LudumData

The Lonely Realm of Tom Thaum, the Space Wizard by JJEvil

[raw]
made by JJEvil for LD31 (JAM)
Gamepad/KB & Mouse supported,
SEE CONTROLS GRAPHIC BELOW.

FORMATS - Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5

----About the Game----

A funny little 2d defend & build game.

You are Tom. You are a wizard that lives alone on a planetoid deep in space. An unanticipated meteor storm has destroyed your tower, the focus of your power. It threatens to destroy your home world. Can you rebuild and save your tiny planet?

COLLECT the shards of your broken tower.
DEFEND from the onslaught of meteors with your shield spell.
REBUILD the tower to increase your power.
OUTLAST the timer. The storm ends at 0
CONTROL the rotation of the planet with your footsteps. Keep your tower upright.

Tutorial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11k0oOyDuuQ

Will you save your home or die in space?

----

Two of us made this from scratch in 48 hours using Construct 2 & Spriter.

Pressing keyboard "p" or gamepad "start" to pause the game and display the controls.
Web http://fishdeck.net/lrttsw/index.html
Windows https://mega.co.nz/#!P4cHSQrA!V-T5nbgggeJwTekgAd14-mPNyg8mXOiBemBjLHakP3o
OS/X https://mega.co.nz/#!WxFQkbxR!iR-ZD62B4FiisQ9zl4XvBwzG4ds8jv_xVePjIH_Prms
Linux https://mega.co.nz/#!zoEBlBKL!bdqsGhCEVUKakBlQSjEhjA-dYgIMZnvTc_J3cBgZW_M
Source https://mega.co.nz/#!DsFkTArI!1fhUQNgz9uwsFT3Aa2WuQnkHeuclSmZudveo7LgcDfc
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=46521

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 3.25 458
Audio(Jam) 3.20 305
Fun(Jam) 3.17 416
Graphics(Jam) 3.10 584
Humor(Jam) 2.85 366
Innovation(Jam) 3.60 193
Mood(Jam) 3.14 430
Theme(Jam) 3.62 432

Feedback

liamtwose
08. Dec 2014 路 11:02 UTC
great work, highest score 844, took a short while to get used to at first, but stick with it, its a neat little game!
plauk
08. Dec 2014 路 11:05 UTC
Nice and weird. Unfortunately I had a bit of trouble with the controls. Cool concept though.
dekart
08. Dec 2014 路 11:15 UTC
It's kinda hard, but I like it. The music is good. Nice game!
馃帳 JJEvil
08. Dec 2014 路 13:11 UTC
You can pause the game (Keyboard p or gamepad start) and view the full controls.
ainokaisa
08. Dec 2014 路 13:35 UTC
Not sure what the attack did. High score a bit on the positive side :)
colludium
08. Dec 2014 路 16:38 UTC
I enjoyed. Good job!
sputnik
08. Dec 2014 路 18:08 UTC
Love the "you shall not pass" wizard! Kinda weird (that's a good thing) but maybe too hard.
jarry
08. Dec 2014 路 18:11 UTC
Nice game, love it
goodbadokay
08. Dec 2014 路 18:12 UTC
Did not get is first, but then it was fun
Nice :)
Gins
08. Dec 2014 路 18:18 UTC
That was pretty cool! Unfortunately I wasn't able to build the tower all the way up, but it was cool while it lasted :)
daviosmash
08. Dec 2014 路 18:35 UTC
Fun game! The controls could be a bit more fluid and the orientation did cause me to have some issues, but once I got used to it, I played it more than almost any other I've went through so far. Really nice concept!
Olive
08. Dec 2014 路 18:44 UTC
I love the art and visual style of the game. It has a simple, crafty, mixed media, papery feel to it. I like the story concept a lot. Reminds me of the Little Prince 50 years into his future. I found it hard to read the controls due to the low contrast in font and background color. Also I was bit confused, maybe because I have poor memory and I can only remember three controls at a time but it was difficult for me to intuitively know how to prevent the asteroids from the destroying the planet. Seems like a really cool idea, wish I knew how to play!
馃帳 JJEvil
08. Dec 2014 路 22:10 UTC
Liam, my highest score is 640 now. I'm going to catch you.
rabbit
08. Dec 2014 路 22:35 UTC
It is impossible to read the controls. I died a lot trying to figure out what to do.
hypnoticbytes
08. Dec 2014 路 22:36 UTC
Great work. I had fun playing! Grats!
nbilyk
08. Dec 2014 路 22:39 UTC
Well done. Rather tricky, but entertaining.
pancakecity
08. Dec 2014 路 23:56 UTC
I really like the ending screen. "Just another corpse in space now" hehehe
Unique idea!
catchthefloaty
09. Dec 2014 路 00:01 UTC
well done. love the gamepad support. played for some time.
spacedoubt
09. Dec 2014 路 03:39 UTC
Took me a minute to get the hang of it, but once I did, I couldn't stop! Nice job!
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 04:01 UTC
Thanks everyone for the feedback and comments. Sarah & I wanted to make something that felt like a full game. It's got quite a lot of replay. I still haven't beaten Liam's high score yet.
Shivur
09. Dec 2014 路 04:04 UTC
Very funny game and interesting gameplay. I wish the planet was more centered so when it is upside down I can see my tower.
pixzleone
09. Dec 2014 路 14:08 UTC
Very cool!
LimeniusTeam
09. Dec 2014 路 14:13 UTC
Lovely graphics, a bit difficult to understand what you have to do. Nice work overall.
Tangible Games
09. Dec 2014 路 14:18 UTC
Had serious problems with controls.
Music/sounds are great.
Game looks nice, but text is unreadable.
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 14:36 UTC
@Tangible Games. I added a full screen browser toggle. It should help with reading the text. If you press "p" on the keyboard, it'll pause the game and display the controls.
BoxedMeatRevolution
09. Dec 2014 路 16:15 UTC
Fun and humorous little game. Controls were confusing at first and I lost when my tower went off screen, but overall this is a solid entry!
jonah1nine
09. Dec 2014 路 16:26 UTC
Awesome game! Really enjoyed it. Scored 126, couldn't keep up with those meteors!

