itch.io

Thanks for letting me know! Steam doesn't make it easy to test the Demo myself, but I will look into it!

I wasnt able to see the issue myself, but I did release an update so hopefully it is now fixed. If not, could you let me now which operating system you are using?

I did give a rating for your game right after I played it, so not sure what the deal is there.

Graphics are super charming, and its well polished. The UI could use a bit of work though, particularly the coins display could be more prominent. You cant even see it right now in the web build until you go into full screen.

The other problem, is that the movement feels too punishing right now. Since you cant attack after moving, if you move into the enemy you just get hit for nothing. So I find myself just waiting to get an AOE attack instead of ever moving. I also think you need to prioritize a tutorial / intro, cause I found myself pretty lost trying to understand the mechanics in the beginning.

First, I must commend you on putting in such a large amount of polish. I can tell despite the simplicity of the game a lot of work has been done to make it feel fantastic. The graphics look great, the sound effects and feedback are incredible.

Best of all, is the insanely addictive gameplay loop. It gives me the same feeling as something like peggle or breakout. After a little bit it did start to feel pretty repetitive though. I think with just a couple things though you could have had me playing for hours!

1st, I think you need to work on adding some new powerups and unique mechanics. You could explore things like breaking up the players circle into multiple smaller ones, adding a bounce, changing movement speed, jump height, gravity, etc.

And I also think you should add some kind of progression or goal. Right now it feels like I have no reason to keep playing past the simple gameplay loop. As good as it is, it wont keep players around for long enough. I would look at how games like Peggle solve this, and try adding some things like increasing difficulty / complexity as you level up. You could also try adding some kind of score system, but I think the problem now is there is no way to "lose" which trivializes the score in a way.

Thanks for the feedback! I am currently working on an automated system to spawn enemies for the Steam demo, so this should help with the difficulty spikes, and it should feel like there is much more variety. On top of this, I am experimenting with giving the player full control of when mining happens / when enemies spawn.

For the movement, I have gotten many complaints about it and I am planning to rework it entirely at some point. If you have any ideas for what you would like to see when it comes to movement, I would love to hear them!

One thing I would say, is try not to be scared of diving into traditional RTS gameplay. You are already competing with some of the best RTS games, whether you like it or not.

I don't think you have to go fully into traditional RTS movement though. Something as simple as queuing construction before I have money for it would solve the problem. Another idea, is offering options between different paths for your units to take. This could open up a whole new layer of strategy while keeping the same automated feeling it has now.

And for multiplayer, I don't mean you should not do it of course. I personally think that a really good single player AI should instead be your main focus though. This way you can draw in players with the single player experience, which could help boost your player count for multiplayer more in the long run. I think updating it is a great start, and maybe adding some random strategies that it will pick from.

For the buggy spam, I do think it's just a player feedback problem. It's not clear that I can ignore the spam of buggies. Adding some kind of turret that I can build to hard counter buggy spam would make it feel much better.

I just tried playing again and avoided using buggies, only to get absolutely crushed. Not sure what I'm missing but it still seems like you need to play perfectly to counter the AIs spam of buggies, or just keep spamming them yourself and try to sneak in some economy if you can.

The new turrets and drones were designed specifically to try and fix the issue you mentioned with the mercenaries since I have gotten many similar complaints about it. They now cost ore directly instead of money, and much of the game has been rebalanced to encourage a more active play style and rely less on permanent upgrades.

Yes, I believe so. I am not sure the exact solution in your project, but some sprites like the character are aliased making them seem really blurry. I always try to avoid this when using pixel art, its a pretty common issue.

For the difficulty, its hard to give an exact answer, its just something you will have to iterate on. I would start by maybe making the base enemies a little more difficulty, and have their upgrades scale less. It feels right now like the enemies are 0 threat for half of the time I played, until the upgrades really started to compound and they became way too strong.

That makes sense, and I had a feeling it was intentional. It just feels really bad right now because it is not communicated to me in game what is happening.

I would suggest adding some kind of indicator for how many gravity switches you have remaining.

This is really good, I was hooked. I would recommend maybe ramping up the difficulty a bit sooner. I started to get bored thinking the game was too easy. But shortly after, it got way too hard!

I really enjoyed the combat. At first it was a little clunky, but after playing for a bit I really started to enjoy it!

Now personally, I would take this in a more traditional rougelite direction. After death, reset everything except for the shards (and definitely expand on that! Its a great form of meta-progression). Right now I feel kinda stuck, it got too hard and I have no building of my progression. On top of that, resetting the abilities would let you add new ones, and randomize which ones you get each run!

Your core gameplay is fantastic! Fix your pixels and put up a steam page, I think you have some good potential here.

I think you've reached a point where more units arent going to help with the core gameplay much more. I think a tutorial is super important for any game, so you should definitely focus on that!

Perhaps you could experiment with some kind of control over your units. Yes, I know the hook is that they are automated, but I think you could maybe have some kind of very simple controls. It was really frustrating when I couldnt move my construction bot to where I want until I have enough money to build what I want.

