10 second base by Stratcat66
A (really short) description
You build a simple base on a distant planet to defeat the evil aliens!
Your factories have a 10 second production cycle, so make sure to activate them early enough.
Music and Sounds
All music and sounds were created by Esther Wilka. You can find her on Instagram.
Controls
You only need your arrow keys/WASD and Enter/Space.
You control your character and menus using WASD. You can only walk on your buildings. Some buildings (e.g. iron mine) can be activated. If they are activated, they produce an item at the end of the 10 second phase. An activation usually costs ressources. Tip: You can still activate factories shortly before the current time interval ends.
If you move your character onto free space adjacent to your base, the building menu opens and you can see available buildings. Their building cost are also displayed.
On the left you see the ressources you are currently holding.
Building Description
I recommend that you use the game itself to learn its mechanics. Additionally, you can also look at following table.
| Building | Description | Building Cost | Activation Cost | Produces | |---|---|---|---|---| |Wall|Protects against enemies|1 Iron| x | x | |Power plant|Generates energy|1 iron + 2 steel|free| 1 energy | |Iron mine|Use Energy to mine for iron|1 iron|1 energy|1 iron| |Smelter|Convert iron to steel|2 iron|1 iron + 1 energy|1 steel| |Weapon factory|Produces ammunition|1 iron + 2 steel|1 steel + 1 energy|2 ammunition| |Defend|An automatic defend tower|3 steel|1 ammunition| x |
Bugs
I will not change the game here and on itch.io before the rating phase ends.
|Bug|Workaround| |---|---| |Game crashes when you die|Win the game :) (or reload it)|
Have fun!
| Itch.io Page | https://stratcat66.itch.io/10-second-base |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/10-second-base |
Ratings
| Overall | 517th | 3.58⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 509th | 3.46⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 592th | 3.3⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 583th | 3.654⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 988th | 2.865⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 532th | 3.217⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 929th | 3.042⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
I really liked the buildup of a defense and how frantic it got when near the end - having to rush back and forth to gather all my materials while also refueling and building new turrets was a great little loop.
However, this game was far too easy. once you beat the first wave - it was effectively over. maybe, as time went by, you could've had a variable that increased every wave that affected both enemy health and speed as a multiplier?
the art in this game is very simple - but for a tower defense, this works! it looks surprisingly good here. no comments on audio, played with it off.
Seems like on Game Over the game just froze for me, not a big deal since I was done playing anyway, just keep it in mind ;)
I had a lot of fun playing this game, I would TOTALLY love to see a full-fledged version of these later, as once you get to a certain point you can't die any more. I did feel as though having to manually press each button made it get tedious once you had 20+ buildings (same with movement), so maybe if there was implementation that let you automate things for a higher cost or holding down a key lets you move in that direction, that would be super helpful! UI was quite intuitive too.
So like at this point it kind of stagnates, but that's likely just due to the time constraints. Would love to play more though!
Props to music too! The wide reverb, heavy kick drums, and having that big moment when brass enters really makes it feel like an epic tower defense game. The sprites had their charm, but I can totally imagine this on the app store if you touched it up more and added more difficulty later on :)
The little details like the animation particles and the smooth menu added a lot to the game too!
Great job :dog:
The graphics are fitting and the sound design is nice. The start was a bit rough and I did restart once I figured out what I was supposed to do and how that would work. What I did not like was the frantic running around and hitting space. It might be interesting to try a system where you switch on and off buildings permanentely. That might turn out to be less engaging for the player, though. I would give it a shot and expand the economy system. That would shift the game fron action towards strategy / base building, so it probably depends on personal preferrence.
All in all great entry. It was fun to play and the project was nicely executed. good job!
Things I liked:
* The gameplay was tight and easy to understand.
* The tutorialization of showing where the base is, and the enemies coming out of it.
* The later realization that you had to push to the end and destroy the enemy base, not just sit there and defeat enough waves.
* The sense of progression going from having just a few things to having a large production force.
* The graphics/music.
Things I would have liked:
* More attacks of enemies from more angles, or perhaps multiple bases you have to push out to and destroy.
* Being able to hold down a key to move more quickly rather than tapping repeatedly for long walls.
* An easier way to cancel out of a move onto a buildable space. Found myself by mistake building often when I didn't intend to.
* More distinctive looks for the production animation so it's easier to see what is producing and what isn't.
* Some additional balance by not allowing you to just build everything right next to each other. It makes it trivial to run around spamming 'build' while collecting the produced materials when everything is built in a grid right next to each other.
Impressive game for a gamejam!
The biggest problem to me was the lack of feedback when activating a building: no effect, no sound, no animation, nothing, sometime you're wondering if the building is activated or not.
Apart from that, great game. Good job!
I've never played a tower defense game where you have to start building towards the enemy though, so that was cool! I built my tower of smelters (smelters being the same cost as walls but have addition utility), building a turret every few blocks, and eventually my enemy was history! Maybe an expanded version could have some enemies that only appear close to their base, so it adds some extra danger as you get closer.
Fun game! Had me hooked!
The graphics were nice, the gameplay was fun and interesting for a tower defense, the sound design was alright and overall I had no glitches or anything to sour my experience. Solid entry.