Controls is a bit tricky but overall it's a very interesting game.
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 16:28 UTC
You have to be careful. The tower will turn as you walk. If you're careful & jump a lot, it'll stay upright but it's tricky. Glad you enjoyed the game!
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 16:34 UTC
I'm finding that playing with a keyboard and mouse is actually a bit easier than using the gamepad. Might beat Liam's score yet.
RougeRogue
09. Dec 2014 路 16:57 UTC
As you hoped, I really enjoyed this game. In fact, I enjoyed it far more than I'd expected! I love the whole system with the building and defending! I didn't use the attract function much because... I don't know I just felt uncomfortable with doing it XD. Anyway, great game and thanks for sending me the link!
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 17:25 UTC
@RougeRogue The attract really drains you will a lot. I put it in there to reach the high orbit pieces, but you have to do it sparingly and time it right. Sometimes you'll get a big cluster and draw them all in at once. That's when you can get a good score at the end.
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 17:26 UTC
*your
Nobuyoshi
09. Dec 2014 路 18:23 UTC
I really enjoyed. Nice game!
twick
09. Dec 2014 路 20:54 UTC
Fun Game. Took a little while to get used to. The Gui is hard to see on the left.
Boracho
09. Dec 2014 路 21:40 UTC
I like the idea, but the controls on my end are a little wonky. I got stuck in an infinite walk loop more than once. It seems like a cool game, but I can't seem to play more than a few times without something going crazy. Might be my connection or something.
馃帳 JJEvil
09. Dec 2014 路 21:48 UTC
@Boracho. I was having problems playing it on the page window earlier. Mostly because I was using the middle mouse button to build and losing window focus. Try it full screen, and if you're still having trouble it's available for full download which will solve connectivity issues. Thanks for playing it. I had a lot of fun making it.
savethejets1
10. Dec 2014 路 01:34 UTC
The art is epic.

I had a tough time reading the controls on the side there.
barryrowe
10. Dec 2014 路 02:20 UTC
This is fun, challenging, looks good, and the controls are pretty smooth. Well done. I'm bad at this game, and could never protect the tower, but it's a lot of fun. Great job.
Kiwiboi
10. Dec 2014 路 17:00 UTC
Great entry, solid fun gameplay and cool concept :)
sanchitgulati
10. Dec 2014 路 17:56 UTC
took me a while to understand the game and then some more to read the controls layout, then some more to see how it works.
sanchitgulati
10. Dec 2014 路 17:58 UTC
soundtrack is nice :D
doesn't sound like my planet is facing apocalypse but still there is no bad time to dance, is there ?
LTyrosine
10. Dec 2014 路 23:48 UTC
Really cool game. I loved the idea. The bad is that totally unbalanced. Wizard loose power too fast to be possible to do anything... I'm still playing it and trying to perform better. Great job!
Snicklodocus
10. Dec 2014 路 23:48 UTC
I liked this one! The art is really charming and the sounds are nice. The interface could use some polish and it took me many tries to actually understand. Overall though, great job.

