Protect the Queen! by Clipper
Hello folks!
I am Ian and I warmly welcome you to my game page.
Behind the scenes video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlI9TOPrf64
Introduction
The following game is rated F for fun. Those pesky ants want to destroy your hive and eat all the honey you have produced. You control an assembly of bees, and your goal is a simple one: to protect your Queen. By defeating ants you render the bee Queen safe and simultaneously keep it alive.
About the game
Choose from several types of bee units and actions and try to stop swarms of ants from reaching your Queen bee. The game is turn based and requires you to build a simplified economy model in order to provide necessary currency to buy lines of defense.
Since the game was created solely for Ludum Dare 46 its content is restricted. Nonetheless the player may choose from four units, each having different abilities in order to stop unrelenting hordes of ants. Currently ant enemies come in two variants, differing in health points.
Since there is no tutorial, please refer to the following guide:
- During your turn you can place new units as well as order attacks.
- During enemy turn the ants move towards the Queen and if they have already encountered a bee, they attack it. The Counterattack of bees is automatic. Beware though, collectors are vulnerable and defenseless!
- At the beginning of own turn collectors generate honey which acts the in-game currency.
- You lose if an ant reaches the queen.
- You win if you survive all waves of enemies.
- Use left mouse button to choose a unit, then again press left mouse button to place the unit on an empty field. Actions may be performed only on living enemies!
- Press right mouse button to cancel unit/action selection tool.
- Every wave there are more of enemies and tougher ants are more common.
Playable bees:
- collector - a simple drone that has a 50% of generating an unit of honey at the beginning of each turn,
- beeguard - a powerful defensive unit capable of holding and tackling even toughest enemies,
- strike unit - a one-use only order to sting a chosen enemy for 1 point of damage,
- trike team - a devastative attack launched at an enemy of your choosing for 3 damage.
About author
The game was created in Unity and Photoshop by me, Ian Burr, an owner of YouTube channel focused on teaching game development and programming.
WARNING Since the game is in a somewhat high resolution, the browser version is not displaying correctly. Please refer to downloadable executable for best experience. Now it is fixed, please enter browsers full screen mode for best experience.
Ratings
| Overall | 775th | 3.143⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 620th | 3.167⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 823th | 2.905⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 621th | 3.571⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 660th | 3.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 353th | 3.31⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 392th | 3⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 805th | 2.825⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 47🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
Also as a heads up, you have to rate other games in order to gain publicity for your entry. Otherwise you will not gain a lot of ratings and most likely not make it into the leaderboards
Still playing.
This image is just to say that you are cutting most of the screens.
Still playing...
Eu creio que seria interessante os botões não ficarem por cima do tabuleiro (pois atrapalha, mesmo que pouco, a colocar peças).
I think it would be interesting for the buttons not to be on top of the board (because it hinders, even if little, to put pieces).
1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo:
A mecânica é muito interessante (e divertida).
Aprender a jogar (apesar de não ter tutorial) foi simples (só precisei perder algumas vezes e estou bem com isso ser desta forma).
O fluxo de jogo deixa a desejar no late game, pois se torna fácil de mais, creio que formigas suicidas voadoras poderiam atacar células aleatoriamente de vez em quando em waves mais altas.
A condição de derrota ficou clara, já a condição de vitória nem tanto (não sabia se eu teria que aguentar muitas ondas, ou se eu precisava alcançar certo objetivo em termos de acúmulo de mel).
Achei muito bacana essa mecânica toda, fiquei curioso para saber se ficaria boa em jogo não-digital.
Nas imagens anteriormente colocadas (acima) eu já falei sobre o corte na tela e sobre os botões das unidades ficar por cima do tabuleiro (atrapalhando a colocar peças).
Achei interessante deixar as abelhas mortas no tabuleiro por um tempo, permitindo quem joga decidir se quer ter a mesma unidade ali, ou se quer colocar outra (suponho que tenha sido proposital).
De qualquer forma, para uma só pessoa e para o tempo de LD46, gostei bastante e dou os parabéns.
2 - Gráficos, Áudio e Narrativa:
Os gráficos foram suficientes para passar o conceito de jogo (e gostei bastante das unidades e dos botões das unidades, também do ícone do favo de mel).
O áudio ficou engraçado (mas não tão agradável o tempo todo). Apenas algumas falas ficaram agradáveis e engraçadas ao mesmo tempo. Hahahahah.
A narrativa é simples e não é bem o foco, então não há muito o que falar.
