Growing defense by Fis

Hey everyone,
This is our second Ludum Dare entry and we are very proud making it in time. Unfortunately, we couldn’t animate most of our plants and enemy bugs in this short period. Maybe we can add them afterwards!


Our game is a tower defense game in which you need to keep your flowers (these are your towers) alive. There are two types of towers and 11 levels to accomplish.
Best regards @nivbeth & @Fis
Credits:
music – „Motivate me“ by Mixaund https://www.free-stock-music.com/mixaund-motivate-me.html
Sound effects – https://www.zapsplat.com/
Ingame Screenshot:

Update 2020-04-26: we released a new version with updated graphics!
Ratings
| Overall | 267th | 3.949⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 355th | 3.782⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1330th | 3.237⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1013th | 3.757⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 196th | 4.385⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 930th | 3.109⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 723th | 3.662⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 35🗳️ | 29🗨️ |
It's also be great to have some improved target prioritization. Often the plants we targeting enemies with high health instead of those in range with lower health. Maybe tweak that a bit or let the player click on enemies to prioritize them.
Great job!
Nice balancing!, although I was a little tired of too much clicking from the tools and then to the plants, It would have helped more controls there hehe
Awesome job!
But without shortcuts after wave 20 almost impossible 😅
I like the "take care of the plants" mechanic :thumbsup:
The other major issue I had was that not giving any time between waves almost ensures that you don't have time to purchase new plants, because your time in-wave is already so busy.
But there are so many positives. The evolution mechanic is so cool, and well implemented too! The art is consistent and gorgeous, and the music is nice and relaxing (even if the game isn't always! Haha
It feels like a game that is fundamentally really cool, but is just in need of some balancing to make sure it remains fun. I'd be very interested to see what this game looks like either without the upkeep mechanic, or with it reworked. :slight_smile:
As some people said above, some shorcut to change tool would have been appreciable as well as a little timer between waves ^^
Well done nice entry !
Here is mine, it's also a tower defense game
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/prototype-towers
It looks like you dedicated a lot of time and love into doing this little project and it's very noticeable!
The graphics are absolutely adoreable, from the plants to the bugs to the tools and even the logo looks so so so pretty! It also felt very well balanced, and I loved the fact that you have to take care of the plants :)
I noticed you were able to satisfy the needs of two plants if they're close together - which made of an interesting game mechanics, not sure if that was intended, but you could work on that - like when you water 2 plants they just get 50% satisfaction then when you water 1, but sometimes you might want to do that when you're in a hurry and there would otherwise not be enough time to save both plants? Maybe you could add an indicator for the health of the plants that looks cute and doesn*t clash with your beautiful visuals :)
Good job!
I think it would be great to display the amount of fertilizer we left?
Very nice game, I love the flat graphical style!
Like @kaeveris I also finished the game at 1 haert, although for me the progression was a bit weird - I had to restart the beginning a few times, but after I got that down, I had absolutely no problems until wave 10. In wave 10, almost everyone went through, bringing me from 19 to 1. Luckily I killed the "boss"!
The caring mechanics are interesting. I don't think I ever saw that in *any* other tower defense game. Maybe because most of the time, towers aren't living things, and having to constantly repair stuff feels worse than caring for plants? Either way, in this game more than in other TD games, clustering seems very important, so you can water/dig/fertilize whole groups at the same time.
I'm not sure how much *fun* the waterin/digging/fertiziling was in the end, to be honest. I mean, I enjoyed playing the game, but did I particularely enjoy constantly clicking between the tools and the plants? I don't really know. But despite these doubts, I think there definitely is something interesting to be found.
I have three questions as well: What does the second tower do, as opposed to the first one? And when do plants grow? And I assume it makes them stronger/faster/better?
All in all, I enjoyed playing this game and I like the original mechanics in a rather stale genre. Thanks for making it!