Cyto Killer: Save Our Cells!

reddashgames 2020-04-22 20:56

This games kinda quite fun and well done for useing some of the real names of the processes cells use (at least i believe that there are right). biggest problems is that some things just feel a bit off like sometimes i click and it doesnt drop down a unit and sometimes the cells can shoot though each-other. though biggest problem has to come from the fact its kinda really easy and i only died the first time due to not knowing the controls (but i soon worked it out). in short its a nice highly UNpolished game, good job handing in anything though this jam was quite hard (it was my first time). :p

Also i would recommend working on your artwork, none of the assets felt like they fit together at all.

mypalmike 2020-04-24 06:53

I love it! This is a really fun little game. It was a little hard to understand at first. It might be better to force progression to start easy and advance to more complex levels (this is how I figured out how to play).

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!

proforce 2020-04-24 23:24

At first, it was a bit unclear what the objective was, but after I got the hang of it, I didn't die once. It had good game design, but the art was a bit un unified, and felt random, like you got a bunch of free assets from different sites or something.

legavroche 2020-04-24 23:32

This was a really ambitious entry. I was surprised there were so many levels with such varied mechanics. The only thing I had a suggestion on was that the levels seem to stall, and I couldn't figure out how to proceed. I think it was the bacterial level where the bacteria no longer spread, but I had no ways to deal with them.

cracer 2020-04-25 11:01

Honestly this game is wayyy to hard for me but the idea levels and overall game is pretty ok I'll suggest to make a easy mode or make it easier and a hard mode and make some cometics ;) I know this is hard in 2 days but maybe make an after version

frosty 2020-04-26 01:22

Really hard, but I like the variety in each level. The mechanics support the theme really well -- and even has a bit of an educational aspect to it. Great entry! :)

stefan-laimer 2020-04-26 01:41

Pretty cool game. I was a bit confused at the beginning, but after some tries I got the hang of it and managed to finish the whole gaming without dying anymore. It's a nice educative kind of tower defense, which I really like. The later levels could be a bit more difficult, but other than that it's a really solid entry!

cyto.PNG

jerm 2020-04-26 02:00

Great game! I don't have much to add on what others have said. I found it quite hard at first and it took me a few tries to get the hang of it. I managed to get almost to the end, then got stuck on the last level with one bacteria cell left that I couldn't clear, but I'll count that as a win anyway :)

You managed to accomplish quite a lot in the time available!

splitpainter 2020-04-26 08:49

Wow, at first it was mind bending, and I was like "wtf", but then it easily hooked me. Probably it was your intention, but maybe a bit more contrast and less saturation in the red would make for a better visual experience - it is too bright, made me a bit dizzy, but other than that I loved the visuals and the game overall.

firellon 2020-04-26 11:20

This. Entry does not welcome you with a good tutorial, and you unfortunately have to start right away with viruses - which is, imho, the strongest enemy in the whole game since it's quick and it spawns ton of other viruses on successful infestation. I personally think level 3 is the best for the starters.

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!

lex 2020-04-26 13:27

Great game, nice learning curve. Congrats!

j-b 2020-04-30 08:30

I enjoyed the wide array of mechanics for something made in such a short time, nice work

xart2012 2020-04-30 08:37

very good and various gameplay! )

invixel 2020-04-30 08:42

I am surprised by how fun this was. Each level had a different strategy and a different approach to the defence. As others have pointed out, the game wasn't very polished but even as a demo, I am very impressed with how good this game was!

Also, I really love strategy games like Starcraft so you managed to hit my soft spot :)

epb9000 2020-05-03 08:46

Nice variety of units. I like how easy it is to get overwhelmed if you're not paying attention.

marcusnystrand 2020-05-03 14:02

Very nice background music and sound effects! 5/5

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!

bkmld 2020-05-03 15:41

Nice idea, really fits theme. Controls were a little awkward and attackers too many for initial stages. Would gradually increase these. Amazing to have so many variations.

mikouaji 2020-05-03 15:43

Very cool game :) love the variety of all the units!

duke 2020-05-04 13:54

That was a little much for me :) Real time strategy is not my cup of tea, even though this was more like a lightweight puzzle Tower defense game. I still had a lot of problems really understanding how to approach this. Everything happened really really fast, I couldn't actually think about how to place the units because the enemies eat up the cells in a VERY short time. So I just spammed the units where ever and hoped for the best. Once placed there wasn't really anything I could do so I just sat back and prayed that I would win. Some more involvement would've been nice.

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!

flying-dog-fish 2020-05-05 17:48

This is a really fun game with a lot of content and variety. I loved watching those bacteriophages go into action. It's just about hard enough to be winnable, especially once you learn you can't protect everything.

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.

quadape 2020-05-05 20:54

There's something weirdly oldschool about your visual style and I love it!

bentglasstube 2020-05-08 05:59

Although it took me a while to understand how to play (I'm bad at reading tooltips I guess), I'm glad I stuck with it and played through this one. The variety of different cells and enemies was impressive for a jam, and kept the gameplay engaging throughout all ten levels. Sometimes the sound effects were a little much (particularly when spawning lots of bacteriophage) but overall a very enjoyable game.

naca 2020-05-08 22:09

Awesome game!!! I smashed that invaders and cleared all stages!! It was hard and confusing at first, but I kept playing and suddenly it turned into a fun and smooth experience.

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!

Screen Shot 2020-05-08 at 23.52.10.png

alchemic 2020-05-09 05:33

Some of the stages are very difficult, and not for the right reasons.

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:

ausstein 2020-05-09 09:48

Sometimes enemies get stuck in the bottom right corner. I waited for an eternety for a parasite to randomly walk to the left, but he never did. I was a bit stubborn about this and in the end still had to abbort.

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

terry 2020-05-11 06:23

This is really interesting! Super smart to make a defence game inspired by real virus and bacteria behaviour.