The Lone Tower by Masadow

[raw]
made by Masadow for LD28 (COMPO)
EDIT: I've uploaded a windows version for those who can't run flash version. However, there are some sounds that doesn't play and I don't know why, sorry.

Here we go, my second ludum dare :)

I wasn't mean to participate due to a lack of time. But I'm glad to be there !

I'm happy with what I've done, it took me so much time to find core mechanics with this game concept ! I spent almost 10 consecutive hours on balancing monster's. So I hope you will find it hard, but also that everyone will have enough time to have fun before loosing :D

So here we go with the game itself, it is a kind of tower defense. The main difference is that You Only Get One tower. Don't feel so bad ! You will be able to move it everywehere as it follows your mouse :)

The goal of this game, like any TD is to defeat monsters before they reach your base, here, the right side of the map. Be carefull, you will only get one life !

Killing a monster will reward you some score points and money. Money is used to make some upgrade whereas score points allows you to level up and increase your range.

There is 3 kind of upgrade

* Firerate: Fire more often at ennemies. Upgraded with Q
* Power: Damage deal to enemies. Upgraded with W
* Target: How much ennemies you can shoot at once. Upgraded with E

I spent a lot of time trying to make a decent music, it sounds good but very repetitive, mute it with M if you want to get rid of this.

Music was made with LMMS.
Sounds were made with sfxr.
Arts were made with PyxelEdit.
Code was made with Haxe and HaxeFlixel.

If you are going to compile it, instead of using the standard HaxeFlixel library, please download the one given in links.

Don't forget to enjoy the game, and every comments are welcomed :)

Future:
* Lengthen the music loop
* Better tower placement when mouse is on road
* Rework the UI

Ratings

Coolness 96% 2
Overall 3.43 190
Audio 2.66 427
Fun 3.60 83
Graphics 2.51 709
Humor 2.36 437
Innovation 3.57 124
Mood 2.76 495
Theme 3.57 133

Feedback

dearenot
15. Dec 2013 路 16:51 UTC
that's good
ReactorScram
15. Dec 2013 路 19:44 UTC
Got to 15,560. Really fun but I would suggest that the tower moves as close to the cursor as possible. Right now when the cursor is over a road, the tower completely stops moving, so it feels like it's lagging.
馃帳 Masadow
15. Dec 2013 路 22:29 UTC
Thans for your review. I actually add a point to see where the mouse point. I keep the idea of putting the tower as close as possible for a future release. I have to stop now :(
sensenmann666
16. Dec 2013 路 03:04 UTC
Interesting concept and a nice take on the static tower defense paradigm
tklovert
16. Dec 2013 路 05:16 UTC
We both did the same idea! Yeah lol!

Yours is done VERY well though. I like your take on it much more.
tiffi
16. Dec 2013 路 05:18 UTC
I really enjoyed this game! Great concept!
馃帳 Masadow
16. Dec 2013 路 05:20 UTC
tklovert: Ahah I've bookmarked yours yesterday already ! I will give it a try next week. I think I've started with something similar as you, but finally get rid of all these clicking stuff that made the game slow. I chose to make a game more action based than reflexion based :)
Blupsy
16. Dec 2013 路 05:39 UTC
Mechanic is pretty darn cool, and can't be fun and frantic at times.
jillytot
16. Dec 2013 路 05:40 UTC
This is pretty cool. High marks across the board. Interesting mechanic, i played a few rounds.
Bloated Hippo
16. Dec 2013 路 05:44 UTC
Really entertaining!
Kettlecorn
16. Dec 2013 路 05:50 UTC
I hate tower defense games, but thankfully this is a parody of one. Nice job!
Crowbeak
16. Dec 2013 路 09:49 UTC
This is great -- the second only-one-tower tower defense game I've seen so far, but I like this one better because you can just put the tower anywhere.
kewry
16. Dec 2013 路 13:14 UTC
Nice twist for a tower defense. The artwork was slightly small for my taste, but it was quite enjoyable!
Hemuuuli
16. Dec 2013 路 14:39 UTC
Really solid game. It is a bit hard to keep track of how much money you have and what upgrades you can afford.
DanielVF
16. Dec 2013 路 15:46 UTC
This is fun! You've got a great game mechanic!

