LudumData

Pet Protecc TD by Ithildin

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXk0DCoBOM4

On this Tower defense / Virtual pet game you need to ensure that our blob critter survives across all levels, facing innumerable enemy waves and starvation.

To do so you'll need to defend it by placing turrets along the way. There is a catch, though: you need to take care of the blob's basic needs (for now, the only need is food). If it starves it'll start to take damage. On the other hand, keep it well fed and it will slowly heal itself.

To feed it you need to give it fruits that you can gather from defeated mobs. Note that placing turrets will also consume fruit (fruit is everything in this game world), so balance is important!

Stay tuned for the postmortem stating the usual list of features that got cut.

Controls

  • Tap a turret button and then in the map to place a turret.

  • Tap the FEED button or the blob in the map directly in order to feed it.

  • Others:

    • ESC to reset the whole game.
    • R to restart the current level.
    • F1 to toggle the turrets' detection range display.

Known issues

  • Tapping again on a turret button should deselect it, but it's not working well.
  • Turret placement on Android is far from optimal.

Dev tools:

  • Language/engine/library: Haxeflixel
  • IDE: Haxedevelop
  • Graphics: Aseprite, Texture packer
  • Level edition: Tiled
  • Project mgmt: Trello

Team:

Just me :D

I was aiming for a compo release, but because of a belated start I had to switch to the jam in order to polish a bit more the systems I already had in place. I'm still sticking to the compo rules, which means I did code, art, design and picked sound samples from an online generator by myself.

Changelog

  • 21/04/2020: Submission time!
  • 22/04/2020: Added Android build.
  • 26/04/2020: Added link to the postmortem.
Youtube https://github.com/wildrabbit/ld46-petTD
Youtube http://ithildin.itch.io/ld46
Youtube http://ithildin.itch.io/ld46
Youtube http://ithildin.itch.io/ld46
Youtube https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/pet-protecc-td/$206064
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/pet-protecc-td

Ratings

Overall 794th 3.67⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Fun 595th 3.638⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1740th 3.021⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1116th 3.707⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1246th 3.617⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1091th 2.961⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1234th 3.393⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Given 39🗳️ 77🗨️

Feedback

Ukumeme
21. Apr 2020 · 04:54 UTC
The graphics are pretty cute
Ladycerberus
21. Apr 2020 · 08:57 UTC
Funny to play and love the mechanics to choose on what do you spend your fruit, makes harder to play but more appealing to me. Pet is 💜
palsina
21. Apr 2020 · 13:49 UTC
It's fun to play, the begining of each level is the critical part, the rush to place the first turrets. I love the chime when you complete the level. You should put screenshots from the game in this page, the pixel art is really cute!
Emiliabea
22. Apr 2020 · 02:05 UTC
I had fun with this game, it incorporated the theme really well. I loved the color palette and thought the art was pretty cute, it all just looked really unified. Good job
Laura del Pino
22. Apr 2020 · 14:16 UTC
Good job!! I like the aestetic of you game and I found the hint of the "attack zone" very useful.
Keithdae
22. Apr 2020 · 16:11 UTC
Very nice game, fits the theme perfectly :smile:
Daniel Moreno
23. Apr 2020 · 10:35 UTC
Neat game! The mix between genres work really well. I like the graphics and the mechanic is easily understandable. My only (little) complain is that I didn't know I have activated the "build" mode when I tap a turret on the HUD. I know there's a sound, but it was a bit confusing as I didn't see anything changing on the screen until I moved the cursor to the game area.

Maybe, a way to let the player know that the pet hungry level is low, with a flashing text or something would be nice, too.

Great job overall, you made a great game here!
TheDouche
23. Apr 2020 · 19:25 UTC
Cool game, i can tell you spent a lot of time doing this all alone. Really nice keep up the good work! :D
JulienLussiez
23. Apr 2020 · 19:33 UTC
Nice game ! I like the concept of protecting your pet with the turret, it's a good idea with some tactics and strategy. Well done.
jk5000
23. Apr 2020 · 19:36 UTC
A Fun and very well made jam Tower defence game. Well done.
zguba
23. Apr 2020 · 19:37 UTC
Well done! Although I got to say that sound effect of turret firing is super annoying and hurt my ears when two or more turrets get in sync. Since this sound is played so often and high rate it should be something super seamless.

