LudumData

Careful Defense by tsombi100

[raw]
made by tsombi100 for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Careful Defense is a strategy tower defense game with a little twist. You only get money when enemies get to the end. However, you lose your hearths too. The more health monster has the more damage you'll take. You can buy towers and more health with this money.

This creates interesting gameplay, where you don't want to kill the enemies but want to get their health as low as possible, so you don't lose much health.

There are multiple types of cannons and monsters, each with different stats. Some cannons fit better for a certain situation than others. Monsters come in endless waves that keep getting harder; Monsters get harder to defeat and more monsters come as time goes on. How far can you survive?

What was made during the jam? All the art was made for this game. I didn't reuse any old textures. The music and sound effects were made during the jam. Also all the coding happened within the 72 hours. CD4.PNG CD5.PNG

Youtube https://tsombi100.itch.io/careful-defense
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/careful-defense

Ratings

Overall 932th 3.607⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 524th 3.679⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 145th 3.982⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 844th 3.821⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 2048th 2.839⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 1195th 3.077⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1843th 2.212⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1938th 2.929⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 31🗨️

Feedback

marrero171
22. Apr 2020 · 06:02 UTC
Pretty interesting game concept. It was fun hurting those little guys while not killing them to get some money. Some death effects or death sounds would've been nice I feel. I didn't like that it didn't have a wave system. I feel in these kind of games waves are pretty important. It gets ridiculous after a few minutes of gameplay, to the point that I can't do anything about the incoming enemies. I feel you should've capped the enemy limit to a certain number. Maybe send lots of weaker enemies in bursts and then pull out the big guns. Overall I quite enjoyed this game and I would play more if it had extra levels!
Also a picture to see what I mean. Almost 300 seconds, not bad.
![Capture.PNG](///raw/e71/d2/z/322a0.png)
ShreyasRao_TS
22. Apr 2020 · 06:02 UTC
Really good game. liked its balance between the money and life. but after 250seconds I could just keep buying life as I the monster kept generating and I could keep getting money to buy life.
Hoseccan
22. Apr 2020 · 06:04 UTC
Very addictive gameplay, which is undoubtedly cool)
sharbelfs
22. Apr 2020 · 06:08 UTC
I missed the tutorial at the beginning because I was trying to kill everyone... LOL, after that, took me a little while to understand the rules, but it's a very interesting twist for the gender. would be interesting to have either some enemy or some weapon to also be able to restore life (I didn't find anything like that, not sure if I missed as well).
but anyway, very nice game, well done!
marvalgames
22. Apr 2020 · 06:43 UTC
So you did this in one day?? Finish it up :) It's already darn good with room to grow
Jack Kaloger
22. Apr 2020 · 06:51 UTC
Good fun!

Interesting take on tower defence - would love to see this fleshed out, trying to keep that equilibrium between health and cash could be very addictive.
barret
22. Apr 2020 · 07:06 UTC
wow this is a really cool idea for tower defense. It adds a totally different kind of strategy. sometimes you wanna sell towers to stop them from damaging so you can get money but not loose health. I love tower defense games. This was a solid game. for sure
marbles
22. Apr 2020 · 07:13 UTC
It is a nice mechanic and it really makes you think about where to place your towers for to make your losses as low as possible. It's an interesting take on the theme. I mean it's a tower defense game but at the same time you need to keep the enemies alive. I think the music doesn't the game.

Try my game, it's also a tower defense game!
Delunado
22. Apr 2020 · 10:47 UTC
Cool concept, I like how you implemented the theme, and the twist on the classic genre is good. Maybe a little short, because near the 300 seconds it becomes impossible, but it's okay. Good job!
🎤 tsombi100
22. Apr 2020 · 12:08 UTC
@delunado yea, I know how crazy it gets. I added that because I hadn't much time to make more come, but I'll make more content if I decide to continue with this idea
Rens Jan
22. Apr 2020 · 13:07 UTC
One of the best tower defences in the jam I played. i really loved the difference of letting them survive. As a quality of life maybe implement targeting like first/last enemy. This would add a tactical layer. I also liked the music
Khud0
22. Apr 2020 · 13:07 UTC
Interesting, I always wanted to see a tower defense in which you'd have a good reason to sell towers! Well done making a reverse tower defense! :)
gurkenlabs
22. Apr 2020 · 13:23 UTC
Really interesting variation of an established gameplay concept. The music is nice and there was enough variation to keep players motivated.
I would recommend adding more clearly visible projectiles when the towers shoot: The "poof" effect didn't really feel satisfying.
svdvorak
22. Apr 2020 · 13:43 UTC
Really cool concept and a pretty good implementation. I wish you had more control over which enemies the towers attacked, usually the enemy in the front took all the shots. Got to 294 seconds at which the screen was just full of enemies and I was spamming the healing button :)
Kaan Alpar
22. Apr 2020 · 14:54 UTC
Survived for 298ish seconds and I'm pretty sure the game got impossible to survive at that point. The health mechanic is good but I think it turned the game into "how fast can you buy health while countless enemies infiltrate your base". Couldnt really focus on letting enemies live or their health as the game kind of got hectic quickly after the first couple minutes. I hope this feedback is useful to you, nice job
BilalCh213
22. Apr 2020 · 15:06 UTC
Very interesting concept! It follows the theme with a different perspective: instead of keeping the player alive, we have to keep the enemy alive. My game is also tower defense but with management blended in it! :D
PaoloGinefra
22. Apr 2020 · 17:53 UTC
Nice, original and a bit weird idea. Overall pretty fun
PerpetuumMobile
22. Apr 2020 · 22:26 UTC
The game needs some balancing, but it's incredibly fun and it's a very original idea. Liked it a lot!
ion-programming
23. Apr 2020 · 02:11 UTC
Very cool! It felt like the towers should have changed targets more often, rather than the poor guy they initially target.
pabulum
23. Apr 2020 · 18:17 UTC
Nice job! loved the concept. I'm not usually a tower defense guy but had a lot of fun with this. The only thing id love to have been able to do is be able to better spread out my turrets to attack different targets. Maybe a way to slow down the front runner so the guys behind him get ahead.
boboman
23. Apr 2020 · 21:58 UTC
Loved the gameplay, fun idea and innovating concept for tower defense. Would definitely see myself playing future versions of this. I liked the mixture of pixel art and very high res text for UI, and the music and sound was well done. Really well done over all nice work!
Mika la Grand
26. Apr 2020 · 17:03 UTC
Very interesting idea, but I wish the player had more control over the towers. Like how long to attack a certain enemy. At the moment, the towers just attack the enemy furthest along the path; meaning that the first is killed and the others have a lot of heath. This seems unfair to me as the player. Though, I managed to survive for 107,54 seconds.