Defending Hope by Steve Dragon
Defending Hope is a short but challenging tactical game. You are an officer in a post-apocalyptic world tasked with delaying the Horde. You will place your soldiers in a little town called Hope, hoping to delay the zombies long enough to buy time for your superiors.

It was created by:
Steve Dragon (Draconic Chipmunk) - Creative Director and Artist
Vansh Jhunjhunwala - Technical Developer
Xingzhe Li - Technical Developer
The Spectralist - Composer
The sound effects for the guns were taken from Freesound, but the music was composed in-house.
Controls:
Use Mouse to Click and Drag
Use Enter to skip animation
Use R to restart
Use F to pay respects
| itch.io page | https://draconicchipmunk.itch.io/defending-hope |
| macOS file | https://draconicchipmunk.itch.io/defending-hope |
| Windows file | https://draconicchipmunk.itch.io/defending-hope |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/defending-hope |
Ratings
| Overall | 1186th | 3.083⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1067th | 3⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 738th | 3.264⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 969th | 3.403⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1270th | 2.122⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1007th | 2.379⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1073th | 3.103⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 45🗨️ |
I'm playing your game now on stream.
See timecode 29:00
https://youtu.be/euv3GH5eSOo
Respects were paid to those who fell protecting Hope. F.
Thank you for checking it out!
So happy you enjoyed the worldbuilding. Waves and towers sound perfect for a post-jam version, and the squadrons having their own colours is one of those things that was missed during testing but feels so obvious in hindsight.
I'm definitely a Golden Warrior stan.
F to all those who died as you pusued victory.
! Sound was not that balanced and could have received some more love. :)
Thumbs up!
Also, the gunshots are definitely a little too loud in hindsight.
Thanks for giving it a try!
lol
Cool idea for having different types of unit AI that get deployed and its up to you to determine the preferred placement to maximize the output of each group!
Great Game Overall
I didn't think it would be possible to win until I won by chance with some very weird placements.
Once I knew it was possible to win I started trying to understand the parameters of the troups and challenged myself to create a strategy that worked every time.
I didn't manage to find one, but this one worked quite well.

It feels like most is still up to randomness, but the gameplay is surprisingly immersive as you sit back and watch all your troups die one after the other because of you. (Randomness fits the story, but strips the player of control)
The playing field seems like it represents the information that is reported to you rather than your view on the scene, which is an interesting change of perspective and fits the story quite well.
It only displays the necessary information and is thereby perfect imo.
It would have been nice to be able to distinguish the different groups from one another after the zombies have arrived. (I kept forgetting which troups I placed where since red and gray look the same once started.)
Overall this is a pretty nice entry. I didn't expect to be playing it for as long as I did, but I really enjoyed my time with it.
@mibehu Haha, glad you enjoyed it!
@vorpalsnark Yep. Strategy sim games are so cool, and we wanted to capture that feeling of having to optimise your placements and use trial and error to get to something that works. F to all the failed attempts.
@ashley-watson Thank you for checking it out! We considered more realistic graphics, but we settled on trying to make it more radar mil-sim style graphics. The execution definitely leaves something to be desired.
@theludovyc Definitely something we considered, but implementing and balancing it was proving a little difficult given the time constraints of the jam. If there's ever a post-jam version, one of the items on the wishlist is interactable elements while the simulation is going on.
@reispfannenfresser Thank you for the long analysis! The set-up you use is actually very similar to the one that one of the Technical Developers favours, actually. There's definitely some randomness, which we hoped would fit into the theme, and you're right I think in that no strategy wins 100% of the time, but some tend to do better than others. I'm so glad it could still feel immersive to watch. Hope you enjoyed it!
@agrimes F. Thanks for playing!
Cool idea, well executed and fun to watch the outcome of the battle. It feels like your decisions affect the battle deeply, and that what a simulation game should do.
I could not find any criticism besides the text, was too small for me.
I pressed F :(
@re-lo Glad you enjoyed it! The text and UI definitely needed some more love, but hopefully it wasn't too much of a hindrance. Thank you, officer, for pressing F.
@unmagical That's an interesting idea actually. Not something that initially came up, but I can imagine playing that off as the officer being on the ground and fighting alongside his troops. Really cool.
@hekateras Thank you so much! Alas we really wanted to keep the gunshots because we thought it added to making the experience feel more comprehensive. Since they were from Freesound, we didn't feel comfortable opting in. So happy that you enjoyed it!