LudumData

Stand your ground by GistNoesis

[raw]
made by GistNoesis for LD 40 (COMPO)

An unorthodox tower defense game, made with Three.js and Cannon.js

screenshot.png

Prevent enemy to cross your line

Water put up Fire

Grass absorbs Water

Fire burns Grass

air destroy fire

fire destroy air

When air is destroyed enemy spawn faster

Commands :

Arrows : Orient canon

Space : Shoot

W : Change elemental type

Cheat code :

If you rather play an incremental game : You can activate Immortal Mode by pressing I

Hints (Only given for last week of Ludum Dare play) :

This game was designed to be solved using a systemic approach. (The Tetris like control won't allow you to shoot your way through, you'll have to manage the situation by taking advantage of your enemy interactions and bullet persistence)

-You control the pace of the game by shooting more or less

-Enemies will bounce on you unless they have been put off their trajectory by a previous collision

-Use the interactions between the enemy so you don't have to shoot a lot

-Anticipate your moves but delay them

-Make each of your shot count

-Surround yourself with bullets so that they become helpful to stop the enemies.

-Don't restart too quickly or you'll activate tilt mode :)

About

I used 5 royalty free textures. Everything else music, 3d art and code was created during this week-end.

If you enjoyed my game, you will probably enjoy my last project : Linn Photobooth available on github : https://github.com/GistNoesis/Linn-Photobooth!

HTML5 (web) http://aqua.gistnoesis.net/ld40.html
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/stand-your-ground

Ratings

Overall 653th 2.544⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Fun 649th 2.364⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 518th 2.773⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Theme 602th 2.716⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 641th 2.14⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Audio 415th 2.654⭐ 41🧑‍⚖️
Humor 543th 1.757⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Mood 618th 2.088⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Given 44🗳️ 47🗨️

Feedback

pcmxms
03. Dec 2017 · 22:46 UTC
Strange game. The controls are a bit too stiff.
sbarrio
04. Dec 2017 · 12:07 UTC
Interesting take on the theme. The controls are a bit stiff but they are precise. You can even shoot towards the camera!

Good job!
mess110
04. Dec 2017 · 12:35 UTC
A little help with aiming would go a long way, I kept missing. However, I enjoyed the experience. With polish this can become a cool game.
grostonton
04. Dec 2017 · 17:20 UTC
Very interesting, I am curious to know how the idea came to you ^^.
🎤 GistNoesis
04. Dec 2017 · 17:51 UTC
@grostonton I have my real life tower defense : (check my "Linn photobooth" tracking video) :) . But more to the point, I use Ludum Dare as an exploratory week-end to try ideas I can't test during work. So this was the opportunity to use Three.js. And currently I'm experiencing a paradigm shift towards "system's thinking" with emerging behaviour resulting from simple interactions. So I tried to add this bit (did you notice you can get fire to propagate across grass balls :) ? ). The theme was quite uninspiring to me so it forced me to reflect upon it, and after a few iterations I chose this game philosophy : "You throw some balls some hit, some don't but they come back, you set your own pace but you'll have to manage". Add a little too much Tetris when I was kid, and you get this game.
ditzel
04. Dec 2017 · 21:03 UTC
The control could be more fluent and the pace is a little bit too high for me. But +1 for an HTML Game and +1 for the sound!
TheTopHatNoob
05. Dec 2017 · 00:15 UTC
A fun game that definitely ramps into a challenge. I really liked how well it runs online. At least for me, it loaded fast and the gameplay was responsive. And you want to sing to yourself the song "I won't back down" as you play. As some other people had stated the aiming is a little hard. Overall I really liked it though.
Almost Panda Studio
05. Dec 2017 · 00:49 UTC
Took me a while to understand all the concepts, but once I got it, it was fun! The only thing I still don't get is how you lose (I was expecting some kind of feedback on the game)
🎤 GistNoesis
05. Dec 2017 · 09:35 UTC
@thetophatnoob : Glad you got the Johnny Cash reference :)

@almost-panda-studio : Thanks for the feedback. The rule is you lose when one enemy (Big sphere touch your half-space (i.e. y < 0 ). But you are right that I should have repositioned the camera to better show the player where the line was crossed.
BinarySpark
05. Dec 2017 · 13:33 UTC
An odd take on the theme. Aiming could be a bit difficult, and if there's a lot of spheres coming at you it's nearly impossible to fend them all off. I do like the concept though, with some polish this could make for an excellent, say, mobile game!
Dumivid
05. Dec 2017 · 19:23 UTC
I think you should use 4 elements instead of 5 for better user understanding of rock, scissor, paper system. Also it is a problem with with aim but i think the main issue is not the control itself but the camera perspective, i just can't predict where sphere come from. In general solid game, especyaly if you did audio solo. Good job.
GeorgeBGreen
05. Dec 2017 · 20:09 UTC
This could benefit a lot from a better system for aiming. The mouse would probably work a lot better. The arrow keys just don't really work for this kind of thing. I really liked the music, you know your way around piano keys!
🎤 GistNoesis
05. Dec 2017 · 21:20 UTC
@dumivid thanks for the feedback. Yes I should probably have add an easy mode without the air element. The ball are constantly accelerating towards you (it's meant to add some pressure like they are coming to get you), which makes them harder to feel where they are going because these are not trajectories we as humans are used to. But with a little practice you can get used to it.

