smilewood 2022-10-03 02:16

I had a hard time playing this. I like the idea but the controls seemed to be not quite working (for example, hitting what looked like a speed up button paused everything and I couldn't find a way to unpause other then hitting the stats button). Once I did build a tower, getting it from unplaced to on the field seemed completely random, I couldn't figure out the rules for where they were allowed to go. I think that this game has an interesting concept, and merges a genre that I really like with this theme in a way that I couldn’t think of, but the execution is lacking a bit of polish. Good job getting something into the jam!

jaykayey 2022-10-03 04:00

I like the concept but I think the game suffers from a lack of readability. I like the system of earning resources and using it to buy and upgrade towers, but I didn't know what to do after that. Seems like a cool strategy game though and awesome work for 48 hours!

x000000 2022-10-03 04:55

The game definitely has room for improvement. First of all it is hard to follow what's going on without visual feedback from the game. I'd like to see tower-units interaction. Also the UI could be more descriptive (e.g. give a tooltip what is science/tinkering is). It could be a great TD game if you keep improving it. Keep it up!

rob6566 2022-10-03 07:42

@smilewood - thanks for the feedback. That's definitely now what the speed up button should do (there's pause, normal speed and fast speed buttons, and they seem to do what you'd think). Do you remember if you did anything else first (like clicking around on the tutorial)? I can't get that button to misbehave.

Yeah, it's definitely pretty unpolished. I perhaps spent too much time on content and not enough on quality of life stuff to help guide the player through the game and indicate what's happening in combat (eg: animations). For the record, you can place towers on any of the grid tiles (but if you put them in the very top row, enemies may telefrag them on spawn).

rob6566 2022-10-03 07:45

Thanks @jaykayey - Yeah, I used the default font, and scaled it down very small for the towers/enemies. I think I'll spend a bit of time making a cleaned up version, so I'll get that looking a bit nicer. Sounds like I need a bit of an in-game tutorial or some hints/tooltips too to help guide the player.

rob6566 2022-10-03 07:47

Thanks @x000000 - Yeah, agreed, it needs to show the interactions between towers and units, and guide the player through the game a bit more. I reckon I'll do extend the project with a bit of that cleanup/polish.

m11 2022-10-03 08:12

Congratulations on your first game jam! An excellent effort, but like other commenters have said, it might benefit from a bit more information - an in game tutorial, or tooltips :)

stephen321 2022-10-03 09:56

Good job on your first game jam!

swen 2022-10-03 11:25

It was all fun and games, until the mammoth came :D. Great job, really liked it. I was able to survive for 93 actions.

flamus 2022-10-03 15:48

Fun game, cool to play and theme approach Is very clever:)

dysleixc 2022-10-04 06:30

Congrats on you first jam. Nice tower defense game but the time limitations are kinda off. One time mode is too fast, and the other one is too slow.

hotaloca 2022-10-04 06:59

Altogether a very nice experience. The game contains already quite advanced mechanics, with upgrading incomes, towers, etc. Visibility on enemy actions was also a nice touch. I liked the concept a lot - a card based tower defense game. So something like this I would definitely want to play when polished further. I understand the 10sec theme, somehow it was too slow - adding the speed up button definitely helped. That was the right pace usually. When selecting the action I did not understand why it was always switching back to creating gold - why it not kept simply my previous choice. The graphics were cute - and clear enough to convey whats happening in the game. Very nice job overall congratulations for making this game!

chaseplays 2022-10-04 08:53

For a first jam this is awesome, I love how you used the 10 second theme with the tower defense genre. You added a lot of mechanics and it was a lot of fun, great job!

chitoyuu 2022-10-04 09:15

Congrats for finishing your first game jam! I could be seeing things, but it did surprise me a bit that the fire towers seem to deal damage to friendly towers as well. I imagine that a visualization of incoming damage would help clear this up a lot. Otherwise the gameplay works fairly well with the orthodox interpretation of the theme. Nice game!

rob6566 2022-10-04 09:41

Thanks for the feedback on speeds @dysleixc. I think you're right about the speeds. The normal speed is 10sec/action (for the purposes of the jam) and the fast speed is 2sec/action. When I'm playing, I find myself switching between pause and fast (you can place towers while paused). I'll play with some different speeds - I think you're right about making them closer together (and I might add a third, faster one). I also plan to add shortcuts for them - maybe 1-3, maybe spacebar to toggle.

Thanks @hotaloca - I'll tag you when I release a more polished version. You're right about toggling back to gold being confusing - I'll remove that (except in the case where you can no longer afford the previous option).

Thanks @chitoyuu. I'm pretty confident that the fire towers don't damage friendly towers, as I've done a setup with a line of adjacent fire towers that didn't self destruct. It definitely needs some visual indicators of damage though - that'd make it clearer. All enemies do AOE damage in the 8 surrounding squares, so I'm guessing maybe a diagonal enemy did the damage.

Thanks @chaseplays - yeah, I was pretty happy that it all came together to feel like a real game.

