Cell Defence by bongo227

You are a nanobot tasked with defending the nucleus from the virus. How many rounds can you withstand the attack? How to play
How to play
You start with 25 seconds to prepare before the next wave. Fly around the edge of the cell to find where the viruses are planning to mount their attack. After the preparation timer is up, blast the hostile DNA they release.
Destroying the hostile DNA will drop protein points (PP). Once you have collected all the protein points head back to the nucleus and press E to interact. The nucleus allows you to purchase turrets with PP. Surrounding the nucleus are 3 mitochondria which offer powerful upgrades for PP.
Hopefully you are ready for the next round, because the virus is returning, and it won't be so easily defeated this time!
Controls
- W - fly up
- S - fly down
- A - fly left
- D - fly right
- E - interact
- Left click - Shoot
Ratings
| Overall | 341th | 3.62⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 182th | 3.74⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 759th | 3⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 196th | 4.02⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 566th | 3.38⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 649th | 2.78⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 782th | 2.136⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 761th | 2.9⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 23🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
Since the times of Star Gate I just love nano technology. Movement was smooth, didnt have any problem with it. I also went to the boarders to look from what the virus is spawned for and I saw the boogie man. It proves nice touch for details. Graphics was also very well done. Nice and clear. I just missed something to visualize the range of the turret. I was not sure where to place him to have a proper effect. If there would be some visualisation it would add element to the game because I would try to build my own network of turrets.
Anyway for some reason I missed something because I was not able to get into the mood. Maybe some ambient music in the bacground?
Anyway, good job!
I'd love to see an expanded version, securing more territory, building up a strong outpost, moving your attention somewhere else, different cells/cell parts to generate resources, defense, and upgrades.
One thing to note, the Windows build appears to have bugs. It would pause for about a quarter of a second each time an enemy died, and the console window was filled with errors. The web version worked fine though.
The controls are very easy to use and I like that I can build towers. It would be awesome if I could upgrade them as well! :-) Awesome Job, thank you!
@willypa, @machnikl, @justalocalhero, glad you liked the controls, I spent a while refining them!
@snory I definitely want to learn how to produce some decent music for next time :smiley:
Other than that great game!
A couple of small improvements: I think that it would be better to have non-scrollable text boxes on the mitochondria, either enlarging the box or shortening the text - perhaps with a symbolic representation of the upgrade rather than a worded one? My other main issue was that I couldn't figure out a way to disable the placement of turrets. There were a few occasions where I forgot the nucleus proximity rule on placement and then lost the game because I had to leave the nucleus unattended to get rid of the turret I was holding. :stuck_out_tongue: And as a more obvious point, some music wouldn't go astray I reckon
The first time I played I didn't notice the mitochondria could be used to upgrade your ship, so maybe adding some sort of tutorial messages at the beginning (and perhaps an upgrade type symbol on the mitochondrion itself) would work well.
Also, speaking about upgrades, the bullet lifetime / range could use some improvement. I guess it works fine at the beginning, but the more enemies come the worse it gets. It would be nice if the player could upgrade their range.
I liked using the virus to mark the direction of the next attack, though it was a bit difficult to find them all in the time between the waves, especially when you need to also upgrade your ship and place some turrets in the same time. Maybe increasing that time a bit would help.
Oh, and one final bugbear I had with the game - the lack of autofire. Without it, the game relies on player's ability to spam their mouse button, which isn't really a good design. Players who don't like that will have a harder time, while players who can and like that will have an overpowered ship easily destroying all enemies. Adding autofire would add another direction of upgrades for your ship (reducing the time between shots).
All in all, a good entry. I had fun playing it. ;)