@georgebgreen The controls were meant to feel like a 3d version of "Tetris", the aiming is quite natural once you get used to it but I concede that it feels unusual at first (see above). Glad you like my music. The controls are meant to induce fast repetitive key-presses in rhythm with the fast paced music.
THX1342
06. Dec 2017 · 11:53 UTC
This is an interesting one :D Aiming is difficult because of the perspective, but you get the hang of it after a while. The most fun I had, tho, was in the sandbox mode, trying to break the game with hundreds of spheres! :D
Rature
07. Dec 2017 · 09:06 UTC
interesting concept, (maybe for a puzzle bubble ?) the game is a bit hard for me so i played in "I" mode,
(also played your LD39 game, it was very fun ! )
Kutase
07. Dec 2017 · 21:42 UTC
Lol. Got fun from this =)
eptwalabha
07. Dec 2017 · 21:55 UTC
Nice game.
As someone mentioned in the comment, you should put a assistance to guide the player's aiming (an arrow or [a 3D dashed path](https://threejs.org/examples/webgl_lines_dashed.html)). Static perspective cameras are not the best to appreciate distances and directions.
It was fun nonetheless. Congratulation on your submission.
dimesto52
07. Dec 2017 · 23:35 UTC
fun but very very hard to many bulets for too many target in the start time
Hilvon
08. Dec 2017 · 01:06 UTC
The gameplay is too hectic, especially the way you need to target in 3D without the usual finesse of mouse aiming. And the fact that the canon is not aligned with the camera makes things even harder.

I like the idea how elements are interacting, but for example green elements need to be hit twice - first by fire and then by water to destroy. And without a fast way to switch elements between those two. All the games end up being short. Really short.
alottabit
08. Dec 2017 · 01:19 UTC
Interesting concept, but the controls were too frustrating. Holding down keys to aim the cannon has a delay, and it's very hard to get the vertical component correct.

For these reasons it wasn't too much fun in the normal mode, but I did enjoy messing around in the immortal mode for a bit.
🎤 GistNoesis
08. Dec 2017 · 02:18 UTC
@dimesto52 There is a mechanism in place to make people tilt : If they restart the game immediately without taking a few seconds to breathe, they will have extra balls at the start (allowing them to grow their score back faster). Also the pace of the game is mainly determined by how many bullets you shoot.

@hilvon thanks for the feedback.

@alottabit The controls are intended Tetris like, sorry you didn't like them but you're not the only one :) I'll do my best to make the controls more user friendly in my next Ludum Dare.
Tim Eriksen
08. Dec 2017 · 13:22 UTC
Nice little game! I think it would have been a better experience if the aiming arrow extended indefinitely as it is a bit hard to aim the way it works now. The music was cool! All in all a job well done :)
Grentacular
12. Dec 2017 · 02:52 UTC
Like others said, using the keyboard to control the aim seems clunky. Also, the perspective makes it harder to tell where you actually are aiming on the y axis. I'd say either restrict things to a two-dimensional plane or maybe aim from a first-person perspective. I did like the interaction between the elemental orbs, though. Nice work overall!
Pixelome
12. Dec 2017 · 10:10 UTC
The game would really benefit from an easy mode with two or three elements. If you wanted to keep the aiming mechanism I would add a line (laser pointer) so it is easier to see where you are aiming.
Zinkler
12. Dec 2017 · 10:56 UTC
Obviously the controls aren't any suitable, but forget about. I only came here to say one thing - this is the first game in ~40 played during this LD that receives 5 stars for the Music. It's just perfect. Can I get it somehow?
🎤 GistNoesis
12. Dec 2017 · 15:03 UTC
@Pixelome laser pointer wouldn't do it because of gravity but @eptwalabha suggested 3d dashed lines to me.

@zinkler glad you enjoyed the music. Look at the source search for "mp3", and grab the file you liked (There are 2 distinct audio clips of unequal quality which I randomly AB test :) ).
Zinkler
12. Dec 2017 · 23:14 UTC
@gistnoesis - are you sure that you didn't forget to provide the source code? Both links seem to have the same address, and I can't find the way to get the source code from that page.
🎤 GistNoesis
13. Dec 2017 · 01:14 UTC
@zinkler This is a single self-contained html page. You open it in your browser and then you do a "view source" (depending on your browser it may be inside the "developer tools" menu). Or you can use your text editor and open the URL.
notime4games
20. Dec 2017 · 23:08 UTC
My score was 777!
Controls were super hard
Also it was really hard to see what height the balls were coming from so aiming was really hard
M-1
21. Dec 2017 · 11:50 UTC
Sometimes it was difficult to set the shooting direction to hit the enemy. I got score 7375.

The game could be more polished (fonts, more complex object models, terrain/background, ...) but it't definitely not bad for a Compo entry made in "raw" JavaScript without any game-making-optimized libraries!

(You might want to look at triplanar texture mapping to help you with texturing spheres.)
🎤 GistNoesis
21. Dec 2017 · 17:52 UTC
@m-1 thanks. I didn't know about triplanar texture mapping.