Cheers mate!
shadowvx000
23. Apr 2020 · 19:42 UTC
@ithildin this has been the most fun I've had since my last tower defense game! It was very enjoyable protecting the pet at bay, feeding him fruit to keep him happy proved to be a "fruitful endeavor"! I can't wait to see future progress. Prioritizing different towers was very strategical. Does that spider web-looking machine slow down enemies?
WilliamCarter
23. Apr 2020 · 19:42 UTC
This game was fun to play! I loved the retro graphics and sfx. It was super stable, I experience no bugs at all, which is rare for a jam game, and I just wish there were some more levels. In terms of expanding on the idea, I'd be interested to see how it would play if the turrets were manned by blobs, so that the more turrets you placed, the more enemies you had to kill. Just an idea for how to get around the lack of difficulty after the first few seconds of each level.
johnnysix
24. Apr 2020 · 00:44 UTC
This was cool, would be cool to see developed with more levels / enemies and turrets.

One minor beef was the grid for the turrets felt super iffy, but other than that, a solid game!

It was tough to juggle remembering to feed the pet and fight off the enemies.

![bearr_ttete.png](///raw/028/2/z/32e8f.png)
karreg
24. Apr 2020 · 09:19 UTC
Pleasant entry :)
But there is a lack of balancing.
Also, the UI can be upgraded, for exemple giving a visual feedback when you select a turret icon to buy one.
🎤 Ithildin
25. Apr 2020 · 20:33 UTC
Thank you all for your comments! I'm glad (and surprised) that you've enjoyed the art, as I wasn't 100% sure about the sprites or even the palette choice: I liked it the minute I tried it, but feared it could feel too aggressive given the concept.

@daniel-moreno Thank you! Yeah, you're right about the turret purchase. It is not the best right now, and once I ported the game to Android it is even less clear, so I need to purchase it.
As for the pet state changes, I was using colour code before, but it didn't fit with the palette, so I had to replace it. Flashing, or some minor scaling tween, could do the trick. Thanks for the suggestion!

@zguba: Sorry about that, sound came in super late and didn't have the time to add a Mute option or polish it.

@shadowvx000 Yes: It is meant to look like a snow flake :sweat_smile: The slowing turret was supposed to freeze enemies, but the palette switch from dev to 4-colour caused the "entangled" vfx on mobs look like a web, so in hindsight it may be more fitting now :smile:

@williamcarter that's an interesting suggestion. My original idea involved different types of interactions and calls to attention from the blob but I had to start with an MVP and then time happened.

@karreg Yeah, the turret purchase feedback is not as clear as I would like to. I discovered a cool feature of Haxeflixel buttons letting you set a spritesheet with the different button states which I did use for the Feed button, but couldn't refactor for the turret buttons. It's one of the clearest improvements I have on my TO-DO list for a hypothetical post-combo.
Izokia
26. Apr 2020 · 01:48 UTC
A very lovely tower defense game! The game was kinda easy and didn't offer much of a challenge, but it was still really fun! I was not one for some of the art and colors, but that is just me. Everything felt nice and fair. Nice submission!
frosty
26. Apr 2020 · 01:49 UTC
This is a cool little tower defense with easy to learn gameplay. :) I like the art and limited palette.

Great entry!
Stefan Laimer
26. Apr 2020 · 01:54 UTC
I really liked this game. I love tower defense games and have played a lot of them, but I have never seen anything like the feeding mechanic, so good job on coming up with such a cool mechanic!
I also really liked the art style.
The only negative thing I could find was the balancing, since you basically only need to spam the basic tower until they kill everything and then just keep feeding the blob. But balancing during a game jam is always an incredibly hard task.
notgreat
26. Apr 2020 · 02:20 UTC
Decent, but I felt like the genre combination didn't actually add anything to the genre: I just had to remember to press the "Feed" button at a semi-regular rate, keeping the pet just above starvation level. It feels too much like a skeleton of a generic tower defense game rather than an actually fun game in and of itself. The tower defense genre thrives on its content which makes the lack of it a major problem in terms of entertainment (even if it's entirely understandable given the time constraints).

