M3 DEFENSE by rplnt

[raw]
made by rplnt for LD 41 (COMPO)

Match-3 meets (broken) Tower Defense!

screen1.jpg

Place (random) towers when you have the cash. Upgrade by matching three (or more) towers of the same type. Prevent playing balls from reaching the other side.

UPDATE Added all builds (WebGL had to be build with beta version of Unity, so...)

Instructions

  • Mouse to place towers
  • Scroll wheel to swap towers
  • Press "GO" to start next wave
  • Match 3 or more towers to upgrade

Known issues

  • game over screen doesn't work in standalone builds (10th wave finishes = you've won)
  • sometimes you can build towers during wave running
  • towers sometimes don't shoot when they should

Tools used

  • Inkscape
  • Unity3D
  • Paint.NET
  • Visual Studio

Enjoy!

Ratings

Overall 455th 3.205⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 400th 3.19⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 339th 3.386⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 271th 3.75⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 408th 3.114⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 527th 2.643⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 19🗳️ 7🗨️

Feedback

soloinabox
23. Apr 2018 · 13:18 UTC
Overall a solid game and a great take on the theme! I really love how the grass is in front of certain objects, it really helps create an awesome layer of depth.
el-pepi
23. Apr 2018 · 21:25 UTC
Good and simple game with nice graphics. It needs sound!
fazz
25. Apr 2018 · 21:56 UTC
Nice pairing of game genres. I bit of sound would go a long way though.
p-r
28. Apr 2018 · 13:05 UTC
cool idea, simple and it plays nice
Psychedelia
07. May 2018 · 00:03 UTC
I loved the match3 towers! Good job on that. Me and my towers stood and defended our path proudly, but the bowling ball army got through us at the last wave and the balls prevailed... The towers sitting in the grass effect is very cool. Good job!
Reddogstone
08. May 2018 · 09:57 UTC
Well, that's a great idea! I have to admit, I love tower-defense, so I might be biased ^^ I couldn't figure out, where the towers would merge, though. Would be nice to know this or even being able to select.
Apace
08. May 2018 · 17:23 UTC
Woo, I made it! Just barely though, two of the bowling balls got through in the last wave! Score of 127, not sure if that's good or not.

Anyway, this is a really nice idea. The match-3 mechanics add a whole new layer of tactical depth to the tower defense genre which is surprisingly fun. Good job! :)
Poio
08. May 2018 · 22:24 UTC
Hey !

I want you to know that I scored 106 and died at the very last bowling bowl of level 10 !
But nice tower defense.
The match3 may need a little tweaking : it's very frustrating when you'd like to destroy a misplaced tower, and when you'd like to make the 2 tower set horizontally.
Otherwise, nice game. Lacks sound, as others said, but fondamentally, it works.

I'm in dire need of ratings as well, feel free to pass by :
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/asimovs-breakout
LeReveur
09. May 2018 · 00:32 UTC
121 on my best. Interesting idea, but there is some problems that make it less fun that it could. First, at each wave, at least one of the towers never fire. After few waves, it's handable, but for the first ones, losing is randomness. Second, it's really difficult to anticipate where the upgraded tower will end, and so, upgrading to 3 is also very random. And third, the only two-towers shape is vertical, and even with the ability to switch, this is still hard to get something good.
Anyway, good job, the game is playable and enough challenging that I didn't give up until I win. :)
Beebo Studios
09. May 2018 · 00:40 UTC
It's a cool idea! The graphics work well and the matching mechanics feel quite unique. I had a recurring bug however, where about 1/3 of my towers doesn't shoot at all. I wasn't able to get past wave three because of this. However, I figure it's a bug because others managed to get much further, so I don't hold it against your game.
soylalluvia
09. May 2018 · 02:35 UTC
Needs some sound to accompany fun-ness! We played it for nearly 30 minutes - awesome job!
Trenogre
09. May 2018 · 03:18 UTC
Very fun game. Got to wave 10 and lost :(

Loved the stack three mechanic though I found it a little hard control wise to make things work. While im not the best strategist, some of the controls made it a little difficult to stack three in certain locations, specifically anywhere on top of the track. Also adding in some horizontally placed towers could add a bit more wiggle room (though it might also add difficulty so...)

Overall though i had heaps of fun, loved the graphics and game play heaps. Well done!
serwaastudio
09. May 2018 · 13:25 UTC
Yippy, after playing some rounds and getting a hang of the mechanisms I won and got 133 points :D It was a really fun game with nice graphics.
MufinMcFlufin
12. May 2018 · 15:17 UTC
Personally, I didn't care for it much. I couldn't ever tell if any of the colors made a difference, or if they were there purely for the match-3, I (like others here) ran into the issue with turrets randomly not firing (if you did this in unity, depending on your implementation I may have a few tips), and not being able to reposition the pairs of turrets was very frustrating. The attacks from my turrets never felt like they had any impact. It'd be nice to see if the enemies took some recoil on being hit or lost health, but I know my own Tower Defense could have used this as well.

That all being said, I just personally didn't find it much fun. To me, it felt like it was missing several key elements to hold the player's (or at least my own) engagement.