itch.io

The in-game units are real frogs, and you've done your research on which species would make sense for which tower. That's what I love the most about this game, this kind of inspiration is something only your game has. The towers are well-designed, albeit pretty standard. I've never seen a tower defense that uses frog tongues as attacks, it's unique and the animation is well done. I think what would make this really stand out, is if you made it so the frog draws in an insect and eats it if its attack executed the insect.

I like that you made all the art for the game's units. It could have been higher quality, and there's no design to the level as of now. There's no sounds and the UI is just functional. But, this is all because you didn't have much time to make the game to begin with. I think with more time all of these shortcomings solve themselves.

I hope you'll keep working on the game. If you could think up a unique mechanic to set it apart from a regular tower defense game, and add some more gameplay and art, I would definitely want to play it again! If not that's fine as well, either way I was happy to learn some frog trivia.

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This game, despite having simple gameplay, is quite fun to try and get a high score on. After quite a few attempts, I got a high score of 132. I don't think there's any difficulty scaling, but it sure does get more tense as your score increases, as you now have a lot to lose. I think the borderless arena is a fun mechanic that prevents corner-camping. It's satisfying to blast a large group of enemies, to then immediately fire in the other direction to avoid the enemies on the other side.

A remark: the fixed window size is pretty annoying, as clicking out of the game is way too easy with this game being mouse-controlled. I had to minimize all my apps including the game's console to be able to play.

I think it's impressive and cool that you made the game without any engine, just a renderer. That, too, fits the theme, but I think the game already fit the theme really well. Now I think that shotgunning insects in real life would just be 'It's stupid and it doesn't work'... admittedly, I never tried it.

I had fun trying to get a good score on this game. It's deceptively hard to get close to the 1-minute mark! I like the art in the game, props to Lexander. I also think the game is well programmed, it fits the theme very well and I like the jokes. I have a couple suggestions for the game if you intend to update it later:

• In optimal play, the 'move forward' key is never released and the 'move backward' key works against you, so I would suggest removing these controls and making the player run forward automatically. 
• It would also be helpful if the bomb slowly turned red (for example), as a visual indicator of how close to the explosion you are. Having to rely on muscle memory works for achievers but not for the casual player.
• The game could really benefit from having an obstacle added to spice up the gameplay, as it gets quite repetitive. Traditional obstacles won't work because the player is moving so fast, but I have an idea that would work perfectly for this game: the rockets from Jetpack Joyride. The player gets a warning on the y-level at which they (randomly) spawned. Of course the rockets can be replaced by birds or whatever would fit the theme.

I think this is one of those games that would really benefit from having a good UI. Anyways, I know this game was mostly just a good excuse to learn a new engine and physics library, and I think that's been achieved. Despite my frustrations with the bugs in the engine, it was pretty satisfying to finally start getting points with a 'stupid' solution. In that sense, it fits the theme perfectly, it just came at the cost of annoying gameplay.

I think it's quite cool there's a physics based game in the jam, you're the only one to manage that (not counting the game that uses velocity). The game would need more content/levels and a gentler learning curve, but as a tech demo, I like it! I hope you manage to add the things you wanted to add, like placeable boxes.

Make sure to visit the game's page for controls and instructions!

Currently, the game has a few balancing issues, including the robots being too smart, and weapons attached to robots disappearing. The only way to get any realistic progress is to directly attack the robots with a sword. Even if you do this, there aren't enough resources to reach the end of the game. The promised gameplay that would have fit the theme isn't viable, but I know it's going to be in the future.

You already have a vision on things to improve about the game, I want to add a few more suggestions that haven't come up in the discussion:

• The placement hologram should be a different color if you can't place something, currently it's unclear whether you're looking at the ground the correct way.
• When placing onto a bot you probably shouldn't be able to place things on a buzz saw, as it just breaks immediately.
• You'll have to decide whether you want more focus on the player fighting robots with new held items, or on placing scrap to kill them in clever ways. If you choose the latter, please consider increasing the player's speed because moving scrap around to create contraptions is a major drag right now. Before I figured out you can fight with held items, I even thought that this would be a better game if there were no physical player (free camera, more like a classic TD). You can also consider that.
• Of course, some indication of the damage % of a (placed) scrap piece would be nice, such as a cracking texture.
• The enemy objective, i.e. the ship, is totally defenseless, which is kind of unfun. If a single enemy slips through, you are forced to take care of it. Most games tackle this in some way: TD's usually subtract health and remove the enemy. MOBAs have permanent defense mechanisms on or around the objective that kill enemies. You could add something like a laser on to the ship that targets anything actively damaging it.
• I hope you'll add some basic sound effects, and perhaps some background music. I had to put on some music myself to not go crazy from the silence, as I spent quite some time trying to figure out this game.

I really like the aesthetics of the game. I love that you created a fully animated robot from scratch. In terms of visuals and programming this game is super impressive for a 2 day jam. I'm glad you're going to keep working on it, I'd love to play an updated version!

This is super cool! The puzzles were satisfying. I wish there were more of them, but you already did a lot in 2 days. I didn't know you could move things other than the train at first, so it took me a long time to get past the boulder. I tried to ram it from a screen away, and the slow camera transitions kept interrupting the speed which was very frustrating. If this were a real game, I hope the intro level would give an on-screen tip to move an object outside the tracks to avoid this situation. That is my only complaint about the game.

I think this would be great for a 'Think outside the box' theme. I think it fits for this theme but not very well, as the solutions strike me as clever and not stupid.

But the art direction in this game is amazing! I think it was a great idea to use assets for everything, this way you could spend more time composing your scenes and making a cohesive design.  The post-processing effects make the game look very professional.