Prototype Towers by marbles

Long ago, there was a prophecy that says there will be an alien invasion sometime in the future. In order to prepare for it, people have started developing defensive towers. But the aliens learned about it and so they have set to attack the facility.
Unfortunately, the towers are still in the prototype stage! They overheat easily and must be fixed and restarted every time it happens.
Defend your base while keeping your towers functioning.
Controls: Mouse and Arrow Keys
[6/10/2020 Update] Long overdue post jam version has been uploaded in my itch.io page!
| Youtube | https://marbles88.itch.io/ld46-prototype-towers |
| Youtube | https://marbles88.itch.io/ld46-prototype-towers |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/prototype-towers |
Ratings
| Overall | 1534th | 3.357⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 874th | 3.49⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 655th | 3.571⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1744th | 3.408⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 2071th | 2.806⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1887th | 2.143⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 2191th | 2.689⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 46🗳️ | 63🗨️ |
The difficulty spike wasn't as gradual as I was hoping, but it was still really good. Maybe some tooltips to describe the towers more would've been nice - i didn't realize one of them was blowing up my other towers until it was too late! The last round was definitely worth saving money for, as I couldn't click between them fast enough.
Overall, great work!
It's rare to find a good tower defense game come from a jam.
I love the mechanic of fixing the towers, I don't believe I've ever seen something like that in a game before, so points for innovation.
Music and sound effects fit well.
And difficulty curve is good, and there's just enough content to have a good session.
Good job!
Nice game!
Maybe add an easy mode: Towers don't get destroyed when they overheat, just cooling down and firing again by themselfs. And let them be repaired before they reached the critical temperature. So the game works better for lazy, slow folks ;).
Nice and polished entry - everything seems to be working as intended.
Congrats on your entry :thumbsup_tone1:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
A little too hard IMO, but that's not critical, just need a little balancing. Good job!
Greato Jobu! :smile:
well done!
I was expecting just another tower defense game but with frantic repairing, but it made me engage my brain a new way, pleasantly surprised! (P.S. I got to level 9).
One thing that is just a thought is that maybe they do break a little bit too often - so often that there's a point where buying further turrets for me wasn't worth it because I knew I was going to lose them. So I guess that depends on what kind of experience you'd want players to have.
@sndr Thanks! I want that kind of experience where there's some decision making. Not the typical tower defense where you just put a new tower and just watch them kill the monsters.
But I really enjoyed the "do your own fixing" mechanic! It really feels like I have way more control over the game and how things go. It feels good with the enemies progressively changing as well!
It does get difficult as the game progresses, but it was manageable for quite a while. I loved that there was more to the game than first expected. Good game!
The game feels very nice!
But the idea with repair towers changes game type.
In my opinion, this is so hard to use a keyboard for another task in the tower defense game.
The repair mechanic is really good. Usually, tower defense games devolve into just placing more and more towers, going for the sheer quantity. Some of them have tower upgrades, which reduces that a bit, but not by much. The repair mechanic totally fixes that problem. Of course, you still need more turrets to damage more and tougher monsters, but you also need to make sure you can keep up with the repairs.
One thing I'd get rid of is the timer on repairs. I feel like the repair itself mitigates player's efforts well enough, since they can only repair one tower at a time. Having the towers get destroyed when you don't manage to fix it in time seems like too much punishment. Just leave the damaged turret there, it will be a hindrance to the player until they manage to repair it.
Also, the third tower's ability to destroy your own towers (including itself!) doesn't really feel that good. Perhaps it could be replaced by something like a mine - you'd place it on the path and it would be one use only splash damage to everything in the area. With proper warning that it does damage your turrets, it should work fine.
I've played it twice and managed to win my second game. The music is really good, it does fit the game's frantic gameplay well. Overall, it's a very good idea, and a pretty good execution. I liked it. ;)
Thanks for having the time to give feedback even if the event is done!