This game is a submission for Ludum Dare 56. View all gamesView submission

A downloadable game for Windows

Welcome to Combo Critters, a unique strategy game where the smallest creatures pack the biggest punch! Build a team of tiny yet powerful critters, each with unique abilities and traits. Maximize their interactions and synergies to achieve the highest possible score and outwit your opponents.

As you progress, you’ll discover new creatures, each adding new strategies and combinations to your arsenal.

Every battle is a test of creativity and  tactic. Can you craft the ultimate team of critters and claim victory? 

Draft Phase

  • Refine you hand by drawing and discarding creatures
  • Discarded cards can be picked up again by either player
  • When the discard zone is full it's time to fight!

Battle Phase

  • Reveal cards in turns until you beat your opponent
  • Some cards have special effects and abilities

Progress

  • Gain 1 level each time you beat an opponent
  • Unlock a new creature for each level
  • At higher levels, play with a larger hand and discard zone
  • The opponent AI also gets better with the passing levels

Plays entirely with the mouse!

This game was made entirely in 72 hours for Ldum Dare 56. The soundtrack was made by Pentadrangle, and everything else was done by Benjamin Soulé!

Rémy also made a game for this same Ludum Dare, with even more music from Pentadrangle! Check out Build The Sun here!

If you're interested in hearing more about this project in the future you can:
🦚 Follow us on Twitter!
🎬 Subscribe to our Youtube!
💬 And join our Discord!

Updated 24 days ago
Published 27 days ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows
Rating
Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars
(15 total ratings)
AuthorPUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞
GenreStrategy, Card Game
Tagscatchem-all, drafting-game, Ludum Dare 56, Pixel Art, pokemon, Retro
Average sessionAbout a half-hour
LanguagesEnglish
InputsMouse
LinksLudum Dare
Mentionsitch.io Recommends: "Tiny Creatures" for...

Download

Download
combo critters_windows.zip 14 MB

Comments

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Excellent game. A smidge more polish and you'll be burning up the Steam charts.

(+1)

how to change resolution?

This is so much fun, played it all the way to level 40. Amazing this was all possible in 72 hours.

I'd like to see this fleshed out a bit more, on Steam, and with multiplayer. Would love to play this against my mate

(1 edit)

This is fun :)

But I think I lost a round because the slime morphing still activated the battleground size effect when it says the card doesn't have any abilities :(

(+2)

OMG this is soooooo good! Just makes the wait even better for SUGAR! Great work here guys!

(+1)

This is just REALLY good oh my god.

The Snake is kind of overtuned right now because the venom affects only the opponent (but you probably know this); the robot and starfish seem way too strong at 5 critters, but I think the game gets much more interesting with battlefields of 6. Bird that reduces opponent's size of the field seems very powerful as well, while Venos seems downright unplayable? Can't really tell because the AI isn't very good, I really want to just binge play it with other humans to really break it in half.

I wish I could have a boardgame version of this, I'd play it a lot. Even as is. For real. Strangely gives Faraway vibes crossed with Mindbug, even if it's mechanically very different from both? I just really really love this game, astonished you managed to put something like this out in just 72hs, with this amount of content. Balance is not even that out of whack. Gorgeous work.

(+2)

Balance still need a lot of work I didn't have enough time. The AI makes intentional mistakes, I was afraid it was too unforgivable. After lvl 20+ it's supposed to take the best solution on every move but don't make long term plans.

(1 edit) (+1)

My god, of course you didn't have enough time! Balance is so much work. You did this for LD, it's insane you already got so much done! Oh, I'll try some Lv20 gameplay then, I only got to lv 15 or so for now! Sorry I shouldn't have worded it like, "the AI isn't very good" but like, "it's going to be hard for an AI done in a week-end to help as much with analyzing the game and pushing it to its limits as a human opponent would" (because you're pushing each other to improve), and also because you can't chat with the AI to discuss moves and theory craft (and also because I think the game is probably a bit more complex to play well than it looks?)

Wonderful little game, I liked it a lot! Could use some UI adjustments like being able to observe your and opponents revealed units' text at all times. For example, I had a card that when played let me take a guy from a discard back to my hand and I couldn't check any revealed info including my own to see what would be the best fit.

(+3)(-2)

Looks grand! Need macOS binary, though. 

(+1)(-2)

Would  love a mac download!

(1 edit)

Cool game!
But can you add a better tutorial.
I'm still confused how to do combo.