SkyIsle TD by Inventivum Games

[raw]
made by Inventivum Games for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

ld54 7.png

Play on itch.io (tried uploading here but it only works on itch)

ran out of time for the audio as I only had two days for this one.

A simple tower defense, where you balance your defense with the erosion you cause to the island. How high can you score?

Controls:

Escape to pause

W,A,S and D to move.

Space to jump

Mouse to look.

Left click to build

Right click to cancel and Upgrade

Q and E to switch buildings.

Guide:

Build towers to protect your Crystal.

Towers increase erosion.

Build retaining walls to slow erosion.

Build mining drills to gain credits.

mining drills reduce erosion but they will eventually break the tile they are placed on.

Ratings

Overall 957th 3.086⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 869th 3.036⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 822th 3.036⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 975th 2.964⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Humor 737th 2.545⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 938th 2.94⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 16🗨️

Feedback

xbolinger3
02. Oct 2023 · 15:47 UTC
Nice! Very neat idea. The models and art style is really cool.
Scott Cooper
04. Oct 2023 · 04:35 UTC
I like the style of this game, a tower defense from first person view is something I really want to see more of! Hope you keep expanding on this idea!
AncientEntity
04. Oct 2023 · 04:36 UTC
Thought the graphics were really cool. Good job on the game!
0megq
04. Oct 2023 · 04:37 UTC
Great job! One thing I would note, is that because you provided a web version, whenever I was playing in fullscreen and wanted to pause, the game would go out of fullscreen because I was pressing Escape. I don't know of a possible solution, but it is something to consider.
TheMixedMaster
04. Oct 2023 · 04:39 UTC
Movement is a bit weird and camera movement sometimes jumps around a lot for no reason. I really like the concept though, having player actions directly change the world around them is really cool.
Derek Glennon
04. Oct 2023 · 04:41 UTC
Nice work on the models/shaders. The balance felt a bit off to me in that it took awhile to get credits again after your initial purchase. That seems like an easy fix of a variable though so it isn't a huge deal. You made a full tower defense game which is sweet! Good work!
GreenPig
04. Oct 2023 · 04:45 UTC
Very nice game, always wanted to make a 1st person tower defense and i love playing these types of games. Controls were a bit hard at first for me. Loved the graphics as well.:))
🎤 Inventivum Games
04. Oct 2023 · 04:48 UTC
@0megq hadn't even considered that good point, though I'm also not sure how to fix that.

@themixedmaster Had the same thing While developing it ended being my controller as I did add controller support.

@derek-glennon Yes, I totally agree, I unfortunately didn't get time to actually play through it normally so the balance is definitely off.
breadstick
04. Oct 2023 · 04:48 UTC
A nice little first-person TD game! I enjoyed the overall visual aesthetic of the game; my one gripe is that the ramp up is very slow, and I never fully understood the effects of erosion. I assume it led to parts of the island crumbling away, but I never saw that happen on-screen despite making it pretty far into the game
🎤 Inventivum Games
04. Oct 2023 · 05:04 UTC
@breadstick Yes that it is an issue of balancing it is far too easy to slow/prevent the erosion with the use of mining drills and retaining walls.
ManderDander
04. Oct 2023 · 05:19 UTC
I had some trouble with window focus that prevented me from interacting with the game after clicking away. I was playing just to see if the mining drills would be worth it, and they sure were. Nothing like having a hundred sniper turrets just waiting around for enemies to show up. I finally just stopped playing after about thirty waves of being untouchable, but I enjoyed it.
LDJam user 206001
04. Oct 2023 · 05:53 UTC
It was very slow even here in my browser. My computer is slow, but not that much. I think it needs optimization. I couldn't play properly because of that. The graph looks different and interesting. It is far from the theme because it is in a super open and spacious field. I really believe it needs to be optimized.
Human Writes Code
04. Oct 2023 · 07:33 UTC
I love a tower defense game and this one looks great considering it was made in such a short time. I didn't have any issues with performance despite having an old PC but I did run into the issue of losing the ability to mouse look after tabbing out.

In terms of gameplay, it was fun and had some good depth with the range of weapons and their different abilities. I feel like it could have scaled a little faster in the early game because it took too long to acquire new gear. Just making sandbags cheaper would have been good, so I could start dictating pathing even though I was broke.

Overall, a nice fun game!
xCarl
05. Oct 2023 · 03:10 UTC
Cool game. I like the idea of a first person tower defense, although the pacing was slow, I bought 2 turrets at the be the start and had to wait for a while to buy a drill. I also liked the graphics. Good job!
🎤 Inventivum Games
13. Oct 2023 · 09:27 UTC
Well that's disappointing just realized the graphics category was set to opt-out, don't know why, don't remember doing that, especially as I put a lot of effort into trying to make it looks nice.
LDJam user 165453
13. Oct 2023 · 09:56 UTC
Cool game!
milq
13. Oct 2023 · 10:09 UTC
What a fantastic hidden gem! I believe I've never played a 3D Tower Defense game before! Indeed, there are a few aspects that could be polished, such as the controls, and adding some music, especially considering it’s a Jam and opting out of the category wouldn’t hurt. Despite these minor drawbacks, I can only offer congratulations, as there are numerous standout features like the graphics, map design, and complexities such as the escalating difficulty in the waves, along with the updating and positioning of turrets and their statistics. Tremendous work for a solo developer, great game!
LDJam user 260720
13. Oct 2023 · 11:04 UTC
Great graphics! I really like the cellshading! I think the game needs some QoL upgrades, like it's a bit hard at first to determine the ennemies paths, turrent range, etc. Maybe there should be a way to get a global view? Otherwise the concept is really nice!
LDJam user 4886
13. Oct 2023 · 12:10 UTC
I'm not a huge fan of TD (except for Ninja Town, I loved that one) but I see the potential in your idea! Keep in mind that a first person TD will require tons of work in UI and QoL, as you need a lot of information to figure out what to do. A minimap, for instance, and quite a few on-screen indicators to tell you what is happening. Still, nice entry for a game jam!
Contro1990
13. Oct 2023 · 12:12 UTC
Nice idea! I also liked the simple graphics! Also noticed a [B]enis tree so it was fun hehe
LaserPanzerWal
13. Oct 2023 · 18:50 UTC
Nice idea, though a bit buggy. I noticed the erosion level going to 100 and back to 0, Im not actually sure if it does anything? I eventually jumped off the isle because the game kept being easy, Im not sure if I would have had to wait even longer or I accidently found a loophole, but after I built my first mine pretty early in the game I had enough money to pretty much block off the spawns with turrets.
With a bit of work this could be a nice TD variant I think.
fatEmperor
14. Oct 2023 · 15:45 UTC
Interesting TD. I liked the graphics.
Darkmax14
14. Oct 2023 · 19:07 UTC
Cool TD in the vein of Sanctum 1 and 2. Was a little easy and once you placed two turrets and a mine you won't lose again. I also couldn't quite tell what the errosion stat meant in game. Nothing seemed to change as it got higher.