water space that was not super functional.

Strategy games are hard to teach so it's nice to see the movement when the piece is selected. made it easy to jump into the game and play. Maybe you could have taken it a step further to say what would happen if you moved it there too. Like would a piece die? Would your piece die? Just to help out with the rules.

Again, not much issue with the gameplay. I really enjoyed that aspect of it and found myself having fun thinking strategy when playing against my teammate.

I think it is a really cool entry and it is super nice to see an abstract strategy game here!

My biggest issue with this game would be that of UX. The tiles are a little too small and too far apart from each other, The contrast of the pieces is a little low, it'd be nice to have some sound feedback etc.

I think it's very impressive that you managed to create a board game in just 48 hours (With vsPlayer and vsAI modes too! I can't imagine coding an AI for a chesslike in less than a week). Overall I think it's a great game. And if there ever is a post jam version, I'm looking forward to playing it!

This is a cool concept. I did have difficulty seeing each of the pieces and remembering each of their rules though.

Also it's nice that there's both a pvp and pve mode, good job on that!

This is pretty cool, but I don't think I really figured out a strategy. I played it in PvE mode and I think I won. I was able to get rid of all the the enemy pieces, but then the game crashed. Still, it's a cool idea. It may help to have a series of levels with a smaller board where you just teach players a single mechanic at a time and build them up before presenting the complete board.

I like chess myself and I think this is really creative and challenging to have made during a gamejam! Like others have said, it was a bit small, and especially in PVE the lack of feedback was confusing. I sometimes couldn't really see what was happening. But even though it was ambitious, I really encourage ideas like these for jams and love to play and see them. Really nice job!

Huh, neat! I'm not really a big chess person, so a lot of the strategy here is lost on me, but I'd be interested in giving this a go with some friends. Some things I did notice though:

-When you select a piece, you can't unselect it. This could be a good QOL improvement.

-The pieces are kinda small. It can be a little unclear to tell them all apart.

I do really like that the goal is more about territory capturing than pieces, and how each team starts in a corner-- I've seen a lot of chess-like games that so clearly take so much inspiration from chess they're hardly their own game. That and the rule about being able to move mids onto smalls, there's a lot of weird and interesting rules I'd love to see the results of. Definitely the kind of game I would have enjoyed a lot more if I had someone to play against. Nice work!

I can't say I've ever seen a board game created in GM, so for you to have created one in a 48hr time frame is pretty impressive. The various pieces and their abilities really made me put serious thought into each turn (even though I was playing against myself). I like that it is similar to chess, but also wildly different. I'd love to see a post-jam version of this with bigger, easier-to-see graphics, or at least a fullscreen option. Well done!

I played PvP with my teammate dosto and we both enjoyed it! The rule set was interesting because it was simple on the surface level but it introduced a lot of emergent complexity. Like others have said, the visuals were a bit hard on the eyes because of the small size of all the elements and the lack of contrast.

I lost to dosto and I will blame my defeat not on my skills but on this ambiguousness in the rules: It says about Bigs that "If a Mid is in its path, it will automatically die.". In the latter part of the sentence it was not clear to me what "it" refers to - the Mid or the Big. I had to guess and to my demise, I guessed wrong! (in hindsight, the sentence makes much more sense now but I think it could be phrased a bit more explicitly nonetheless)

Great job! It's refreshing to see a "board game" style submission as well as a multiplayer one! This one really got the brain working and it was fun to figure out tactics and think multiple moves ahead.

I can see the potential for an interesting strategy game here, with some further work to get it up and running. I managed to actually lose to the AI because it must have done one of the bugged moves and managed to get 250+ points haha.

Why is everything so small!?!

I really liked the movement of the bigs along with capturing squares. If you wanted to keep developing this, I would focus on making that a core part of the game (probably more so than sitting on smalls).

Also, how is the game meant to end? I was playing PVP against myself and couldn't figure it out...

I'm always intrigued by an attempt at a chesslike. This one was neither bad nor particularly remarkable, but that's judging by only one full play, against the rather clueless AI. It seemed the bigs didn't have enough they could run into and so tended to end up in the outer squares with no way to get back to the middle necessarily, so that seemed like probably the weakest aspect of the game. Also, had a number of fatal errors when trying to move the king in various circumstances, maybe due to missing pieces.

I love the idea of making a chess-like game, PVP definitely more fun and strategic. Would like to see some more detailed art and sound but overall great job.