The best mode is PVP since it works for the most part. Just don't move the king onto the smallest piece or the points will continue going up forever. But, maybe that's a new strategy? The PVE mode kinda works, but it's really buggy. I finally got the bot to work for an entire game, but that's not saying much. The game goes on for 25 rounds and you want to convert as many islands to your color as you can before the 25th turn. Whichever team has the most by the end is the winner.

Rules: When it's your turn, click on the piece you want to move, and it will show you the movement options for that piece.

Smalls: These can turn the other teams islands to your color. They can't die, and they can only move onto empty spaces.

Mids: These can kill any other enemy piece besides Smalls, they can't move onto islands that are occupied by Bigs and Kings from its own team, but can move on top of Smalls from either team, though the Smalls won't die

Bigs: these move in one direction and will convert all islands in that line to your side. If a Mid is in its path, it will automatically die. It will stop before a King or Big from either team

Kings: These can kill Mids, Bigs, and Kings, but also can be killed. If killed by a Mid, the Mid will die as well. It can also convert islands to your team.

If a piece has a bigger piece of either team on top on it, the covered piece will not be able to move. If a Small is covered by a Big or King that would normally convert the island, the island will stay the color of the Small underneath it, but the Small will not be able to move either.

Putting Mids, Bigs, or Kings on top of the other team's Smalls can be a good part of your strategy to stop the enemy's advance.

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  • Happysquared
    Lv. 15

    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!

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing and the feedback! I chose small, mid, big, and king to denote which pieces could be on top of other pieces. It wasn't perfect, but i tried to make that part clear as much as possible. Adding in what'll happen when a piece moves somewhere is definitely a good idea, though. After i made this game, i've done more research into color theory beyond just getting a color palette from a website and throwing colors on things, so i plan to make it look better in the future.

  • Funny cat Lord
    Lv. 8

    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!

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! I agree. I used a specific color palette this time, but i didn't know how to use the colors or design the field in a way that looked good.

      I do want to make a full version if this, but we'll see how long that takes. Haha

  • illdie
    Lv. 12

    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!

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! Yeah, the visual aspect is lacking, so I need to work on that. I wish I could've fixed all the bugs and features, but I just ran out of time. Haha

  • SpritePainter
    Lv. 21

    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.

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! The goal of the game was to convert the other team's islands to your color, and whoever had the most points at the end of 25 turns wins. The AI is pretty broken and random, so a strategy doesn't really matter too much against it. Haha

  • Kyon
    Lv. 25

    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!

    I.S.Land
    Submitted

    I.S.Land

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! I wish i had enough time to focus on the visual design and enemy AI, but those things were never my strong suits, and I just ran out of time.

  • dreamcastgh0st
    Lv. 2

    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!

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! You actually can unselect the pieces by right-clicking anywhere on the screen, but I forgot to put that in the description. Haha whoops. I definitely need to get better at the visual design part, but I spent so little time on it to try to make the gameplay work well.

  • Ethan Wake
    Lv. 10

    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!

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks! The graphics are in dire need of an upgrade for sure. haha I always like to challenge myself with something that I've never done before when I enter a game jam, so I don't just make the same kind of thing over and over again. It's a way for me to try out a new concept without wasting too much time on something if it's not all that great. I'm glad to hear that you liked the pieces' abilities and the concept! I might make a post-jam version eventually, but we'll see.

  • Riuku
    Lv. 19

    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.

    Jam Royale
    Submitted

    Jam Royale

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks so much! I'm glad you were able to play the best part of the game and actually try out the strategy element. I actually haven't been able to play against anyone else yet, so I'm happy that it was fun!

      Yeah, I spent like two seconds on the art and visual design of the game because I wanted to put more time into the gameplay, and I still ran out of time because of all the bugs I had to fix.

  • kris24
    Patron

    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.

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks! I'm not sure if I'll continue working on it or not, but I was proud I got the PVP (mostly) working at least with all the strategy rules in place. I hadn't actually seen that from the AI, yet. It follows the rules of the game until it doesn't want to anymore. haha

  • Panda-K
    Lv. 17

    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...

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for playing and the feedback! It is really small, but I didn't want to keep messing with the views since it just skewed everything with how I set it up. Trying to make it work at all took priority. Haha The game ends at 25 turns. It will show who won, then the game will close.

      I agree. The Bigs were my favorite part, but they were also the most difficult to get working. Nothing too complicated there, I was just struggling.

  • Jaspo
    Lv. 16

    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.

    • 2102
      Patron
      2102 Developer of Dis Island: Takeover

      2yrs ago

      I wasted so much time on simple errors, so I wasn't able to get everything working like I wanted. I found out some of the bugs related to the Kings with less than an hour left, but I decided to keep trying to make the AI work. As you can see, that didn't get finished either. Haha Thanks for playing!

  • Chris
    Patron

    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.

I wish I spent a little more time on the graphics and sound design part, but I definitely needed all the time in the world to get the game actually working. I wanted to get an AI working for single player, but I should've just scrapped that idea and made the two player thing the focus and fixed the other problems with the game. I also spent waaaaaay too long trying to figure out an error that happened because I had 4 if statements instead of 4 if-else statements. The Bigs wouldn't go left or up because the right and down directions would also trigger and overwrite the intended direction. That was about 3 hours of wasted time building the functionality several different ways until I found that problem. Better luck next time, I guess. I probably need to be working on games more before the jams, since I went in and had to relearn a bunch of stuff again. That always takes time.

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