Cyto Killer: Save Our Cells! by loveapplegames
A real-time strategy cell defense game with procedurally generated levels.
Protect the human body from invading microorganisms using its defense systems.
Played with the mouse, also works reasonably well on a tablet.
Features 8 levels ans 10 unit types.
GAMEPLAY HINTS
the MACs can only be placed adjacent to your cells
the phages will only see a marker or enemy from about 8 cells away
Credits:
Programming: Boris; Graphics: Val, Boris; Sound: Val


| Youtube | http://tmtg.nl/ludumdare/ld46/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/cyto-killer-save-our-cells |
Ratings
| Overall | 766th | 3.682⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 632th | 3.621⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 307th | 3.803⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 347th | 4.091⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1547th | 3.379⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 805th | 3.422⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1817th | 2.258⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1360th | 3.318⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 35🗳️ | 36🗨️ |
Also i would recommend working on your artwork, none of the assets felt like they fit together at all.
It's unclear exactly what the victory criteria are for a level (surviving for a certain amount of time? I didn't see a timer), and I think I ended up in a dead-end situation on one of the levels, but the overall gameplay mechanism is really solid. A good game design for the "keep it alive" theme. Great work!

You managed to accomplish quite a lot in the time available!
However, if you dig deep enough and invest a bit of time, the whole process of killing of the pesky bacterias and other invaders is quite engaging :)
And the amount of stuff you put in there is quite a lot too.
I've managed to pass about half the levels, and I enjoyed quite a bit. Thank you!
Nicely done!
Also, I really love strategy games like Starcraft so you managed to hit my soft spot :)
Interesting game and a bit addicting to be honest, although for me it was too hard. Couldn't get past the first level :/
Also, I'm not sure if it's intended but at some places the units can't be placed, even though the area is empty. Nothing happened when I clicked, but if I clicked a little bit to the side it worked.
Overall, well done!
The art was cool and the soundeffects were mixed very well. Audiovisuals were top notch! The game itself seemed to work fine as well. I didn't encounter any obvious bugs. The amount of different scenarios/levels was also great (even though I could only beat level 1)
All in all, not my cup of tea, but still a fairly enjoyable experience :) keep it up!
I had to abort the game on level one once when the attackers got pass my defense and gathered in the bottom right corner, never coming back to attack the cells they left behind.
There are lots of different enemies and defenses. I bet it was a real programming challenge to get this done: procedural generation and movement, balanced gameplay and no bugs or broken things at all! I am quite impressed with your entry. I only wish I had more time at the beginning of each stage to place my defenses properly instead of doing it in a rush. If you polish graphics a bit this will be 10/10. Congratulations!

Any stage with the wall blocks can be easily beaten by surrounding a group of cells with walls and turrets, making it invincible. However, I noticed that the game also tracks your best survival rate, which makes this strategy useless for getting highscores. Stage 4 in particular seems very difficult to get a high survival rate in.
Other stages, however, are very difficult no matter what. The random nature of where the viruses spawn can make you get hit very hard, very fast, before you even have time to visually process the layout of the stage. I found this to be the case particularly in stage 1, while I was still reading the descriptions of what my cells can do. It would be nice to be able to see the stage's layout and read cell descriptions before actually starting the round.
Stage 3 was by far the most difficult to beat. However, I never died in it. Instead, all of my defense cells would die, leaving behind small strands of virus. These viruses were either short stretches of the "tail" that my cells had failed to destroy, or they were "heads" which had become trapped and immobilized one way or another. Thus, leaving me in a stalemate, which I had to reset. This stage took me many attempts to beat. An easy fix would be to have these viruses die automatically after being trapped for some duration of time.
In the end, I managed to beat every stage.
This feels a lot more like a puzzle game than a strategy game. I never really felt like there was any room to think outside the box or try new strategies. Everything happens too quickly, and you have a very finite amount of resources. If you only ever have 15 turrets in a stage, there's not much you can do other than spam them in a line across the top and left edge of the screen. And when the viruses start multiplying, it's game over, there's almost no way to recover from this aside from random chance, because your own cells cannot multiply to fight back. Simply lowering the speed of the game might help with this.
The graphics and sound effects are overall very good. However, there are some inconsistent pixel resolutions that are rather distracting, such as the insanely low-res buttons that appear at the end of a stage.
Overall very well-implemented and solid game. The balance feels very harsh, but I know how hard it is to balance a game like this :wink:
Overall I liked your game, but a lot of Optimizetions and Player Feedback needs to be done.
I suggest next time You playtest some more with friends and family because it is such a shame. Mechanically this could have been one of the best games without those annoyances.
Here is my Playthrough min 13 until min 37 is just me waiting for the parasites to walk to the left
https://youtu.be/KXAVtxfKGbs
Edit: Unfortunately the Microphone was not picked up in the Video so here are the main points I made during the Video:
1. Between 13 min and 37 min I started talking about random stuff like the meaning of life while waiting the parasite to move left. I also played my own game a little.
2. I liked how it simulated the actual types of virus, bacteria etc.
3. I hated the waiting at the end of stages when only a few cells and or parasites were left. I would have loved a fast forward button or a timer on enemies that they die after they have not interacted a certain time