Can't Tax Me by SasquatchBStudios
Some things in life are inevitable… death and taxes for instance. …but that doesn’t mean you can’t fight for what’s right!
Defend your vault from hordes of the jealous King’s tax ghouls and protect what’s rightfully yours!
Your goal is to reach the highest level, unlock all of the abilities and protect your vault by warding off the king’s cronies for as long as possible!
Will you be able to reach the end and get your reward?
Controls ——————————————
Keyboard
-WASD/Arrow Keys - Movement
-Attack - Left Mouse Click or CTRL on Keyboard
-Jump/Wall Jump - [Space]
-Fall Through Platforms - S & [Space] or Down & [Space] -Pause - Esc
Abilities
Bomb - 1
Projectile - 2
Fire Towers - 3
Vortex - 4
Controller
Move - Left Analog Stick or DPad
NOTE: The DPad should be used for optimal play on the WebBuild, there is a bug with the analog stick in the WebBuild Only
Attack - West Button
Jump/Wall Jump - South Button
Fall Through Platforms - Down & South Button
Pause - Start
Abilities
Bomb - Left Shoulder
Projectile - Right Shoulder
Fire - Left Trigger
Vortex - Right Trigger
Our Team ——————————————
Brandon Waite - Game Design, Programming, Animations
Nikki Waite - Game Design, Art, Sound Effects
https://twitter.com/SasquatchBGames
https://sasquatchbstudios.itch.io/
and Jonah Kay - Composed Theme Song
http://twitch.tv/jonahkay
There are two versions of the game.
Version 1.1 includes a few bug fixes, here's what we fixed:
-projectiles would sometimes get stuck on the enemies and not damage them
-your ability icons would stay on screen during the 'fade out' transition when you went back to the main menu
-the music wouldn't change back to the menu track if you returned from the pause menu
-you wouldn't get your '2nd jump' if you walked off a ledge
-sometimes the 'reputation level' text was on 2 lines (should always only be on 1)
Both the original and version 1.1 are available for download
| Download (Windows) | https://sasquatchbstudios.itch.io/cant-tax-me |
| HTML5 - WEB | https://sasquatchbstudios.itch.io/cant-tax-me |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/cant-tax-me |
Ratings
| Overall | 481th | 3.682⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 522th | 3.537⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 983th | 2.991⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 562th | 3.769⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 577th | 3.796⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 465th | 3.509⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 459th | 3.34⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 696th | 3.472⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 70🗳️ | 99🗨️ |
Speaking of what makes bomb the best, it's the enemies that are always just out of your reach, below the door platform. Ultimately, that's where my first main gripe lies - you *need* to use specials to hit these enemies. You can technically try climbing down and jumping from below, but you'll take too much damage - it almost feels like a two-player job. Building off this, it leads to my next point of contention - the map's massive. My first run was just exploring and endless wall jumping around - but more importantly, the map size de-incentivizes doing anything except standing by the door and placing bombs in the center. There's no chance you'll miss a jump and lose 5-10 seconds, and those are seconds you can't get back.
Going back to my first, embarrassingly short run - there's also a lot of snowballing (positive and negative). If you don't unlock the bomb in the first round, you're gonna have a bad time - you just can't kill the enemies effectively. If you do unlock the bomb, though, I managed to get to reputation level like, 85+ in the second round alone.
Overall it was definitely engaging - but I personally think it encourages camping a little too much for it's own good.
from the other hanhd i really liked the rouglike addintion in upgrades between levels
I wish there had been more reason to move around the map and try to take the fight away from the door, and the spin attack helped with that, but maybe some powerups or something around the map would be fun? Either way, amazing job!
- Fun gameplay, it was really satisfying to kill enemies and defend the door
- Skill Animations were fun and I like the visual representations of enemy strength
- Great atmosphere and music that energized me
- Chopping grass is great
Areas of Improvement
- Once I got to the door I had no reason to leave unless I didn't have the skills to kill the enemies below the door.
- The jump mechanics are kind of finnicky and I got kind of stuck the first time I played before I got used to it and was able to properly defend.
- Skills a bit OP once you got them and simplified game play
Things I liked:
- The art was very readable and communicated exactly what it needed to. The scythe swing felt satisfying and I liked the FX animations for the various special attacks.
- The music was catchy and the enemy death animations were a funny touch
- You really nailed the theme. At first it was stressful but once I just accepted that each level ending was inevitable, I had a lot more fun with it.
Things that I think could be improved:
- I didn't really like that enemies could attack the door from below the platform. Especially in the early levels where you don't have the powerups necessary to deal with them it doesn't feel great to have to jump down below to kill one enemy knowing that will leave the door open to 20 enemies up above
- Although there were different looking enemies, they all felt about the same in terms of gameplay. I know this is a jam game so it's tough to really pack content in but I think 2 different enemy types (and then variations) would make the gameplay a lot deeper
Overall, this was a really fun game. Most jam games I just play through once but this one had me come back for a second playthrough and the second was even more fun!
Music was nice and fit the game well.
As others have said, a bit unsatisfying that some enemies just can't be reached without using special attacks, but other thant that, pretty solid gameplay and great for a game made in such a short time.
Well done!
The only thing that really agitated me when playing was enemies attacking from below. This works fine when the player has powerups such as the bombs to counteract it, but during the first round it just comes across as frustrating and cheap on the AI's part.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this one a lot! I managed to get to reputation level 114.
Here was my best "score".
