LudumData

Mutating Scales by golex

[raw]
made by golex for LD24 (COMPO)
My first Ludum Dare entry! Had a ton of fun putting this together.

Created by Ryan Austin - http://ryanaustin.net
Using ShiVa Engine

Mutating Scales
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The villagers suddenly find themselves under attack by dragons! In desperation, they assemble a ramshackle set of towers for their defense. Between every wave, they'll get a chance to improve on their towers by crafting them based on which towers did well during the previous onslaught. Slowly their towers become more powerful.

Unfortunately for them, the dragons are adapting as well...

Notes
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Thank you for checking out my game! Please forgive me for making a tower defense game, it was my first time and I though it might at least be interesting. The longest time spent was on the genetic algorithm code used to breed the dragons and craft the towers between each wave.

The only thing left on my todo list, was to give the dragons some basic animation, and then a few more tower attributes such as a damage over time or sticky shots.

Windows http://ryanaustin.net/ld24/MutatingScales_Win.zip
Web http://ryanaustin.net/ld24/MutatingScales.html
Source http://ryanaustin.net/ld24/MutatingScales_Src.zip
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=14989

Ratings

Coolness 44% 667
Overall 3.59 87
Audio 2.76 250
Fun 3.23 163
Graphics 2.91 382
Humor 2.41 259
Innovation 3.27 187
Mood 2.72 320
Theme 4.41 4

Feedback

Jeremy1080
27. Aug 2012 · 02:37 UTC
So far one of the greatest ones I've played in terms of using the theme! It was fun, great, and I loved how both the dragons and the towers got to evolve!
Sgt Squirrelly
27. Aug 2012 · 02:37 UTC
Really love the way "selection" worked with the dragons. I was surprised how interesting this was, since the screens didn't look promising...Awesome game!
sclark39
27. Aug 2012 · 02:38 UTC
I wish there was more relevance to the evolution elements, it seemed like it was pretty arbitrary (partly due to their being too many numbers to look at).
I love the dragon evolution animations and noises. It's an extremely polished effect for a 48h game. If I was taking this forward I would most certainly expand on that portion and build the game more around that.
leparlon
27. Aug 2012 · 02:41 UTC
That's preciselly what I wanted from a "Evolution" game. Loved it. Well done!
midgard
27. Aug 2012 · 02:41 UTC
I liked it. Good job :)
leparlon
27. Aug 2012 · 02:43 UTC
Well done, had a lot of fun!
TwilightFlandre
27. Aug 2012 · 02:46 UTC
I'm going to have to apologize. I came into this game looking at the screens and assuming it was terrible when in actuality the dragon evolution and mutation gimmick along with your own evolution of the towers was simply brilliant. Personally I would of preferred to have a longer track, expanding enemy waves, and the ability to keep the towers I placed down in rounds prior but overall it was a pretty fun game.
timtipgames
27. Aug 2012 · 02:47 UTC
I really liked your game. For me it is clear that you put a lot effort into this game. I really like the decisions that the player is able to make, and somewhat this game has something, not only the little details that make it worth trying.
dalbinblue
27. Aug 2012 · 02:56 UTC
I enjoyed this entry. For some reason I especially liked how you represented the evolution generations. I had a little difficulty reading the abilities from the pictures, but did eventually figure out it was (from bottom to top) splash, speed, range, damage. There wasn't much time between the start of the wave and when you could build, making it necessary to plan things out and memorize each tower. As a suggestion, you could either show the states for each tower all the time (at the cost of playfield size) or allow the player to build their tower in preparation before the wave comes.
Benjamin
29. Aug 2012 · 23:41 UTC
That's a very good vision of evolution in gameplay. Many games ( including mine :-/ ) confuse evolution and upgrade but I think game like this one really get the theme right.
BMacIntosh
30. Aug 2012 · 23:18 UTC
Great game! I like the use of genetic algorithms :). Having used them myself, I know that the outcomes can vary wildly each game, but when I played my towers got godlike pretty quickly. By Wave 7 I had a tower with 119 damage and 0.2 cooldown - two of those at the gate would just wreck everything. Wave 10 brought me this sucker (http://bit.ly/PTs9lM), but then evolution surprised me and found a few dragons that were too fast to hit :).

I loved your effects (visual and sound), and how you animated the evolution process.
yettatore
02. Sep 2012 · 07:29 UTC
Good idea (seems balanced) and is fun to play. The only thing I did not liked so much is the slow dynamics of the game (between the really action).
Although, this is the most interesting tower defense I've played...
Resume: GOOD WORK!
Peltast
04. Sep 2012 · 16:14 UTC
Wouldn't have predicted my favorite game so far would be a TD. Very impressive!
TheRealJefe
05. Sep 2012 · 03:09 UTC
Really like how you incorporated the theme with a tower defense game!