Great game, and fantastic presentation! The isometric controls doomed me a few times though. I'm sure I'd get used to it given enough time, but perhaps an option to move by clicking the blue dots would be a good addition?
I'm curious as to how you made sure the rounds were beatable, given the levels are randomly generated?
Thank you very much!
I'm not sure if you were using WASD or the mouse in this case - in either case, it is true that the blue dots can't be clicked (only the tiles can be clicked on, and, well - since the dots don't block it, that could result in misclicks), and it's very understandable that that's misleading and something that I need to fix haha. Thank you for pointing it out!
As for keeping the rounds beatable, this was mainly via playtests and tweaking plenty of variables, and a bit of coincidence, too. The target score grows exponentially to make it more and more challenging, but I do think that thanks to the way the levels are generated and how scoring works, it's theoretically always beatable.
The way levels generate is decently simple - a value representing the number of tiles is given, and the code will then repeatedly select a random tile and place a tile next to it at a random available direction. Every level the amount of tiles is increased by... I think 2, not 100% sure, but in any case, it keeps on expanding over time. Depending on how many tiles there are, it'll spawn in an amount of buttons, to increase the amount of distance the player needs to traverse to beat a level. Main takeaway, levels are randomly generated, but the amount of tiles a level will have isn't.
...in any case, since the level keeps expanding, and since the score per enemy placed also increases, I think it's technically possible to keep going forever. Also, you get more levels per round beat as you beat more rounds, so that also helps. It does mean that levels will also become more and more challenging due to the large amount of enemies required.
...bit of a ramble, but I hope that helps explain the design behind the scoring, haha
Oh man, I didn't even realise I could click the tiles to move!
Thanks for the detailed explanation, I hadn't noticed that the score per enemy increases as the game goes on. So is it theoretically possible for the level generator to make a straight line (which I presume would be impossible to win) or are there some sort of minimum parameters to make sure that doesn't happen?
Whoops! Yeah, the game does lack a bit of a tutorial so I don't blame you.
And also a bit of a mistake in my explanation - for every level, every enemy you place gets more score (first 1 point, second 2 points, third 3 points, etc). The amount of enemies is limited by the available tiles, so this means that there are more points to score in a level with 100 tiles than in a level with 2 tiles. The score per enemy throughout the game does stay the same.
As for the generator making a straight line - yes! that is possible. Although, to make it truly impossible, that would also mean that the player has to spawn on one end, and at least one button at the complete other end. if there's space outside the 'line' between the player and the farthest button, an enemy could be placed there, but that would also likely have to be a green enemy.
I'm sure there are some calculations that could be done to calculate the chances of that happening but in any case, it is possible!
Alright, ramble done, haha
