LudumData

Evil Forest Battle by devharts

[raw]
made by devharts for LD 42 (JAM)

You are a wizard, and the village needs you! The evil forest is expanding at a terrifying rate, threatening to consume all available space, and you must use your spells to stop it.

Screenshots:

2018-08-13-0223_FinalGameplay.png

2018-08-13-0318_Spells.png

2018-08-13-0228_LevelSelect.png

How to play:

  • Cast spells by clicking on one of the evil trees
  • Use the buttons at the bottom of the screen to choose which of the six elements to use
  • Evil trees are immune to their same colored element, so choose wisely!
  • Collect magic orbs of each element as you cast magic
  • Upgrade your spells to damage more tiles at once

Development Notes:

This was built as an experiment using ReactJS, and due to time constraints wasn't able to do anything fancy with the visuals or include any animations or sounds. It also would've been nice to be able to explore the balancing and level progression more, and in retrospect I probably should've chosen something simpler for a single-weekend project.

HTML5 (web) https://devharts.com/ldjam42/
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/evil-forest-battle

Ratings

Overall 988th 3⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Fun 870th 2.939⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 813th 2.97⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Theme 569th 3.53⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 972th 2.833⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Humor 859th 1.944⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 903th 2.717⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 34🗳️ 22🗨️

Feedback

phantomopenboxing
14. Aug 2018 · 00:44 UTC
Very interesting game. I love the grinding nature of it, even if you don't beat a level the first time, you can go back. Dumb question, how do you kill the red trees?
Rodrigo Ramirez
14. Aug 2018 · 00:49 UTC
I like to know if some spells have advantage to a kind of tree.

¡nice!
TheCommonThug
14. Aug 2018 · 00:51 UTC
Cool concept. Needs some sounds!!
luckyDaisy
14. Aug 2018 · 00:54 UTC
Really cute design. Love the idea + execution.. Ran into a small bug where i couldnt keep playing but a refresh is fine by me to try again :D. Keep up the good work
m2u-84
14. Aug 2018 · 00:54 UTC
Neat puzzle game you put together here. Enjoyed it quite a lot. Congrats on your submission and good luck!
Scott Purcival
14. Aug 2018 · 00:54 UTC
Clean presentation and game, embodied the theme well.
I did not feel like there was a method to the game, just click a tree? not sure how or if there is a strategy.
jdhollen
14. Aug 2018 · 00:56 UTC
This is a surprising little game--it seems very simple at first, but then you actually realize on the later levels that you need to stare at the board for a moment before just going crazy. Good stuff!
DarrenH
14. Aug 2018 · 01:02 UTC
Fun puzzle game, a little tough being colourblind though :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
Perhaps if time allows next time the different element trees are distinct or have the element symbol on them or something.
iLoveYourFace
14. Aug 2018 · 01:14 UTC
![Capture.JPG](///raw/bd7/31/z/18c15.jpg)

I think it would be good to have a counter of how many trees there are just so it's easier to tell how many new trees are being added. Other than that it's pretty cool!
🎤 devharts
14. Aug 2018 · 04:34 UTC
Thanks everyone for taking the time to check out my little game! I really appreciate all the feedback and suggestions.

To answer the recurring question about the tree colors and strategy for defeating them, the trees are "immune" to spells of their own color, with the buttons at the bottom of the screen controlling which element you're currently using for casting spells.

(I can definitely see how it's not that obvious though -- kinda ran out of time for adding visual effects / in-game tutorials / anything else that might've made it clearer what's going on, haha. Lots of great ideas for polish if I decide to continue on this after the jam is over! :D)
Kisamegr
14. Aug 2018 · 13:25 UTC
Wow simple but challenging puzzle game. Took me 2 levels to get what is going on, but after the 3rd one I had my strategy: farm a color until 25 to be able to control/stall the first levels, while farming the rest of the colors.
Anna Petrova
16. Aug 2018 · 13:52 UTC
Interesting game. Nice art.
tacohej
17. Aug 2018 · 06:20 UTC
Cool concept and successful experiment with react JS. I think the game could improved alot just by making each spell unique when you upgrade it. Like maybe light could be 5 tiles in a row instead of a cross.

Anyway, good job!
Roman Petrov
17. Aug 2018 · 08:48 UTC
Nice little game. It's interesting to see a work done not in some game engine. Nice match to the theme, a nice base for something bigger.
CristiHKJ
18. Aug 2018 · 07:38 UTC
Great game! Very cool and interesting! :D
Mammabouter
18. Aug 2018 · 09:20 UTC
I could not figure out how get rid of the red trees. But cool concept.
jordan ajlouni
19. Aug 2018 · 03:26 UTC
I like the feeling as the trees get out of hand and overwhelm the screen, though that only happens if I'm losing. Since they tend to snowball out of control, I felt like I hit a point of no return where I had already lost thus losing all tension of the screen filling up. I did like the flow otherwise and was a pleasant experience. The thing I was most confused about is I couldn't anticipate the spawning of the trees. Having some predictability to allow some strategy to cut off their growth would be cool.
Arch
19. Aug 2018 · 03:50 UTC
Good job with your game. Graphics were simple and non cluttered. I ended up needing to grind earlier levels (something I never have had to do in a puzzle game before) before I could progress past level 5. Im not sure how I feel about that. More upgrades would be nice. I think you have a solid concept which warrants further work.
JesterSeraph
19. Aug 2018 · 04:00 UTC
Very nice user interface / graphics, and very smooth gameplay. Tutorials or other notes would have helped a bit more as I had issues with level 3, not sure how the elements work (a part from same != same).

Awesome job with the HTML5 game!
naali
19. Aug 2018 · 04:04 UTC
Got caught in a grind cycle like in an RPG, clicking around until I could level my spells up.
amkingTRP
23. Aug 2018 · 04:02 UTC
Once I got a few spells leveled up it started becoming beatable and fun. Whilst the spells were on the single block I has no idea what I was doing, so started looking to see if there were cellular automata style rules for how the trees spread (e.g. if they have a neighbour to the north then spread south, etc) which got me even more confused.
Rahim_Pxr
27. Aug 2018 · 00:35 UTC
Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner.
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
piscythe
27. Aug 2018 · 00:39 UTC
Interesting idea. I could see something like this as a popular casual mobile game or a more in-depth puzzler depending on how you decided to expand the mechanics. I'm not sure if trying to powerlevel only a couple of spells was the best strategy, but those tier 2/3 spells certainly make a huge difference. I cleared the whole game and never quite understood the growth rules. Good work!
schizoid2k
27. Aug 2018 · 18:12 UTC
Nice start! Continue development, and I think this could make a pretty nice mobile game.