As other have mentioned, it would be nice to have a better way of handling the upgrades, since with the frantic pace, it's hard to even have time to look at how much money you have.
Homletmoo
16. Dec 2013 路 18:29 UTC
Very nice concept. Perhaps could have been a bit more zoomed in, though.
Jago
16. Dec 2013 路 20:14 UTC
Love the concept! Difficulty was just right: it was challenging yet fun. I actually thought about similar one tower tower defence game, but dumped the idea.
ocarina of lime
16. Dec 2013 路 20:15 UTC
Very fast paced for a tower defence game, gets very difficult very quickly. Learnt quickly to upgrade as soon a possible. Audio gets a but repetitive but that's ok. Graphics are actually really good, everything is easy to see and the enemies stand out although are a bit small. Overall is pretty awesome.
Daniel X. Moore
16. Dec 2013 路 20:19 UTC
Pretty good, though it was a little hard to see everything because it was so small.
馃帳 Masadow
16. Dec 2013 路 20:24 UTC
Ocarina of lime: I started with a slow paced game, but it was very annoying. :(

all: Thanks for your comments, with so many good feedback, I will definitely continue to work on this !
AnnaGavaldaKedavra
16. Dec 2013 路 20:26 UTC
Really fun and addictive game! Simple but very nicely done. I like the multiple fire upgrade so i save money and then i lose...I'll try again.
Wukkopi
16. Dec 2013 路 20:40 UTC
Really nice game, only that the power powerup is a little bit op. Nicely balanced otherwise.
moop
16. Dec 2013 路 21:10 UTC
Really cool twist on tower defense.
mactinite
16. Dec 2013 路 22:02 UTC
I got overwhelmed pretty fast but this was interesting. I liked your take on the theme. First tower defense I've played this go 'round!
Anachron
16. Dec 2013 路 22:30 UTC
Cool concept, and very challenging. Like tower defence but more action-oriented and frantic.
recursor
17. Dec 2013 路 01:41 UTC
Now I've seen everything. A movable tower defense game. It was quite fun. I especially appreciate the upgrades as they gave me a goal to work towards (besides not getting killed).
oxysoft
17. Dec 2013 路 02:04 UTC
Fantastic interpretation of the theme, graphics were kind of lacking but the game was very fun and satisfying. But like ReactorScram said, it feels like the tower is lagging because it stops following when you hover over roads
Crigs
17. Dec 2013 路 04:04 UTC
Gotta echo previous sentiments that this was a really clever twist on the TD genre. It felt and played very well. Great job!
arkeus
17. Dec 2013 路 07:14 UTC
Love the idea!
YsenGrimm
17. Dec 2013 路 11:05 UTC
Funny game, would love to see a "full" game with this concept. Good work :D.
LatFoued
17. Dec 2013 路 17:32 UTC
Nice idea, but it lags sometimes. Good job
local minimum
17. Dec 2013 路 17:44 UTC
Good. It took me a while to get the upgrades and when I did I didn't have enough time to do anything rational so I just hammered on the Q W and E. That is, maybe give some initial feedback for us non-TD gamers that one can now buy e.g. Firerate.
馃帳 Masadow
17. Dec 2013 路 18:39 UTC
local minimum: I'm not a TD gamer and like you, I'm having a very hard to time to make rational use of upgrades. I will work on that ! Still have to think about how to design it ;) Thanks for your feedback
supremefist
17. Dec 2013 路 20:28 UTC
Well done! Got 15000 :) Was fun!
Dining Philosopher
17. Dec 2013 路 21:13 UTC
Nice twist on tower defense! At first the mouse seemed to be lagging, but now I see that the red dot indicates the cursor, and that when you move the cursor over the roads, that the tower won't follow. It would be better if the tower would always be placed at he closest possible position to the cursor.

