Chained Kingdom

A (very) small strategy game where you manage a kingdom and try to lead it for 50 years. Entry for Weekly Game Jam 170 where the theme was "Chain Reaction."

See below for How to Play
Font Credits: Knight's Quest by GemFonts

The majority of the games I have made involved some variations of simple action platformer where you spam the attack button. I wanted to do something completely different for this weekly game jam. I struggled with the theme of "chain reaction" at first because it made me think strictly of physics. But looking into it, technically a chain reaction is just when you do something that causes something else happens which then again causes something else to happen.

That made me think of choices- a choice you making causing something to happen, which then causes other things to happen. I decided on trying to do a small strategy game, since that's something I hadn't done before. And that would allow for making choices, which could have results on the kingdom you are ruling.

This seems to be an ongoing theme for me: I ran out of time to make the sound. There's definitely other improvements and adjustments that could be made to the game but that is really the main thing once again.

HOW TO PLAY

The goal of the game is to grow the kingdom and rule as long as you can. The game is won if you manage to rule for 50 years.

You start with a population of 10 "workers." You can assign idle workers a task by clicking on the "up" arrow next to the farm, merchant stand, blacksmith stand, or weapon rack. Inversely, you can set workers back to idle by clicking on the respective down button.

Your population can grow, remain steady, or decline depending on happiness. This is represented by the face in the top-right corner. A smiling face means people are happy and the population will grow. A neutral face means the population will remain steady. A frowning face means population will slowly decline. Happiness is determined by the amount of food and soldiers you have.

There are three resources in the game: food, gold, and equipment.

Food: Created by farmers, who are assigned at the farm. You need at least 50 food to maintain or grow the population.

Gold: Produced by merchants, who are assigned at the merchant stand in the bottom right corner. Gold is used to pay blacksmiths.

Equipment: Made by blacksmiths, who are assigned at the blacksmith stand in the top left corner. Blacksmiths are paid in gold and will stop working if gold reaches 0.
The equipment is used by soldiers. If equipment reaches 0, the soldiers will disband. Soldiers are needed for wars and to make people feel safe and provide happiness.

The game takes place over years. Every year, you will either be faced with a choice of war or will have a decision to make that will result in (potentially unexpected) effects on the kingdom.

You should try to get your population happy and growing as soon as you can by making sure you have over 50 food and a standing army. Good luck!