The art is well done. Not my personal style preference, but it does what it's trying to do well.
matthewi
26. Apr 2020 · 02:48 UTC
I love tower defense games! Such a rush to place turrets in the beginning of a round to prepare for the end game. I like that it's quick to restart if you mess up.
Asue
26. Apr 2020 · 09:53 UTC
I love tower defense games so I'm glad I tried your game! The aesthetics of the game is really beautiful and the choice of colours is perfect.

Some ideas if you continue the development of the game :

- I think it might be interesting to add a third type of turret, which fires a powerful projectile that hits several enemies at the same time but takes a long time to reload.
- Have several different worlds with their own colour palette and music.
- Add a time counter to see when the next wave is coming.
Pietro Ferrantelli
26. Apr 2020 · 21:11 UTC
Great blend between Tamagotchi like and Tower Defense, what a nice idea it works really well ! I enjoyed it a lot, it was fun to play and I found the game balancing nice for a jam game ! Glad you finished it for the jam even if you were targeting compo :)
Gal Afik
26. Apr 2020 · 21:48 UTC
That was really enjoyable and well put together! i love the art and simple animations and the mechanics were simple and easy to grasp without making the game too easy. Great job!
eduardogacn
28. Apr 2020 · 05:36 UTC
nice
akai_0okami
28. Apr 2020 · 22:57 UTC
Cute game! Level design was really good and I liked the combination of tower defense and virtual pet. Could do with being a little more challenging, the enemies didn't pose much of a threat, only time my pet lost health was when I forgot to feed it. Audio was great and having a sound effect to communicate your pet was taking damage was a nice touch. The pixel art was fantastic!
ThomasLebel
02. May 2020 · 01:06 UTC
Such a cute game :)
I feel like the waves are coming a little bit too early, but well, nothing impossible.
Great jobs ^^
terry
03. May 2020 · 01:44 UTC
Yay, beat it! Always good to see another tower defence game in this jam :smile:
Rongo Matane
04. May 2020 · 19:55 UTC
I really enjoyed your game, it was fun! I like the contradicting goals of feeding the guy and using food to buy turrets. Two points could probably be improved, as in give the players a few seconds to look at the map, or let the player start the waves on button press. When many turrets were shooting, the all sounds played and it tended to get quite loud - difficult to solve i guess. In any case it was fun and i also like the style, simple but endearing. Nice work :)
01010111
05. May 2020 · 17:28 UTC
I like the opportunity to heal the critter :) A lot of TD games are so strict on that kind of thing. I kind of wish the player had to click on fruit to collect it, I feel like it'd make the game more frantic, which might be a bad thing :P
m-trigo
05. May 2020 · 21:29 UTC
Playing this made me realize I really like tower defence games.
A little bit on the easy side, but I had genuine fun all the way.

Great job!
Lyrcaxis
05. May 2020 · 21:56 UTC
We had seperate ideas for tamagochi OR tower defense games, but didn't think of combining them ^^

Good job, this was fun -- probably a bit too easy but still enjoyable!
Lyrcaxis
05. May 2020 · 21:56 UTC
We had seperate ideas for tamagochi OR tower defense games, but didn't think of combining them ^^

Good job, this was fun -- probably a bit too easy but still enjoyable!
devharts
11. May 2020 · 03:31 UTC
Love the tower defense + virtual pet mashup! I was able to beat all the levels, though had a few close calls, which made it feel reasonably well balanced difficulty wise. I feel like some tower defense games have the problem of sitting bored while waiting for the enemies to go by, but this one seemed like there was always something to do with the addition of feeding your pet as well as expanding your towers. Solid submission in terms of gameplay, theme, visuals and audio - Great work overall! :)
akitl
11. May 2020 · 19:35 UTC
great little td, but it's a little too easy, and I wish I could have improved the tower.