Vena
🏆 Winner of Godot Wild Jam #85
Note: Don't play on incognito mode, the game won't work.
Game Description
World of Vena is a round-based, hex-tile strategy game set on a strange, alien world. Build, expand, and survive by placing tiles wisely to shape the flow of resources through mysterious veins that spread across the land.
Every phase (game round), the consumption of the central tile, the Nexus, grows more. Draw tiles from your deck and expand the world in a way to generate as many resources as possible, and don't let any fall below zero. With the order of tiles randomized, no two games are ever the same. Plan strategically, adapt quickly, and watch your creation either flourish or collapse.
With a bleached red-and-green palette, blending gore, nature, and postmodern structures, World of Vena feels alive, alien, and unpredictable. Every choice matters, every vein you build shapes your world’s fate.
How To Play
Learn the basics with the integrated tutorial, which starts on first launch. Then dive into strategic tile placement and resource management, and see if your world survives each round!
Further Details
- Round Duration: about 10 - 45 minutes
-
Age Restriction: 8+
Platforms: itch.io (demo)
About Game
This game was created solely by Leonhard Kohl-Lörting, including game design, art, music composition, programming and implementation in mid-september of 2025.
If this game gets more attention, I'll maybe extend it further and publish it on Steam.
The font used is Sburbits, the color palette is Silk Weave.
Contact: dup2_x2 (at) protonmail.com
Development log
- 1.254 days ago
- Challenge Deadline Extended16 days ago
- Challenge Announcement (Get a Steam Key!)17 days ago
- 1.0-sd33 days ago
- 1.8g36 days ago
- 1.8f38 days ago
- 1.8e38 days ago
- 1.8d39 days ago
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Made a video
Thank you for playing!
Amazing game.
Reminds me of 'compartmentalisation' in high school Biology.
The onions (gas? blood?) became quite hard to obtain in levels 11 and 12, as there are limited pumps and limited boosting tiles, while too many kinds of module tiles destroys onions.
Wished there could be more 'vein+vervid' tiles and 'vervid edge' tiles in later levels. The ability to build newer vervids has been limited by the number of available tiles. For example, there are only 2 Egg tiles available. It would be nice if there are newer kinds of module tiles in later levels, but it is already enjoyable right now.
Thank you for the feedback! I will make an update and address the things you mentioned!
Hey again! Check out the update.
Thank you for the prompt update. I checked it out and quite like the balance and variety of module tiles now! :)
The only thing to me, for my run just now, is that there is a slightly smaller chance to get the white pyramid (knowledge item?) now. But it only happened since level 12, and I'm sure this would not have been a problem if I have used the redraw button more to get 'Siphons' (there were only two in my last try).
Not sure what happened, but 'Ribbits' (the brain-producing factory) became like this just now. It had never occurred to me in previous tries:
Wow, you got pretty far. I haven't had many rounds that went this far, so I don't know how (im-)balanced the game gets as you go further. Well played! The visual bug with the ribbits (and factory) is one that existed since the start of the project and has something to do with Godots TileMapLayer. I don't know how to fix it, because almost nobody uses such a tile system. It doesn't affect the gameplay anyway. I will try to add something that makes the 3rd resource production easier in the later rounds. (They have no official name on purpose!). Currently I am also experimenting with the a shuffle mechanic. Instead of the shuffle button, you right click a tile to put it at the end of the deck, for the cost of 1 6th resource. In this way, the hotbar feels and works more like an "inventory" for the player. Generally I am trying to improve the user experience, as it seems like some things keep players from playing. The game doesn't get much attention. I'm glad I have at least one "pro" at my game, haha. As you know the game quite well now, if you have any cool ideas, let me know and I might implement them.
Not quite sure on the mechanics of putting the tile at the end of the deck by right clicking. For me, right click means cancel in this game. So, I often try to right click on the tile on that hotbar when I decided not to place a selected tile.
What would you suggest instead then?
Gameplay and Critique ;)
First of all, thank you very much for taking the time playing, analyzing and reviewing my game. Your feedback is incredibly useful. I watched your video and wrote an A4 paper on what to improve.
One thing I have to think about a little bit. When there is no timer, there is no way to lose the game anymore. I'm thinking about if this is a bad thing, because the game loses its "challenge" aspect through this.
It seems to me you have a lot of knowledge about game design, do you work something in this direction? I hope if you come back in a few weeks I have changed the way the game works to make it feel more fun.
That's a very interesting question.
