I tried a handful of strategies but I can't seem to complete the first level. The first level should be easy, some kind of tutorial. But you stuck to the theme well.

@hecticgrape

Really? I probably made it too hard then. I wanted to make the 1st stage hard, but not too hard. Currently if you just keep building power cells you can get past the first stage without building any offensive towers.

@hecticgrape I agree. I almost made up a strategy but cannon shoots really slow.

I was expecting more after such an intriguing marketing:

The game is really hard, but really fun thought, the graphics are pretty simple but it is not a problem. Good job.

As others have mentioned, passing the first level is quite challenging (my strategy was: double power plant + slug as soon as I could, then move the slug, build third power plant asap). It would be great to have a "tactical pause" to think and reshuffle turrets.

Having said that, it seems you had to do quite a lot to get the tower defense infrastructure going, which works very smoothly. Great Job!

It is super hard! I eventually made it to level four following the tips above, but there were just too many guys. I did like the strategy aspect, and I enjoyed playing. I wish I could have had a little more energy to play with so that I could see what some of the other devices did. Nice work!

Very difficult. I understand you're trying to send a message but it didn't really come through very strong in the gameplay itself, the game feels unfair rather than trying to teach a lesson. Pretty standard TD, build up resources, defend, etc.

The UI needs work, having the sell button right next to the power button cost me at least 3 towers, which I think is unnacceptable. If I'm going to lose it should be because of poor judgment, not because the sell button is right next to the power button.

Overall a decent TD. Would like to see it improved on.

Damn it's so hard. I couldn't even play it for 3 minutes.
You need to make it easier. at least give me more power. or make the enemies weaker for the beginning.
About the idea of the game, it was nothing in particular. just had the competition's theme. but you know, it can be better than it is now.

Difficult game)

I agree with what others say, it's a difficult game, but the TD mechanisms work well.

Aha! A tower defense game.

I build a gun tower and then immediately lose because someone shoots and just for a moment I am in negative power. That is really bad design causing frustration. Have it be able to be in negative power for a second or something, this is not cool!

FINALLY! After about one hour and a zillion tries I finally beat it :-D

I like the rewarding feeling of how the game just freezes when you beat it ;-)

Graphics and sound were clearly not your focus here but the gameplay, that turned out really great, the simple mechanics still bring a large variety to the game. You really have to learn a lot about the mechanics to finally figure out the winning strategy (which I will not tell here of course). Very well done. Keep up the good work!

Tower defense. Not bad, fits well with theme, still won't make it onto my fav list (sorry). Not huge tower defense fan. But yay, you made a game! Alone and in 48h too. Kudos to you.

I like TD games. It is really fun IMO. The graphics are nice too. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot and hope for a graphically enhanced version.

It's a good start to work from. I really like the idea of handling the power for the turrets.
But there are a lot of points needed to make it really playable.

- having no clue how much power the next turret will drain made it possible to die immediately
- Graphics would be nice
- some health bar on top of the enemies
- some bullets doesn't get destroyed

Work on it and it could be a tower defense with a nice twist ;)

It is a clever interpretation of the main theme of this Ludum Dare. The game mechanics can be learned quickly so as the player involves oneself into the game. The graphics are minimalist and should be improved for a post-jam version but they help to make the game easy to read. Sound and music would help to juice the game up! Nice game though!

As others said it feels a bit difficult, I would have liked it to start a bit easier. Also it would have been nice to see some stats on power generation vs power usage. This was a great take on the theme though, and a unique idea to have power matter more than destroying enemies

Fun but why so hard from the beginning? Overall the graphics are simple but the game feels like it doesn't need more so it's more than fine, and I just absolutely love the way you interpreted the theme, good job :)

I really dig the concept - was considering making something very similar for my own game, but went with a different plan. That said, I haven't been able to figure out how to beat the first level - even if I build generators, I don't have the resources to fend off any of the enemies before they get through. Maybe you have some preconceived strategy in mind, but I haven't been able to discern it? Either a tutorial or some clearer guidance on the mechanics would be very helpful.

Nice. I love tower-defense games. I've never made one myself... it seems like balancing would be really tough, especially in 48 hours!

I agree with the comments above that I want some kind of tutorial. Or at least a more shallow difficulty curve. Good luck with post-compo fine-tuning!

Okay, here are somethings that I got during multiple plays of your game. Sorry, if they sound harsh, I was going for more instructional than criticism. And I'm hoping it doesn't sound insulting.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get pass the second wave. I had an issue where even though I could afford something, buying it resulted in a game over. Having to jump back and forth between turrets to turn them on and off to save power lead to me not having as much fun as I should've been.I tried playing about 6 or 7 times before getting frustrated and finally just closing the window.

(Playing again after reading the instructions)
Now... upon actually reading the instructions this has potential to be a really awesome concept with some play balancing(as mentioned above). The last time I just played I managed to get to level 4. Building a bunch of power generators and two turrets got me through to roughly level 4. Some of the block placement makes wind turbines useless.

I know you're going for power management, but I'd suggest that there needs to be multiple ways to get power. I wasn't in any situation where I could even halfway afford the tower without putting myself in serious danger, so I'm really curious to see what that does. Going to keep trying and hopefully get to that point.

(I understand this is a compo entry but hear me out on this)
Sound effects would've made this entry a lot less frustrating. Having a heart beat-esque sound like Space Invaders would've made it a lot easier to realize something along the lines of "Hey, it's going really fast, I'm draining faster than I'm producing"

Quick notes
A restart button: I placed a Electro-Taser-Cannon Hybrid down in the wrong spot and realized I was going to lose. I refresh the window. Then did it again by accident.
Instructions somewhere else: I tend to put mine within my pause screen (Doesn't work to well for me), but having it hidden on the title screen is something that has never worked for me.
Start with something: I think things may flow better if you integrate a tutorial that starts you off with something and tells you to remove it or turn it off. Noting that this is a important part of the game play.
Power Save: Not quite sure what that was for. It lead to a lot more button clicking for me.

Great job, keep at it! I think you can turn this into a really fun experience with more polish.

Great concept and the resource management / balancing aspect is pretty cool! There are definitely a bunch of quality-of-life improvements that would make this a lot better though, as mentioned in the above comments. I made it to round 8!

This was a fun game, quite challenging for a simple concept (or maybe it's just me not being too skilled). The graphics are simple but I think they match the whole idea. I just missed some sounds to complement the gameplay, but you can add those later :) Overall it was fun, good job.

I like the added mechanics to classical tower defense, but it's simply so difficult! I was able to get through the first level, but then I didn't have enough power to win the second level.

Aside from balance / easier difficulty levels, though, the only problem I had was the menu/help screen - I don't know where to put my mouse to find the help messages, so it's actually difficult to learn how to play the game, which is not really a good thing.