LudumData

Monster herding by Ryu

[raw]
made by Ryu for Ludum Dare 45 (COMPO)

Monster herding~ A tower defense game where you choose the path (NOW WITH BROWSER SUPPORT).

Build turrets to force the monsters to follow a specific path; careful, turrets cannot be deconstructed once built!

Monsters spawn on the purple tile, aim for the red tile, move fastest on the light green tiles, and slowest on the brown ones.

Turrets start with ineffective bullets, but can be upgraded to either high impact shells for maximum single target damage, or explosive shells for aoe damage.

Edit: I removed the windows build for the game, as it seems to have been giving issues and I couldn't find a way to properly fix it, BUT I have added an HTML5 (WebGL) build, so anyone should be able to play it though their browser!

Youtube https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XuA4WO3EuUsbL_8S-ok7yisDyC79gKJU
Youtube https://www.sharemygame.com/share/edb5212d-d37e-4a9c-86be-52fdcd0b0dfc
Youtube https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sbODDbfR452r2wF-BtRspSCndeGauSJ7
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/monster-herding

Ratings

Overall 432th 2.947⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 403th 2.789⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 505th 2.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 461th 2.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 387th 2.833⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 467th 2.184⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 12🗨️

Feedback

🎤 Ryu
06. Oct 2019 · 22:57 UTC
I hope you guys enjoy my second entry ever!!! I'm a bit worried about performance on level 2, feel free to let me know if you encounter any issues.
winslow
07. Oct 2019 · 04:23 UTC
@ryu I can't seem to get it to play properly. Here's a screen cap. I click build turret and I select a bullet type but nothing happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgq0hTgzmeA
🎤 Ryu
07. Oct 2019 · 08:31 UTC
@winslow Oh wow,the whole world isn't even rendering for you! I'll see what I can do, funnily enough, when I made an WebGL version, the exact opposite happened, the world rendered, but the UI didn't, I'll have to try and get a hold of a Windows machine to figure out what's going on. Thanks for letting me know @winslow !!!
evgenimp
08. Oct 2019 · 13:35 UTC
Pretty neat. Somesurprising depth here. QUiet enjoyed it. Good job.
Griz
08. Oct 2019 · 13:38 UTC
@ryu Thanks for uploading the WebGL version!

Nice variation of a tower defense game, where money for turrets is not a problem, but their placement.

I've found out a trick that you can do by placing the turret on the spawn tile, then moving one tile at a time towards the end, until you have the whole level in turrets:
![Oops.png](///raw/add/91/z/28caa.png)

Played in a normal way too, and both playthroughs were fun. Well done!
Zhorky
08. Oct 2019 · 13:43 UTC
I generally love tower defense games. The 2nd one was a bit challenging at first, but managed to win it fairly easy on my 2nd try.
Mad Brokli
08. Oct 2019 · 13:44 UTC
Fun Game. Not very challenging tho.
superunknown
08. Oct 2019 · 13:48 UTC
I enjoyed your game! I thought it was nice how the placement of the turrets determined the path of the enemies instead of a preset path. Nice pathfinding code! Perhaps it would be nice to add some sort of mechanic that prohibts you from building as many towers as possible...a spending system or something. Although with 48 hours I know its tough! Well done!
🎤 Ryu
08. Oct 2019 · 15:39 UTC
@griz WHAT!? How did you even..?! Hahaha, I guess players will always find exploits no matter how thorough you think you are ;) I'm pretty sure I know why that happens, and could fix it by just making so that towers can be placed on the start tile, or adding another if to a certain while loop, but I think I'll leave it in as a reminder to myself :) Thanks for playing! Really appreciate it :)
🎤 Ryu
08. Oct 2019 · 15:44 UTC
@evgenimp @zhorky @mad-brokli Thanks guys! I'm just really glad it was possible to beat at all! That second level was "designed" completely during submission hour, and was all just gut feelings about what would be possible. I spent most of my ludem dare time designing systems so that I could easily design different levels and upgrades and things, an low and behold, I only ended up with two levels and two upgrades XD. Tanks again for playing :). Btw, what startegies did you guys use to win? A bunch of aoe rounds at the start and high impact rounds for the rest?
🎤 Ryu
08. Oct 2019 · 15:47 UTC
@superunknown Thanks man, I completely agree, as it is now you can just dump all your turrets down (just double clicking build to get insta high-impact rounds) and leave the game running while you go do something else waiting for it to win. Maybe a button to instantly start spawning the next wave, with a point system would be good, and could possibly have some speed running potential!
Zhorky
08. Oct 2019 · 18:17 UTC
@ryu i first built a U shape around the target, then cut one side off and "spiraled" on the outer border as good as possible
IanTyf
08. Oct 2019 · 20:40 UTC
Great game! I love how you make tower defense game unique by throwing away the money system in order to highlight the importance of positioning. Good work! How can you say no to a TD game right?
someone
20. Oct 2019 · 20:31 UTC
Some kind of progress indicator would have been useful. I ended up doing something else while the level played out as it was quite easy to get to a state where nearly everything was dying on the first tile. Does level 2 ever end? Things seemed to just stop spawning after a while.
Had trouble selecting some tiles in the second level for some reason.
Derek Volker
21. Oct 2019 · 17:05 UTC
Cool concept and nice execution.

I find the lack of sound compromising regarding the game experience. The game could be really improved with sfx and background music.

The graphics however are pretty nice and the mechanics easy to learn.

Good job on this game!
karlipoppins
22. Oct 2019 · 06:22 UTC
Love the graphics and pathfinding algorithm, especially level 2. Love the ability to have different types of ammo for towers which you need to switch depending on the ennemy wave. Really adds variety to the game. Wish you would have added some audio. Really cool little tower defense.