Designed and developed by Josh Sutphin, with an original soundtrack by John Axon.
There are two factions at war in Fail-Deadly, and both of them are your enemy. As a shadowy third party, your goal is to goad both factions into mutually assured destruction, thus paving the way for your own nefarious scheme. It’s a simple RTS in which you play both sides, trying to keep the battle alive — but nobody victorious — long enough for both factions’ nuclear arsenals to come online.
Download
IGF 2012 Edition (Latest)
Play Online
Download for Windows (21.1 MB)
Download for Mac (27.2 MB)
Videos
Official Fail-Deadly YouTube playlist
Press
“The final result is brilliantly compelling.” -Rock, Paper, Shotgun
“Fail-Deadly is ingenious and simple… a weird, exciting, distinctly non-commercial idea.” -Edge Magazine
“Nicely drawn and featuring a strong original soundtrack, Fail-Deadly is a smart twist on overused ideas, and supremely polished too. This is an excellent effort, and well worth a download…” -PC Gamer
“Fail-Deadly has kept me coming back for more time after time in a season where my hard drive is dominated by multi-million dollar blockbusters.” -Growing Up Otaku
“It’s really cool. It’s an interesting twist on the RTS… but also a little creepy, am I right?!” -New Challenger
Awards
First place overall, Ludum Dare 18
Soundtrack
Main Theme
Battle Theme 1
Battle Theme 2
Battle Theme 3
I decided to play a round and keep the fighting going as long as I cared to. Ended up with these casualties: 3247 riflemen, 1308 tanks, 1169 choppers, 9 airstrikes, 17 barracks, 15 factories, 14 helipads and 16 pillboxes, with a final score of 202 060. Battle lasted 10:58 minutes.
Mass murder and nuclear war is a lot of fun, this game has a unique puzzle mechanic and a really good soundtrack to boot. Nice work!
Well so far, my best score is 546,350. But might I add that my PC nearly died at the end due to the load it was putting on a single core of the six that were available! Perhaps some multi-threading support might be a good addition?
Hey Josh, I played your game the other day and I thought the idea was brilliant. That said, after playing the game I felt like you only scratched the surface of the concept’s potential.
I went and wrote a “review” here: http://tell-p.blogspot.com/2012/02/review-fail-deadly-pc.html
The gist of it is:
1. Needs more units.
2. Needs more complex network of counters than rock-paper-scissors.
3. The AI should do most of the building on its own.
4. Being “discovered” should be a risk when you interfere too often, not too little.
IT’S OVER… 1,000,000!!
My PC struggled through this and I proudly present you my proofpics:
http://i.imgur.com/uyXKf.png
http://i.imgur.com/oQxvj.png
Wait, what? Are those soldiers floating in the air?