My first thought is... is 'losing' the game really necessary? You've set a challenge, the player must work their way through the obstacles to complete the challenge... losing is just an occasional forced reset. Other than extending game play time, I don't really see the value.
Of course, the intention behind losing is consequence, and defeating the consequence brings dopamine.
Perhaps instead of a hard time limit to force a restart, there is a soft time limit for certain goals? You still 'win' the round if you achieve the basic goal, but there are timed advanced goals that give you a rating out of stars or something?
I have thought about this for a bit longer. How can I keep the game function time-based (as it is a simulation game) while not stressing the player and forcing decisions? I found a hybrid solution for this. When you place a tile, the timer is paused. In this way, the strategic playing remains, as the player can take time on the decisions, while also the challenge of combining tiles cleverly persists. I have already gametested this a bit and I think it improves the game experience. There are also a few other advantages: This doesn't complicate the game further, as it is complicted enough. I don't have to change much of the code.
I thought about this for a bit. How can I make my game be based on decision-based difficulty instead of stress-based difficulty? So one way would be to make the game turn-based. You get X tiles to place before the round goal has to be reached. The problem with this is that the game itself is time-based, as resources are produced over time. One idea would be to stop the time at some limit. This limit increases by a few seconds for each tile placed. This way, the game function can remain time-based, while there is no stress factor anymore, and a challenge still remains. I still have to develop this idea further, if you have any thoughts on this let me know.
In the big update released today I have addressed some things you talked about!
Hey Fort, remember me and this game? I have worked on it hard, and my steam page is now online! Maybe you want to try it again some time. https://store.steampowered.com/app/4165740/Vena/
FYI, I'm running into a Memory Out of Bound Error when it tries to load using a chrome browser. I'm going to try again in a bit and see if I can get it to run but wanted to let you know just in case there is an issue beyond my browser. Looks fun and I'll be glad to make a Video on it :).
On no, I'm sorry for that. Are you able to see the main menu, or does it crash instantly? I think when you press F12, you should be able to see the crash log itself, which can be useful. I hope I can get this fixed. I tried it on three different browsers and 2 different OSes but it works on all of them for me. :/
Edit: So it seems like it is a browser problem. Some browsers limit the amount of memory they give to WebAssembly, which the game runs on, and then various issues occur. Try using a different browser or change some setting.
I'm experiencing the same on Firefox; if it helps at all I just ran into this issue with a jam game I submitted and went through hell at 1AM trying to figure out the cause. For me it was the music file being too big, it seems it needs to be <~2MB (rough approximation, mine worked at 1.76MB). So maybe double check if you have any assets in that size range?
Hope it helps, your game looks cool and I look forward to trying it!
Weird. Does it also not play for you? The music is about 8,6 MiB.
got to round 12 and got a "Time Traveled!" screen and not sure what it means o_O can't continue either
Interesting. I'll push an update in a few minutes and we'll see if it is fixed...
Hey! I think I have fixed it. Load your save and see if it pops up again. If it does, just press continue. :)
it worked! clock needs nerfed though :D
You are probably right, haha. Shouldn't be able to time travel easily!
As I can tell you played a bit of the game, can you give me some general feedback on it? Do you think this can be put on Steam? What would be missing to do so? :)
This game is very polished and the music + SFX are tight. It took me a second to realize that tiles are randomized, this might be worth mentioning in the tutorial. I'm also not exactly wure what a vervid is, so some of the explainer text could use explainer text :)
Thank you for the feedback. I will extend the tutorial in the update tomorrow. I realized how complex my game is when I saw other people play it.
Hey again! I have updated the tutorial. You have to reset your game data (clear cookies maybe?) and then start the game normally. Now it should be clearer. I hope you give it another shot.
Great game but I think it bugged and got stuck in speed up mode even when I failed and I could increase the speed even further beyond reasonable.
This bug will be fixed in the post-jam update. Thanks!
Hey, just wanted to inform you the update is released! :)
Yo! I want to have this soundtrack on my phone ASAP. Wonderful.
When the game gets more attention, I'll release it as OST :). For the main melody I used mostly sounds of the marimbaphone (Finger hitting, percussion and brushing). The mail noises you hear during the track is Tuvan throat singing. A very special and beautful way to express sound. Although it wasn't me doing this part. Can't do that, haha.
A very interesting take on Carcasonne! Feels very polished and incredibly well done!
Hey, thank you! I really like the concept of building a map based on tiles and expanded it with resource management, and this is what came out.