Spellbook Shuffle by ice9
A tower defense where you don't know the rules of summoning! https://awesson.itch.io/spellbook-shuffle
You wake to find a note left by your wizarding master:

You summon monsters into a lane via a summoning circle with either 2 or 3 ingredients. Every game these "recipes" are randomized, so you'll just have to experiment!
As a studious apprentice, you can take notes of summons which you like by pressing the number keys . These will be saved into the respective slot at the top of the screen. (This is informational only - you will still have to pick up those ingredients and use them to summon that monster again.)

There are a variety of monster types, with different fighting styles. Ranged, tank, etc.
There are also elemental variants of most monsters, which have strengths and weaknesses.
* Fire is strong against, and takes less damage from, Grass
* Grass is strong against, and takes less damage from, Water
* Water is strong against, and takes less damage from, Fire
* The elusive Rainbow summons are strong against everything

Controls:
- You move with WASD
- Press SPACE near an ingredient to pick it up
- Press SPACE near a summoning circle to use your current ingredients to summon a creature.
- Press a number key, 1-5, to save the recipe for the last summon. It will display at the top of the screen in the numbered slot.
| Link | https://awesson.itch.io/spellbook-shuffle |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/spellbook-shuffle |
Ratings
| Overall | 426th | 3.71⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 454th | 3.581⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 311th | 3.677⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 84th | 4.339⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 428th | 3.935⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 511th | 3.148⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 905th | 3.217⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 32🗳️ | 46🗨️ |
Love the monster casting meets tower-defence genre mix. Great submission!
To those mentioning the difficulty, maybe we should have added a setting. Midway through development it was pretty hard and maybe we went too far the other way in the end. But it does ramp up over time - let us know your high score of Monsters Mashed :)
I like the lighthearted graphics and pokemon vibes.
I like the concept of figuring out combination, sending summoned creatures against opponents they have advantage over, but I don't think I was good at it. I had two or three combinations more or less deciphered out, but usually I just spammed intuitively, which kind of worked as I lost only one portal health, but that's because I lost focus for a moment.
So as I mentioned, I might be bad at it, but if I were to work on this more, I would try to make the rules clearer to obtain, communicate more what is what and then reshuffle every new level/round.
Overall, pretty enjoyable game, pretty innovative. Well done! :rainbow: