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Game Maker's Toolkit Jam

Hosted by metc, Game Maker's Toolkit · #gmtkjam
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A jam submission

Tiny Tank: Defender of EarthView game page

Submitted by Mosspigletgames — 1 minute, 53 seconds before the deadline
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Tiny Tank: Defender of Earth's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Feel#1283.5333.533
Aesthetics#1733.7333.733
Overall#1913.4673.467
Innovation#2603.0003.000
Theme#2883.0003.000

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your submission match the theme?
In Tiny Tank your health and score are one and the same.

This core mechanic provides opportunity for much of the games dual purpose design.

Killing enemies in Tiny Tank will provide the player with score. Score is tied to health; so health is increased which provides the player with security. Score is also the main measurement by which your run is measured and affects your high score. Killing enemies also provides the player with a combo multiplier. Finally, more score unlocks additional abilities for the player to use to kill enemies.

Almost all the mechanics in the game implement some form of dual purpose design as well. Take for example something as simple as taking damage from enemies. This resets the players combo multiplier as well as decreases their health and therefore their score. This small interconnected-ness gives a layer of depth all of its related mechanics.

Third-party resources
Unity, Aseprite

Contributors
Justin (Me)

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Comments

Jupiter_Hadley7 years ago

Nice little game! I included it in my Game Maker Toolkit’s Game Jam compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :)

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KahzteinSubmitted7 years ago

Nice job here, the gameplay seems pretty fun overall.

I do believe that the reload mechanic was fairly redundant, and that the little gas clouds that formed from explosions were a bit tedious to dodge. However the game was fun and think you did a good job!

Reply
Tumblerumble7 years ago

I agree with some of what other people are saying, however I find this game really fun to play and easy to figure out (and I don't play games that often!) The noise is kind of annoying at times and the font is incredibly hard to read, but I loved the idea and how it was executed. Good job!

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MosspigletgamesDeveloper7 years ago

Hey!

Thanks for giving Tiny Tanks a play, and I'm glad you had fun with it! 

Did you play the downloadable version or the web version? The reason I ask is I've since updated the web build to address a lot of the feedback I've gotten here. I'm still working a little bit on the text and sound, but I've removed most of the text.

If you have the time I'd really love to hear what you would want improved! Thanks again for playing, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

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randomphantomSubmitted7 years ago

Pretty fun game and fitting aesthetic, agree that it needs some scaling to be appreciated better. Not sure if the theme came out strongly too. It seemed like camping at the right corner was the safest bet but then there were some missiles coming in to mix things up, which was interesting stuff. Sound FX were a bit loud in some places. All in all a nice arcadey experience!

Submitted
GravityWell
Reply
MosspigletgamesDeveloper7 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to try my submission. :)

It's really unfortunate I didn't have more time (submitted 1m before the deadline) to improve the UI elements because I took a lot of care to keep the theme in mind while developing the game. It's just difficult to see how the games systems are tied together because the UI doesn't emphasize it very well. 

Again, thanks for the feedback and I'm glad people in general seem to think the gameplay is fun!

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SplitHareSubmitted7 years ago

I think the game is pretty fun, but there are a handful of minor annoyances that keep it from shining. For starters, it seems like the text is a little too small. Maybe it's from playing it in fullscreen on a high resolution monitor, but you should definitely have it scale if that's the case. Without the text being a meaningful size, the health/score mechanic is a little hard to visualize. It might help to have some graphical component tied to this to make it feel more obvious to the player. This also seemed to affect the upgrades. I had to be looking at a very specific part of the screen to tell if I got an upgrade.  You should get a very encouraging/obvious sound and couple it with a visual flourish (either particles or maybe an image with a tooltip telling you how to use it).

The ammo system needs some sort of visual indicator as well. It's hard to tell how much ammo you have left and when it's reloaded. Some simple numbers or visual ticks around the tank would go a long way here.

Finally, the sound effects aren't bad, but they're loud and a tad repetitive. Maybe tone down the volume and modulate them a bit so they don't sound so similar every time. I think with a few tweaks, you could have a really fun, Missile Command-y game here!

Submitted
Rocket Hop
Reply
EonNomadSubmitted7 years ago (1 edit)

I'm not sure I understand the health and high score link since I always seem to die with one hit. Also can't figure out how you would have a score higher than 0 if dying should mean that your health decreased back to 0. BUT, it still is fun to play and I can see how the health/highscore and combo multiplier makes the game feel more competitive

Submitted
ScanDrill
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MosspigletgamesDeveloper7 years ago(+1)

Unfortunately, the jam version of this build has a bug that your score doesn't get reset correctly unless you refresh the page on death.  This means every time you die your score is either 0 or less than 0 which makes it very difficult to get a higher score since the regular starting amount is 100 points. 

Thank you for trying the game! I hope you get a chance to try the finished build after the jam is over. :)

Reply
verysoftwaresSubmitted7 years ago (1 edit)

(by softmagician on Discord)
had some nice progression.
starts slow enough, and after it's established that not jumping makes it easier to hit enemies (no need to rotate the turret except for discrete 180 deg increments) it challenges you with the double jump
eventually the missiles turn this into a rule and you start worrying about health

it's a very nice

Submitted
Dropplet
Reply
DerJulienSubmitted7 years ago

decent overall, but i overall agree on what tsun said o/

Submitted
Toothless Vampire
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Deleted post7 years ago
Deleted 5 years ago
Reply
MosspigletgamesDeveloper7 years ago(+1)

Thanks for leaving a comment!

For the theme of dual purpose design I actually implemented quite a few functions into the game to support it. I suppose I should add them to the submission description to highlight them though! The health and score being combined into a single number gives the game its core of dual purpose design.  For instance let's take the action of killing enemies:

Killing enemies grants the player score which in turn provides them with health. This health is used to keep the player from dying and unlocks additional abilities for the player to use against their enemies. This little bit of emergent gameplay is only possible because of this dual nature.

I also tried to make sure every mechanic in the game at least attempts to fulfill multiple purposes. If you play the game long enough you unlock shell jumps for example. This upgrade make double jumping provide the player additional height, but also fire a ring of bullets in all directions. 

I agree with your point on the reload. The game can feel quite frantic in the later stages, and I have felt limited by the reload each time. Though the game jam submission period is over I'll rip it out and try some other methods of fire rate control.

That's a pretty clever fix for the drop pods too by the way. Thank you! :)

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