Space Defender by GreenCircle

[raw]
made by GreenCircle for LD 42 (JAM)

In Space Defender, you control a ship trying to defend a piece of space from aliens determined to build their space station there. Enjoy!

SpaceDefenderAnew.PNG

I did everything except the music (and the font). Music is "Moist Mechas" by Sim Gretina. Font is Anita Semi-square: https://www.dafont.com/fr/anita-semi-square.font


Bug fixes: Removed unwarranted dev alert messages, fixed a typo, prevented blocks and ships from spawning out of bounds (potentially causing infinite loop for the latter). Update: Hadn't totally managed to remove the freezing with ship spawning, should be fixed now.

Ratings

Overall 988th 3⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 930th 2.875⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 822th 2.952⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 652th 3.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1017th 2.738⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 968th 2.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 8🗨️

Feedback

HoldMeImScared
14. Aug 2018 · 11:01 UTC
Made it to round 43. Nice simple, readable graphics. Your music and sound are a bit loud, but your selections there are excellent, was quite happy jamming to that music. Randomized ship powers card selection was interesting. I particularly like the extra shot ship power. There's something really satisfying about having shots bounce off the reflective blocks, too. :)
Gregor
14. Aug 2018 · 16:16 UTC
Really cool idea. I like the randomly generated aspects, gives it replay-ability alongside the round score. I not very fond of the controls (though not sure what I'd prefer) but the powerups were great and made it satisfying to clear a whole bunch of blocks at once. Good job!
Jenni
14. Aug 2018 · 21:57 UTC
A fun and oddly compelling game. It's really satisfying to shoot the blocks. The power-ups are interesting and fairly well implemented.
tetra
14. Aug 2018 · 22:38 UTC
I really enjoyed this, and I've played it a few times now. My only gripe is with the controls and knowing which ship you have selected. Other than that I really enjoyed it, I think there is a lot of potential for growth with different block types, powerups etc. Did manage to be overpowered a few times but it was fun to play for sure.

gameplay at 22:00ish - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/297325479
Star Garden
15. Aug 2018 · 02:09 UTC
Cool game! I think the art of the blocks, the music, and sound effects jive well together. I found the movement controls sluggish, though.
MZA
15. Aug 2018 · 12:03 UTC
Nice artwork. I understood your concept. I think it would be nice to shoot multiple lasers per turn or include a blast radius on contact.
🎤 GreenCircle
15. Aug 2018 · 12:10 UTC
@mza Hey, thanks, you get to shoot multiple lasers per turn once you get additional powerups to do that. For the blast radius, I had considered that as a powerup too, but didn't implement it in time.
Erkberg
23. Aug 2018 · 19:57 UTC
Wow, this is way more compelling and fun than it looks like initially. Once you get to three ships and some upgrades it really starts to feel quite puzzly and satisfying, but also a little more like work, moving all three ships into position (maybe think about a different control scheme?). Played this for quite some time and made it to round 70 or so, at this point it felt like I could not lose anymore, but it was a little too much work for me to try and clear all the blocks. Do you win the game if you manage to do this? Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this game, good job!
DogSquad
23. Aug 2018 · 23:31 UTC
I got kind of confused, but it was fun!
🎤 GreenCircle
24. Aug 2018 · 14:52 UTC
@erkberg Hey, thanks for your comment, your input is really appreciated. I kind of wanted it to be keyboard only, to level the playing field, but yeah, I agree I could have done this differently.
And yes, unfortunately, I didn't have time to work on an ending condition, or to really balance the game once I was done, so if you reach round 60-80 you can go ahead and consider you've won (congratulations by the way). If I had had enough time, I would have made it so that the player can either select an endless mode, which would have kept getting harder (the game eventually stops getting harder at a point currently) and a story mode, where the game does effectively end after a certain round, or perhaps, if I were to really expand on the idea, after a few levels, with new block types and challenges getting added on each level.
Del Nordlund
25. Aug 2018 · 02:59 UTC
Nice and clear concept; made for a very enjoyable playing experience! Great work!
ursagames
29. Aug 2018 · 06:22 UTC
This was really fun to play! I really liked the concepts that were implemented. Thanks for sharing the game with my stream awhile back. Your game starts at around 5:24 into the vod https://www.twitch.tv/videos/297479036