web and windows versions insta-crash for me

@usernam-e hey, just uploaded a fix for both :)

Hi! I think the web version is broken. I tested the Windows version and could notice that in this one, enemies actually move around and attack your base, which is not the case in web.

My main feedback would be that the start is a bit too slow. You place 5 mines, 3 towers and 8 walls, then you wait 5 minutes for something to happen. It got a bit more engaging after day 10, but when I lost, I didn't want to start a new game because of the time it takes.

I really loved the style of your UI, so clean and clear. Good job on that!

I think that some sound effects would have helped with the mood (thinking about some 8bit noises when bullets are fired and enemies are killed). The music works well with the concept though!

Nice entry!

@rolly
I'm just taking the web version down, don't have time to fix it now especially when I'm exporting from a beta release and anything might be at fault.

As for the time balancing problem, that's 100% on me and lack of time for proper play-testing. I was planning an option to speed things up but only got the play/pause speed working in time. Same goes for sounds unfortunately.

thanks for the feedback :)

Pretty cool game. Few points that could have been improved:

- Speed up time button.

- Selected building stays selected until right mouse button is click (right now player need to select a building over and over again, when buildings multiple buildings of the same type at once).

- Sound effects.

- Enemies spawner change position (disappear and reappear in other places), that will make a game more variable.

Nice music. It always impresses me when someone does a 3D game for Compo. Good job!

Nice minimalist graphics. Some sound effects Would have helped. I think the first part feels a little bit slow but then it becomes more engaging. Maybe ramping up a little bit that first part would make it more enjoyable in the beginning. I would also love to see so e variations as you progress. Nicely done!

Game looks nice, but had a couple problems:

* The game was very slow on my low end laptop. After a while I was getting maybe only 1 FPS...
* Balance: after placing a couple of mines, I always had enough money to buy anything I wanted, so there was no challenge
* After placing a few towers and walls I left the game running and I simply would get no damage. Maybe a bug with the game performance?

thanks for the feedback :)
@zimny11
- there was a plan for the button but I was only able to make a play/pause one
- there is the camera control on RMB and I didn't want to add this at first, after some playtesting I 've seen the issue but it was too late to mix with the controls at that point :<
- they were supposed to be behind a fog, but the shader didn't come to life

@tanis thanks, yeah the slow pace at the beginning is a common thing people say

@christian-zommerfelds
- no time for optimization :P but for real there was an enemy counter that was supposed to stop them from spawning at some point but it vanished (probably deleted too much code at some point) and when it became obvious that the spawning doesn't stop it was too late to fix it
- balancing is the hardest when there is little time. I get this with every jam and never learn :D
- I think there may be a problem with the path finding and some range math, I have used a beta version of the engine that and probably some settings could use some tuning

Hey, nice ideas. Overall felt a bit rough. Controls are a little confusing. And the towers didn't seem to do enough damage to keep up with the swarm, so I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do. Also after a while FPS would drop considerably. Music was nice but the volume was very low by default. Nice humor on the items descriptions!

nice

I like the base building and constructing a maze of walls for the enemies, great take on the theme. The music is great very sci-fi atmospheric, but I agree the game could certainly benefit some performance optimization. Great entry for the timeline. Well done!

A decent tower defence game! Nothing really groundbreaking as far as I can tell, but the unit descriptions add a lot of flavour and the whole thing fits together really well for a 48-hour job.

My main issue is the FPS drop - I'm up to Day 27 (with the game still running as I type this) and it's basically at a standstill. I think I've had a big crowd of enemies running right up against my base for days now and it's possible that they're just piling up rather than doing damage. I'm still on 83% health, though the fact it's dropped a bit suggests that something's chewing away at it. I don't think I'll be able to actually see a game over screen because it's basically frozen: I can't plonk down any new units and I doubt it'll keep running for the remaining four fifths of my base health.

Still, the basic idea is very much there - I like the way the enemies show up so unexpectedly, and that I can orient and set down proper little walls - and the music ties the whole thing together nicely. Great work!

Interesting idea! The different mechanics all seemed to work well and the music fit it well. However, the game started to lag after the aliens started spawning. Besides that there were no problems!

Interesting idea, I think you should make the aliens spawn a bit sooner after playing.

Nice game! Nothing crazy new to report from everyone elses. On my third playthrough, I decided to see how far I could get before the game froze.... and I think I actually am pretty close to being ahead of the curve? Last run I froze at 28, but this time I'm going strong at 38 and no enemies have entered my maze yet =). Either way the game was fun enough for me to want to try to get to this point, and I love building mazes in tower defense games so you got me hooked. Nice job!

Edit: nevermind. Enemies got stuck on each other and started piling up so the game eventually slowed to a crawl, but I got to day 52 at 100% base health before giving up =).

Cool little game! I didn't quite realize the first time I played that wall building was so important to the game. That mechanic is very cool though, using walls to redirect the enemies more efficiently than they can be killed by the towers.

I did unfortunately run into the same lag problem as everyone else.

I think the building mechanics here though are quite nice, and that's for one reason--the way that the base and the mines are built directly on top of the crystal clusters in 3D is extremely fun. I honestly think I could have a blast just playing an idle game or something along those lines with the same graphical style.

I do think it is difficult to tell exactly what the towers are doing. I can see some small particles they are shooting that I assume is their attack, perhaps those could be drawn a bit bigger.

I also couldn't figure out what exactly the large crystal in the middle represents. Presumably if I deplete the entire bar I will have mined all the ore on the planet? I'm not sure.

Overall though this is a nice little tower defense game with some extremely fun graphical touches.

@honey-pony thanks for playing :)
the tower particles are attacks (actually placeholders that were supposed to be replaced with something more visible), the large crystal is just a large crystal :D its there in the middle to encourage building your base there

Oh really? That's super interesting. The first playthrough I did I tried to build my base on the large crystal and it didn't seem to work. I just booted up the game again though and it did work this time.

But now I've discovered an even stranger behavior... every other time I boot up the game I am unable to place my base on the large crystal. I'm using the default LUDUMDARE 50 seed every time. So. Hopefully that information is helpful somehow! :sweat_smile: