In Defense of a Dragon

mathijsvissers 2017-05-01 08:48

Like the expanding map idea. The towers don't seem to scale along with the map though, making it pretty hard to see what's going on.

binaryferret 2017-05-01 09:05

I liked the expanding map idea. I could see a lot of possibilities with that, especially if you added more tower types to combat different enemy types. I imagine with polish this could be a really awesome little game! Good job.

julien-foucher 2017-05-01 09:43

Wow that's hard ! The exanding map is a great idea :)

ratbag 2017-05-01 10:06

@d3zmodos, cool concept I had an issue that the towers didnt scale with the map? Was a fun game! Great entry

berkano 2017-05-01 10:13

Impressive considering you mentioned you were learning Go for the first time! Mechanics were quite well done, just needs a bit of sound & polish to make it into something more enjoyable, great work though

samurai-spark 2017-05-01 10:17

Cool idea @d3zmodos!

That you scale the camera, speed and map after each round is an awesome idea I have never seen before! :smile: The gameplay makes fun even after serveral rounds. I'd love to see more different enemy types or buildings. But with a bit more work this could be an awesome game :grin:

Great job mate!

fanu 2017-05-01 10:51

Concept is fun, the idea of shrinking everything but keeping what YOU place the same as the start gives a lot of challenge if not executed properly (if you play with self-collision check). I could have been a little more balanced, I think it gets pretty rough pretty soon. Cool idea, good job.

chronosv2 2017-05-01 14:59

The expanding map was really cool! The patterns the game generated were neat to watch, and the overall gameplay, while challenging, felt fair.

d3zmodos 2017-05-02 06:00

Thanks for all the feedback everybody, I'm glad you liked it :D

I realise the balance is a bit off and I probably should have dedicated a little more time to that, but as with the sound and the collision-checking: Time :(

Another thing I was vaguely hoping to do is generate a curve that isn't quite so dense. The dragon curve ends up with quite large regions of just dense grid, which isn't very interesting for a tower defense game. However coming up with one of these on my own (at least without giving up the 90 degree corners which make things much easier to draw/work with) seemed like something I would definitely not be able to do in time and I couldn't find any nice ones online.

@MathijsVissers @Ratbag Do you mean the towers that you had already placed didn't shrink each round? The towers that have already been placed are meant to shrink each round (or rather, visually so, they stay the same size but the camera moves away), while the tower(s) that you place each round stay the same size (again, at least visually/on screen).

pandakipu 2017-05-08 21:07

Nice game, like the others said expanding map is a good idea :) The scaling of the tower should have follow ;) Good job.

spacewarp 2017-05-14 18:57

Others have already mentioned that the expanding map is nice, so I will as well :)

Collisions would have helped a bit I think, as would sound, but I very much understand the time pressure.

The speed of the enemies get a bit too fast too quickly but otherwise fun.

madjackmcmad 2017-05-16 07:05

There's a neat idea in here. The expanding map is interesting, and I always like when fun mathematical ideas get turned into gameplay. There's a lot of room for improvement, as I'm sure you're aware. There are a number of cool challenges you can set for yourself as you grow as a developer. For instance, the looping expanding path never really interfaces with your previous set up, meaning there's no evolving strategy for tower placement. I'm sure you thought of that too, but it would be neat to see what you could come up with as you massage that math into making cooler and cooler levels. Good luck and keep going!

lilkrit 2017-05-17 02:37

Cool game, big plus for the procedural levels! Have you tried any other technology? Because it seems to me like it was limiting you. You had a good idea and with more time you could make a really interesting game:)

occultone 2017-05-17 21:15

This had some seriously innovative gameplay ideas, though it was compounded by some issues with the towers. This was really, seriously one of the more thought provoking games I've seen all jam as a programmer and designer. What you did was seriously cool, and I'd love to see a more polished version.

atmospherium 2017-05-17 21:28

REALLY like the usage of the dragon curve - a surprisingly underused way to dynamically increase difficulty without a lot of overhead. I think having the paths overlap obscures the fact that there's a singular path throughout, but that's my only complaint with the procedural generation.

Gameplay seems to get out of balance very quickly, but I think the core of what you have here is great. Adding more mechanics and adding more of a dragon-y aesthetic would be really cool. Good job!