A fun little tower defense game! The music and sound effect is nice, and the art is really simple and good.
There are several things I really enjoyed in the game. I really liked how the player (the blob) can body block and interact with the enemies in the map. I don’t think there’s many TD games that even have this as an option, so it adds a unique feel to the game. Though there are some scenarios where it seems bad, as too many times I find myself just permanently making the enemy stuck in a corner and make the wave too easy. Perhaps a way for the enemy to push through you the longer it’s stuck would be great. I also like that towers can be placed anywhere, instead of having fixed tiles, this adds a lot of depth and strategy to the game, as it makes every playthrough different in terms of tower placement. I also like that the player is added in some attacks, like the Cannon literally shoots the player at the enemies.
I have some issues while playing this game. Firstly, when the game starts and the player is asked to Press Start to play, you gave 0 direction what the player is supposed to press. You can only press the “Enter” key to even start the game, yet there is no indication of this anywhere.
The game also lacks a tutorial, which makes the initial learning and understanding of the game quite difficult. While I like the upgrades being beside the tower, being able to left click to select placed towers to upgrade them there would be good. The lack of an ability to sell or move towers also makes it so planning is extremely important.
The towers are too dependent on the player. While you added an amazing mechanic of letting the towers be placed anywhere, the small range and the fact that 2 of the 3 weapons require the player to be used, makes the mechanic seem a little forgotten. As most tower placements will be condensed to a small area, so that the player is in range of all of them. The base shooter tower is quite literally useless if you are not nearby to reload, and with the cannons and blobapult shooting you onto the enemy, unless you’ve upgraded the reload range, more often than not, the towers have no ammo. This forces the player to build and play in a small area of the map, as placing additional shooters out of range seem quite horrible. If you walk to reload a tower behind and the wave has not ended, the new enemies that spawn do not get hit as the tower in front has no ammo.
The difficulty scales really high really quickly, and enemies become more or less immune to the shooter. I get that the cannons are the main focus, but it makes the other 2 tower seem a little useless, especially the shooter. While the blobapult doesn’t do much damage, the lingering slime makes it really strong as well.
The dragging of the towers to place them, could also have an addition where you could click to select the tower, and click to place it down, to make it easier for the player.
While the map design was really nice, the fact that the player has to play in a small area or chokepoint makes it so the player doesn’t really experience the entire map.
The core gameplay mechanic, as well as the concept are great! But the game needs some balancing to bring out it’s great design. Great job for a prototype for the game jam!