I find it very limited in terms of strategy right now, if I dont immediately and constantly invest in buggies I still feel like I am going to just lose even if that is not the case. That prevented me from using any of the new units or research. I think you need to incorporate some kinds of early game defenses that can counter the spam of buggies in some way.

Also, multiplayer is really tough to pull off for any indie dev, just in terms of getting enough players. I would suggest just focus on making the AI a bit better for now

Really well done! Movement feels really good, and I like the mix of the gravity switching with more of a metroidvania with the combat. I would perhaps adjust the movement to be a little quicker, but thats just something you have to play with.

The one thing that frustrated me, is that gravity does not seem to switch all the time when I right click. I am not sure if that is a bug, or if there is an intentional cooldown. If there is, it really needs to be communicated somehow.

As a professional web dev, I appreciate anyone able to make a game using vanilla JS (on a phone nonetheless, you are a madman!!) If you are trying to learn web dev, great job!

Now for the game itself, unfortunately I had no idea what was going on, or what the goal of the game was. The game seems completely bugged as well, since the black cube doesnt really go where you click. (I have realized this happens when you click directly on the balloon.)

Now if you are limited to developing on your phone, dont lose hope! I recommend you check out Godot for android, or if you want to continue with JS, you could give Phaser a try! https://phaser.io/

Music is a jammer though, I must say.

If you want to fix the movement, use `event.x` & `event.y` here instead, seems to work for me:

The other problem is that your collision detection seems to be running way too slowly at 700ms. The proper way to do it is have a signal for collisions instead, but that is way out of scope for using vanilla JS like this (the actual bottleneck here is reading the position and size from the dom, not the collision check itself).

Wow, the twist really got me. I dont wanna spoil it, but for anyone else make sure you get to level 5!

I would recommend trying to add some kind of recovery mechanic. Its REALLY annoying having to restart a level because of a small mistake. The puzzles feel really easy, its more just a tedious loop of trying not to make a dumb mistake. Its a classic concept though, I think you just need to spend some time refining the core gameplay. Look at some other games with this type of puzzle for inspiration.

Jumping (more specifically falling) feels really floaty. I would recommend increasing the fall speed a lot, and increasing the jump speed a little bit.

Its also really hard to tell what is going to kill me, at least at first. I would recommend changing the color to red or something with more contrast that is obvious, and not used for anything else.

I'm no expert myself, but I would recommend against putting any buttons in the corners/edges of the screen. I always give it some padding. I find its hard to see buttons placed right in the corner, especially if they are small as the ones you have in the game. My brain kind of just ignores it, assuming that it is some kind of HUD.

I really like the concept, I think the largest problem you will face is just how confusing and daunting the game is. I came VERY close to quiting after trying to grapple with the basics for the first 5-10 min. Once I understood the basics it became interesting, but there are a few major flaws I noticed:

• Matchmaking seems to be entirely random, so I am either paired against something I have 0 chance of winning against, or a contraption that automatically falls of the map and I win. This makes it really easy to cheese the betting system.
• The gun seems pretty useless, especially for how expensive it is.
• I would like to see more depth into the physics, stuff like suspension, dampers, springs, motors, etc. You could make some crazy contraptions! I know you can edit the joints, but its way too confusing so I didnt touch that.
• Test mode is quite buggy, it seems to freeze a lot and pressing T doesnt always work.
• I didnt even see the tutorial, or most of the UI buttons until very late in the playthrough. The UI needs a lot of work.

Just wanted to let you know that I have published a large overhaul of some of the mechanics. I would love if you could check it out and just let me know if you like it better or not!

Just wanted to let you know that I have published a large overhaul of some of the mechanics. I would love if you could check it out and just let me know if you like it better or not!

Hahahah, I did this on purpose so I did not deafen people (thats a huge pet peeve of mine). Perhaps I overdid it a bit 😅

I enjoyed the story and I think the gameplay concepts are pretty cool. Unfortunately it just didnt engage me enough to finish the game.

I think the gameplay needs a lot more polish to make it enjoyable. Currently there are just a few issues that are making combat not as fun as it could be.

- Shooting in tight corridors or around corners is frustrating, since your bullet is so large and it despawns if it touches the wall.

- Controls for using abilities feels confusing. I dont think the problem isnt necessarily with which buttons you chose, but more with the fact that there are so many different ones for each ability that I just cant remember them quickly. I think just adding which key needs to be pressed for each ability in the UI would help a lot, just to have a quick reference while playing. I found myself scrolling down to read the controls quite a few times just to figure out how to use an ability.

- Movement feels a bit slidey, I think this could use some focus in the future. Some movement based abilities could also be fun, currently trying to dodge enemy bullets just feels futile in a lot of cases.

Looks  better but I think the text on the cards still does not scale.

Thanks for playing, and glad to hear you enjoy the concept!

Moving soldiers is something I haven't added yet, but it is planned for the next update. It is a bit tricky to balance since it could be used to save a tower from getting attacked. I think to work around this I will allow towers to move only in the same area they are placed, and when moved they will move to the new position slowly. I think this will also add another layer of engagement and strategy. Perhaps moving them more freely could become some kind of upgrade in the future like a heli pickup as well.

