Very fun!! I'm horrible when it comes to tower defense games, but I adored the character sprites, the diversity of how each item interacts, and the little sprite guys were super fun! Biggest suggestion I would make is for there to be a little more prep time/let the player choose when they're ready to start the next round. Otherwise, great work in such a short time and good luck with the jam!
Play concoction
Shadowsand Defense's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #755 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Playability | #804 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Artistic Style | #970 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Your game was quite interesting but I struggled to understand how to play it properly. There seemed to be a good variety of unique mechanics and I especially enjoyed the object transmutation. I feel that an in game tutorial would be perfect and some more visual focus on showing the effects of what is going on with animations or art would be good. Overall a very promising game. Good job!
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
SHADOWSAND DEFENSE is a 2D top-down medieval base-defense game about defending yourself from shadow creatures by means of alchemical transmutation! Create obstacles, blast creatures with magic bolts, and craft terrain-altering potions to defend yourself from the waves of shadowy foes!
CONTROLS:
Aim with Mouse
Use Tool / Interact: Left Click
Switch Tool: Press 1-5 or Scroll Wheel
Move Up: W / Arrow Up
Move Down: S / Arrow Down
Pause: P
Exit Game: Esc
Extra Notes
This was our second time doing PirateSoftware and our first time with dedicated artists making all-original art! Thank you for the opportunity to make games.
Comments
153 days ago(+1)
I just finished watching your stream VOD! Sorry I couldn’t make it while you were Live. We seriously appreciate the time you took to play Shadowsand Defense (and highlighting some other Pirate Jam 15 games)! I’m Crow, the Narrative and Design (writing, music, SFX) person in the credits. This is my second Pirate Jam, and my fourth jam ever joined!
It was so surreal hearing my dialogue be voice-acted. The way you and your chat clocked the vibe between Lux & Umbra immediately. “Oh they ARE tragic enemies-to-lovers!” And “I choose Life… with you!” LOLL
To acknowledge this question from your playthrough:
“What’s the origin behind the shadow critters? Did they, like, go to the same magic school… I guess the Tower is where they learned their craft? …And like, Umbra’s come to ‘save’ Lux, AKA, get him to join him in evil, and Lux is like ‘noo, I want to use my powers for good!’”
At the end of Round 5, there is some dialogue between two unknown characters. One is a soldier of the Tower, the other is a high-ranking official of the Tower.
Tower Soldier: Lieutenant General! Have you any orders for us?
Unknown: Shadowsand, torches, and... what are these, pickaxes? What happened here?
Tower Soldier: As of yet unsure, sir. This must be the work of a dozen sorcerers or more; we've never seen so much destruction!
Unknown: ...It is a shame that so much harm must come to nature.
Unknown: Send a messenger back to the barracks. I will take some scouts and venture out from here.
Tower Soldier: Understood, sir! I shall take my leave!
...
Unknown: Lux... I hope you're not alone.
Unknown: I hope you are safe.
Unknown: I am coming to take you home.
I don’t want to give away all the answers just yet, but I can provide this. All creatures with spirit are made of a substance called “shadowsand.” It is basically the equivalent of quintessence in alchemy. Lux and Umbra have an unnatural attunement to shadowsand, allowing them to transform and even imbue objects such as trees or rocks with it. They were childhood friends, both sharing this otherworldly ability, but circumstances led them on separate paths. Now, Lux is a misunderstood altruist wanted by the Tower, and Umbra is a jaded old friend who just can’t manage Lux’s idealism.
If we ever add voicelines in a future update, I would be totally up for featuring you in it! Thanks again for the stream and your comments!
152 days ago(+1)
Hi there!! Thank you so much for your lovely response and taking time to watch the VOD! I apologize in advance for any statements I might have made in rage LOL It was fun to play through and super neat to see considering it was such a short turn-around time! You and the team did an awesome job. I also appreciate the insight for the final round! If you do work on it more, I would love the opportunity to work with you and play it again! I gotta know what happens to these two >w>!
That was a ton of fun!
Immediately the awesome art hits you and it is very impressive. The character portraits and the enemies look awesome!
I was drawn in by the story really well and it dropped enough hints/lore about the world and situation without you needing to go full Star Wars opening story drawl to explain the world.
I'll admit though I feel like you just kinda get thrown into things without much explanation, there's a lot to quickly understand in the crafting/scavenging of the game but thankfully the difficulty isn't too hard so you can kinda wing it and hope for the best.
I ran into a strange bug on level 2 where it just hung after I defeated all the enemies, only happened once and after I restarted it didn't happen again.
By level 3 I had figured out I could just spam changing my attacks as there's no cooldown between selections so I was throwing lightning bolts, torches and pickaxes like a madman! There's a really great foundation with this game and I like it a lot. A slower start and a more gradual ease into the mechanics would help a ton if you ever release future versions. Had a lot of fun!
161 days ago(+2)
Thanks for giving our game a try and writing such thorough feedback! I'm glad you had fun. Sorry you encountered the weird bug, we'll stomp it out next time :P
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.