Also, I couldn't get the web version to work in my browser, Firefox, but the Windows version worked fine.
rantt
11. Dec 2014 路 00:28 UTC
Fun game, I enjoyed it. Great job :)
Warboys
11. Dec 2014 路 01:46 UTC
Probably the most frustrating game I've ever played lol. The concept itself is really neat, I love the idea behind it... but the balancing had me pulling my hair out. Extract costs way too much Will and I have no idea when it will even work (if noticed some indication as to when it would actually grab something, maybe it would be ok). The tower itself I got to like stage 5 or something but then there were no tower parts or Will spawning so I had to just stand there and watch it all die.

Maybe I'm completely missing something though. If it was balanced it would be amazing, I think.
cabezotta
11. Dec 2014 路 16:10 UTC
Great entry! but pretty weird and difficult to understand, at least for me! good job anyway! :D
SecondDimension
11. Dec 2014 路 17:06 UTC
Very odd, I liked it. Was cool running around the planet and I got into a rhythm with the meteors after a while, perhaps felt a little frustrating when your building kept being destroy, but then again maybe that was the idea
馃帳 JJEvil
11. Dec 2014 路 17:15 UTC
There's a stretch in the middle, right before the last 120-90 seconds where's it's helpful to have the tower destroyed. You gain will from collecting the pieces, and you can fill up, rebuild and heal the planet before the onslaught.
Omiya Games
11. Dec 2014 路 21:29 UTC
Not exactly clear what the objective is. Is it to survive as long as possible? Is it to construct the tower to it's best condition? And I think the audio is a little broken, because I still hear the construction sound effect after the timer ran out, and the game ended.
alabebop
12. Dec 2014 路 10:50 UTC
Really fun to play! The graphics remind me of the little prince and the audio is really nice!
Domicuc
12. Dec 2014 路 13:10 UTC
Nice! Love 2D defense game ! Check my defense game too ! x)
gre
12. Dec 2014 路 13:41 UTC
very original gameplay and graphics.
Demy
12. Dec 2014 路 18:47 UTC
Controls are too strange and game is too hard, or may be it's just me - I'm not very into this type of games. I liked your music choice though.
Indieindio
12. Dec 2014 路 21:25 UTC
great music , nice!
Erkberg
12. Dec 2014 路 23:46 UTC
Pretty fun little game. I liked the mechanics with your wizard being able to jump higher und thus collect more shards when upgrading your tower. However, it got really hard and a little frustrating with higher tower levels, because one can't see the meteors below and to the right of the planet and with the tower rising higher I found it almost impossible to defend it and also upgrade it more. That I did try for quite some time means the game is really fun.
Graphics and audio are cute and fitting, good job overall!
OrangeeZ
13. Dec 2014 路 07:27 UTC
Hm, very nice concept! Well done!
paperweight
13. Dec 2014 路 10:13 UTC
pretty good!
Germanunkol
13. Dec 2014 路 10:37 UTC
Wow, this is not easy!

Well done.
I would have liked a more obvious animation when he can't build, I always tried to build without noticing I didn't have the material. He seems to play the same animation wether he's building or not, and the build count down is too hard to ready or notice in the heat of the battle.

Other than that, great work!
Taunia Sabanski
13. Dec 2014 路 10:41 UTC
I'd love to play a full version of this with a good tutorial level, storyline mode and more content. This is a really solid little game here -- I'd probably pinpoint this as more of a prototype for central game mechanics and testing play than anything else. This game really should get some post-LD attention. :)
resty
13. Dec 2014 路 11:17 UTC
pretty good, I love the art style in the game.
BCSGame
13. Dec 2014 路 18:29 UTC
I liked it, had no clue what to do with the keyboard, but the controller made it winnable. Only thing was, when the tower rotated to the bottom right, I couldn't see things hitting it.
Tifu
13. Dec 2014 路 21:16 UTC
I get its for the theme and all, but I feel too much information is off screen - maybe tower planet should have been smaller? At times the top of my tower was off screen at the bottom, so my ability to protect it from meteors was incredibly hampered, made the whole process of trying to build and protect the tower seem a pretty futile effort. I think if I could see what I'm doing this would be a pretty fun game.
MrBadIvan
14. Dec 2014 路 18:30 UTC
Interesting concept, little bit hard to manage defence against meteors and build in same time, but I like the one screen planet =)
rd127p77
15. Dec 2014 路 00:08 UTC
Interesting game, love how there is defense, the music is great it differs. Definitely an interesting game. Good Job!
Victory Garden
15. Dec 2014 路 00:24 UTC
Oh man! I lost just 11 seconds from the end. I never quite understood the spell mapped to E, but otherwise I really enjoyed myself, and agree with Olive that this does seem like a sort of time-shifted Little Prince story. Very nice game. Thank you!
馃帳 JJEvil
15. Dec 2014 路 00:46 UTC
The red spell is an attract spell for pulling in the higher up tower shards.
zatyka
15. Dec 2014 路 02:28 UTC
It took a little while to understand what was going on, but once I did, it was pretty fun. Nice audio, and cute visuals. My main complaint was the length of the game. If you continue working on this, I'd suggest making the game a bit shorter, or adding some more content. For a while, it did seem to get a little repetitive as the clock counted away.