I am also adding a difficulty indicator to each wave which should hopefully help with suggesting when to back out of a mission, but I will have to see if it actually helps.

Makes sense, I think I will need to iterate on that part of the design a bit until I land on something I think is a good balance.

A danger indicator for the upcoming wave is already planned for the next update!

Thanks for the feedback!

I am working to avoid the typical loss scenario since I also noticed it kind of ruins the perma death. My plan is to only have a some of your soldiers randomly die at the end instead of all of them. I will also play with having all of the soldiers kept alive and look into some other consequences as you mentioned.

You're second point is something I didn't really consider, but it makes a lot of sense. My original plan is to continue ramping up the difficulty of missions so you never feel too over powered, but this will require a large amount of upgrades and levels, as well as a TON of work balancing. Your idea of temporary upgrades could definitely work, but my concern is that it would be difficult to explain to the player and may feel pretty unintuitive or it may defeat some of the spirit of upgrading your permanent towers.

I will definitely try exploring the idea though, as well as brainstorm some other possible solutions.

Also thank you for bringing up the font. I did feel it may have been hard to read in some places but it's good to hear from someone else.

I managed to power through the UI issues (if I looked really close to my screen I could almost read the cards 😅) and complete the game.

I think you have a good core concept, and I like some of the events you had outside of the card battles.

My biggest complaint would be with the strategy. It feels like there is never a reason to use anything but an attack card. For card games like this, I think it's super important to have a large variety of cards that perform unique abilities.

I think the enemies are also super basic, at no point did I feel like there was any threat of me losing.

While it's clear the UI and sound needs some attention, more importantly I think you should take a deeper look at your core gameplay, there just really isn't enough depth with the cards you have in the game right now.

Thanks so much for the great feedback! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the game.

I have gotten a taste of losing upgraded towers during play testing, and it really surprised me how much it stings even with 0 investment into playing! I look forward to adding more difficulty and a lot more content in the coming updates, and I have some ideas to make sure it doesn't feel unfair.

The UI is also something I want to rework a bit in the next update. I have been taking heavy inspiration from Bloons TD UI but if you have any ideas for making the placing of units more intuitive it is highly welcome. I do plan do add some hover effects to placed units to make it more obvious you can click on them

I have also added more in depth tower targeting already which fixes that issue and gives you more control, coming very soon!

PS: Id love to try out your game but currently the only computer I have access to is a Mac. If you are able to release a web or mac version I can give it a try!

I am on a macbook pro 14 so quite a large resolution to be fair (3024 x 1964)

The cards in particular are rendered very small on my display still, making it nearly impossible to read them

When I go into fullscreen they stay the exact same size.

Thank you for providing so much detailed feedback, it is highly appreciated!

The reception so far has been incredibly positive, and considering how little time I have spent developing so far, I hope with just a few updates the game will rival it's competition in terms of polish.

Indicating waves is something I have been thinking a lot about, and I have a few solutions in mind. Currently, I am leaning towards providing a form of difficulty indicator for the upcoming wave as well as a countdown timer during the pause period. This would also allow me to randomize the waves a bit to make replaying levels a bit less predictable.

Anyways, thanks again for the feedback, and let me know if you are able to fix the UI scaling issue in your game, I'd love to give it a fair review!

Since you are using Godot, I was able to add a time speed up to my game super easily with Engine.timescale

I have released a small update that makes the first level more possible to beat without ending the mission early to collect money. If you would like to give the game another try and let me know what you think it would be highly appreciated!

Wow, really well done! Super fun little game you have here.

Some things I would like to see:

- Way to speed up time, waiting for my units to reach the other side gets a bit boring since they are so slow.

- More interaction with your current units, like an ability that I can trigger on a cooldown.

Really like the gameplay concept, feels fairly well polished overall as well.

I think the keyboard controls could do with some tweaking, M & N feel pretty awkward and unusual. It definitely feels more suited to controller.

I would also like to see some sort of sprint with a cooldown to make movement more interesting, as movement can be frustrating slow which makes you feel a little bored.

Feels like there isnt much of a game, you just watch the cards get played for you. Would be nice to have some form of interaction with the player.

Not sure what the wallet integration is supposed to be, but it gives me NFT vibes which is a huge turn off

I definitely like that idea. I plan to rework the money system next so that should help as well. Overall I like the idea of having to grind a few easier missions after losing to rebuild your army.

I will also play with giving a free marine/some money if you have run out and have no money

Thanks for playing!

I agree that the current art can feel a bit weird with the current theme since I got it from a modern military asset pack. I do plan to stick with the military theme, but it will be a more sci-fi style in the future. I am not the best artist myself lol.

Glad to hear you enjoyed the game though!

Thanks for the feedback! I still have lots of work to do when it comes to balancing.

I am also looking into some form of comeback mechanic to solve the problem of having to restart after losing, any ideas are highly appreciated!