By the way, thanks for playing our game, but you played a premature version of the game (2 hours before the jam deadline). Maybe you want to check out the final version. :)
joserodolfofreitas
18. Dec 2013 路 14:06 UTC
The game is nice and it requires interesting choices.
AtomicVikings
18. Dec 2013 路 14:06 UTC
Fun game! Improve on a couple of things and I expect this game to go on kongregate!
jdpalmer
18. Dec 2013 路 17:34 UTC
Neat twist on the genre.
Alink
18. Dec 2013 路 21:45 UTC
Simple but fun game. Nice variation on the tower defense genre and good use of the theme.
sprawl
18. Dec 2013 路 23:54 UTC
The upgrades make this gun very fun. Got 16.3k

In the balance, you could probably make the slow ones get harde to kill, because it took more shots to kill the small ones at the end :P
馃帳 Masadow
19. Dec 2013 路 00:06 UTC
sprawl: I take note ! I'm so bad at my own game, I never reach a such score ahah
joserodolfofreitas
19. Dec 2013 路 03:09 UTC
Hey Masadow, Im just passing by to say that I really appreciated your feedback on my game. Thank you very much!
And wow, 45 hits!!! Im glad you enjoyed it.
DustyStylus
19. Dec 2013 路 14:37 UTC
Really nice variation on the tower theme. Oddly enough, the enemies didn't move on my version? (which made it rather easy for me) ;-) I think this was because I ran the .swf directly as the web page wasn't loading for me. (maybe there are some variables set up in the web page) Anyway, really nice game! (and thanks for your review of mine)
joserodolfofreitas
19. Dec 2013 路 17:52 UTC
Masadow, that would be nice. Do you have twitter?
Perhaps you might like to play an alpha version of my upcoming game. It's not on the same style, but it would be nice to listen what would you say about it :)
KunoNoOni
20. Dec 2013 路 02:45 UTC
Very interesting take on the theme and the first ever single tower TD I've ever played. I really liked it. Good Job.
fluffypillow
20. Dec 2013 路 11:30 UTC
Great game!
CatOnMars
20. Dec 2013 路 11:49 UTC
Nice combination of action and tower defense! I like this concept. Also the music sounds good. You may make the UI more apparent though.
mortus
20. Dec 2013 路 16:18 UTC
Fun game and a refreshing take on a genre! Controls are funny sometimes, the cannon won't move sometimes even if you move mouse (or is it a feature?).
馃帳 Masadow
20. Dec 2013 路 16:43 UTC
mortus: It is because you have your mouse on road. I've fixed that already with a better control in my post mortem version :)
Optimus6128
20. Dec 2013 路 20:03 UTC
It took me few minutes to get it, clicking frantically to place the tower, then I realized. Great concept, plays nice!
CosmicAdventureSquad
20. Dec 2013 路 22:27 UTC
Great simplified take on the tower defense genre. The enemies feel well-balanced too.
SnoringFrog
22. Dec 2013 路 06:41 UTC
This game was challenging, but extremely fun. Great work.
SuperPokeunicorn
22. Dec 2013 路 22:57 UTC
Initiative spin on a tired genre, but very difficult. One thing to note it that I did not even notice the HUD at first as it did not stand out very well and was rather small.
Donutttt
24. Dec 2013 路 01:58 UTC
Really good idea, and an interesting play on the tower defence genre. Great work!
zkenshin
05. Jan 2014 路 19:46 UTC
Neat idea, well done!
deepnight
06. Jan 2014 路 21:25 UTC
Excellent idea, perfectly fits the theme :)
The game could be much more strategic if the Tower could hit every targets in range. In your version, it's actually basically useless to place the tower in angles or crossroads because of that.
Good job :)