A nice LD entry :)
Franklin's Ghost
15. Dec 2014 路 10:02 UTC
Fun game that reminded me of the little prince which is always a nice thing. Liked the defending your planet aspect and the different magic you had to use.
lemmily
15. Dec 2014 路 15:30 UTC
Too hard for that enjoyable feeling. Hard to understand how to actually protect the planet because the character feels very sluggish.
Tuism
15. Dec 2014 路 15:55 UTC
Hmmmmmm, the premise really drew me, but it wasn't very "fun". I think it can be attributed to it being too hard and there not being enough emergence in the play - none of the systems affected each other. So if you're building you have to stop and go stop a meteor, if you're jumping you can't shield. Nothing felt particularly smart and a lot of the decisions are kinda made for you.

Not being able to see meteors half the time is discouraging.

The premise is great though, I believe there's something great in there :)
darthballs
15. Dec 2014 路 17:47 UTC
its aight
stupid wizard keeps hitting himself in da face and won't block dem meteorites and the planet keeps blowing up
if i was the wizard i would probably make sure i had unlimited shields that were bigger
also why does he care about this backwater piece of crap planet in the middle of nowhere?
overall eh
scias
15. Dec 2014 路 17:51 UTC
I love the fact that this is a complete game (of course you can always improve what already exists and implement new content), so well done on that! I also think that this game kept a consistent quality level across all categories. (This is the first entry where all categories have received the same amount of stars.) If you were to continue working on this game I'd recommend letting the player learn the controls though playing the game instead of having a list of instructions in the game screen. Well done!
Dietrich Epp
15. Dec 2014 路 20:02 UTC
Lots of fun! It's kind of hard to decipher the instructions for the controls while you're playing, though.
MrShoestore
15. Dec 2014 路 20:53 UTC
I found it pretty difficult to get to the meteors before they hit the planet, just seemed like there wasn't much time before they showed up on screen and hit. I could only reach a few of them to block with the shield. well done for 48 hours
Integershift
15. Dec 2014 路 23:43 UTC
Difficult game to try to figure out but good idea pretty innovative game.
Backterria
16. Dec 2014 路 00:30 UTC
Very nice atmosphere and the character is great!Keep up the good work!
Lynx
16. Dec 2014 路 02:35 UTC
Interesting concept with an epic purpose. It's beard-tastic!
Mekuri
16. Dec 2014 路 06:54 UTC
Took me a short while to figure out - but after that - I had fun! I loved the idea. A mixed sense of progression and a sense of impending doom! Great work - I loved it!
PapyPilgrim
16. Dec 2014 路 11:26 UTC
There are some asteroid that you just cannot possibly intercept... Better controls and difficulty curve would make that game much more enjoyable.

The concept is pretty cool, don't get me wrong, but some hand-holding for new players would be nice.
nesis
16. Dec 2014 路 14:28 UTC
I like the game - it's like a new take on the tower defense genre. Fun pace to the game. I would consider rubberbanding the pacing of meteors to fit the amount of power the wizard currently has, so the player doesn't end up inexorably overwhelmed. Though if that's your intention, no worries! :)
Xanjos
16. Dec 2014 路 23:19 UTC
Pretty fun game once you get used to the controls. My only problem is that the text on the left hand side is very ineligible at the start of the game.
CliffracerX
17. Dec 2014 路 17:09 UTC
Very fun and innovative, I sucked at the controls a bit though. Made it to about 90 seconds left on the timer before my planet exploded. :P

Good use of the theme, and the audio is freakin' awesome.
Very nice job!
馃帳 JJEvil
17. Dec 2014 路 17:22 UTC
@CliffracerX - I've learned one valuable lesson from the feedback. Let Sarah make the big decisions. Everyone loves her contributions (music, art, soundfx) and find mine frustrating (controls, gameplay). Or perhaps it's the combination that keeps people playing it, lol.
MonoS
17. Dec 2014 路 19:13 UTC
I didn't like the game so much.
The sfx are a bit annoying adn the rhythm is supper slow and made me boring.
I also lost a few times before understanding what to do
Tonasz
20. Dec 2014 路 12:02 UTC
Nice twist about "tower defense" mechanics! It's something worth working on! There are also few "polish tweaks" to be done like tower got rotated the way its peak went off the screen or the fact i didn't know what to do at the beginning.
PS: Little prince reference :)
pht59x
26. Dec 2014 路 07:20 UTC
Visually appealing. Nice sound and music to begin with. But I got left wondering what to do...