Creio que expandir o jogo poderia envolver estágios diferentes de defesa, migração, ataque, busca de recursos etc (tudo envolvendo abelhas); ou poderia ser um jogo com cada grupo de estágios focando em um inseto diferente ou algo assim (só divagando um pouco sobre continuidade, caso seja o interesse do produtor).
3 - Cultura:
O jogo parece conversar bem com jogos não-digitais.
Também tira proveito da temática "colmeia", que é bastante interessante e pode chamar gente (propiciar encontrar nicho).
4 - Monetização:
Creio que em uma versão polida e estendida (quanto mais diverso e maior, creio que melhor) o jogo poderia vender no Steam ou mesmo para smartphones como jogo casual (baseado em pagar para recarregar as vidas mais rápido, ou (principalmente) baseado em propagandas).
1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
The mechanics are very interesting (and fun).
Learning to play (despite not having a tutorial) was simple (I only needed to lose a few times and I'm fine with it being this way).
The game flow leaves something to be desired in the late game, as it becomes too easy, I believe that flying suicide ants could attack cells randomly from time to time in higher waves.
The defeat condition was clear, since the victory condition was not so much (I didn't know if I would have to endure many waves, or if I needed to reach a certain goal in terms of honey accumulation).
I found this mechanic very cool, I was curious to know if it would be good in non-digital game.
In the images previously placed (above) I already talked about the cut on the screen and about the buttons on the units being above the board (making it difficult to place pieces).
I found it interesting to leave the dead bees on the board for a while, allowing the player to decide whether they want to have the same unit there, or if they want to put another one (I suppose it was on purpose).
Anyway, for a single person and for the LD46 time, I really liked it and congratulations.
2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative:
The graphics were enough to convey the concept of the game (and I really liked the units and the unit buttons, also the honeycomb icon).
The audio was funny (but not so pleasant all the time). Only a few lines were pleasant and funny at the same time. Hahahahah.
The narrative is simple and not quite the focus, so there is not much to talk about.
I believe that expanding the game could involve different stages of defense, migration, attack, search for resources, etc. (all involving bees); or it could be a game with each group of stages focusing on a different insect or something (just digressing a little bit about continuity, if it’s the interest of the producer).
3 - Culture:
The game seems to talk well with non-digital games.
It also takes advantage of the "beehive" theme, which is quite interesting and can call people (providing a niche).
4 - Monetization:
I believe that in a polished and extended version (the more diverse and bigger, I think the better) the game could sell on Steam or even for smartphones as a casual game (based on paying to recharge lives faster, or (mainly) based on advertisements ).
When it comes to monetization, I like that you considered a polished/hypothetical final version to be worth buying/selling. I have included a link to my YT channel with a video regarding some insight on making the game, so maybe you can subscribe in case I start working on this game for serious. I just might, but in no less than two weeks time.
@spthiel Thanks for the feedback. I know about the rules, but my current situation makes it hard for me to spend a lot of time on rating other games (I dont want to commit numerous rate and run). Anyways I try my hardest. Also you might be interested in the video I made about me making the game itself.
Cheers guys and stay healthy!
I played on Windows build and it worked perfectly. The game is really cool, great art and mechanics. I'd love it if you could add a keyboard button option to End Turn (such as Spacebar). Love the buzz sound on the Start menu when you hover over buttons, such a nice touch. Excellent work.
The game was a bit easy, because I just spammed drones on the first few rows and then had honey for life :P But was enjoyable no matter what :)
Only thing I missed were some tooltips to how the drones etc work, but otherwise than that, really awesome job! You should keep on developing this post-LD!
The game is fun but could use some balancing - it feels too easy. I was smashing those ants left and right, they had no chance :wink:! Soon I had a full board of bees and so much honey that I could roll around in it.
I liked the bee color scheme of the whole thing and the music was fitting. Voiceover was just great, made me laugh.
As somebody mentioned before, the web version is rather unplayable, as it cuts off the top of the screen and you can't see the "End turn" button at all. I was quite confused about that and was wondering what I should do to make the game proceed. Luckily, you have a downloadable version :). The web view as seen in Firefox:
All in all, solid entry. A pretty basic round based wave defender with a lot of balancing issues. It still was fun for how long it lasted, it just wouldn't work for more than that (at least in it's current state)
Cheers!
- Home made sound effects and the event narration is really funny
- Graphics have a bit of charm
- In 2012 my Ludum Dare entry also had a bee with home made sound effects (the bzzz with my mouth): http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/comment-page-2/?action=preview&uid=2465 so also that's why I loved your game.
On the other hand, I just feel it could be a bit easier. But other than that, kudos!