Thanks for the words of encouragement all of you.

jose-bonilla 2022-10-05 01:19

The concept of this game is amazing, I really like it. It's kinda a mashup between a turn-based tower defense game and a deckbuilder, and I like that you have two resources to work with at all times. On the implementation side, I think the UI is the biggest hurdle of this game - it can get more work to make things much clearer. Also, some basic animation/effect when towers and enemies attack would add heaps towards the overall feel of the game. Surely with more time, a more complete and worked out version of this game would be amazing. Good job, keep it up!

arcticmattekar 2022-10-05 07:29

Very cool entry for your first game jam :thumbsup: I like the cookie clicker meets tower defense idea. Very well done!

rahtainka 2022-10-05 15:35

Nice first entry in a game jam! You finished a game that is playable and makes kind of fun. That's great! A little more Ui feedback would be great.

finntastico 2022-10-05 18:18

Fun little tower defense game! Unfortunately on my computer I couldn't get it so that I see the whole game but I liked having to quickly decide between actions. The normal 10s timer seemed a bit easy, but in fast mode it was actually quite stressful. :thumbsup:

digitaldude555 2022-10-05 20:27

This game is a bit too complicated in concept to make in 48 hours, you did well though for your first time. I like your use of sound effects, graphics need improvement. good job.

jimbly 2022-10-05 23:20

On my first game I followed Bluort's advice, studied hard, worked hard, earned 214 science, and 48 gold, surviving 36 actions.

On my second game, I decided his friends were not as friendly as he implied... that time I survived 79 actions, until those 500 hp guys kicked my but.

Congrats on your first game jam, this is quite a great game! Could use some balance, but I had fun, and I'm glad the difficulty ramped up so that it had a clear ending point for me =). I liked the feeling of upgrading my towers. I would have liked to be able to skip to the next tick without having to reset the fast forward button (which I usually don't quite get back to after a buy and place tower action before yet _another_ tick flies by ^_^).

rob6566 2022-10-06 00:32

Thanks @digitaldude555 - yeah, the graphics are a little atrocious hey? I've downloaded assets for previous games I've tried, so I figured I'd do them really quick and dirty. But I reckon I'll make more effort with the art next time, and practice animations.

@jimbly - yeah, I think that Bluort guy might have a little conflict of interest. Nice job getting so far! I'm going to release a post-jam version with a bunch of balances and UX cleanup. I've already made some changes in my dev build (balance changes, spacebar pauses, 1-3 sets game speed, WASD selects the buttons, and it doesn't revert to "Work" when the tower/tinker overlay goes away), and I'm working through a list of other improvements, like combat animations.

rob6566 2022-10-06 00:36

Thanks @rahtainka - yep, definitely realised that I needed to spend more time on UI/tooltips/tutorials!

Thanks @finntastico - Sorry it didn't display properly. Could I grab some more details about your setup? Did the problem happen in full screen? I'm working on a bigger game with similar settings, so I figure it might have the same problem.

jackaljk 2022-10-06 18:53

I think this would be awesome with more feedback, you can hardly tell what's going on as it is. I had no idea for instance if my sniper tower were too far. It wasn't clear if and how much the other towers were damagining the enemies. I like the grid layout tho and being able to do only one thing every ten seconds.

rob6566 2022-10-06 21:14

Thanks for the feedback @jackaljk. Yeah, I agree that it needs to give you more feedback. I'm working on that (amongst a bunch of other fixes/cleanup), and I'll release a post-jam version.

vidarn 2022-10-07 06:34

I liked the choice of upgrades. There were a lot of different ones and it was often an interesting choice between choosing something immediately useful or upgrading for the future. Knowing the next three actions of the mobs was really cool as well. I also liked the fact that you added a button for speeding up the turns.

maxkyckling 2022-10-07 09:39

81 actions survived, 43 kills, 24 towers lost, 550 gold earned & 40 science. I guess I went for bruteforce...

This was great fun. I liked that you had many different options and therefore could figure out better positions for the towers etc. Cool to have upgrades and fun with the different enemies. Good job! :)

tanis 2022-10-07 14:33

I like the idea of the tower defense. It didn't even remotely came to my mind :smile: I like that you can also speed up the pace when you are waiting for the 10 seconds to expire. What I found hard to see is when towers are hit and what is exactly happening. I see the goblins moving around and my towers disappearing but I just have to guess they have been hit and destroyed. Some visual feedback would have helped a lot.

It would also help to see visually the range of the towers you are placing before you actually place them.

Overall I think it went very well for a compo entry. I would see this as a game that can be further developed and ported to mobile where you can play a few turns, stow it away and pick it back up later on.

shimmerscale 2022-10-07 15:29

Like others have said, the lack of visual feedback makes it hard to determine what is happening. The tutorial was a bit off-putting since it was just a big wall of text. It would be a lot more approachable if the tutorial instead guided you through the first few turns and explained each step individually as you did that step. Also, it would've been nice if there was either a button I could press to skip the rest of the current 10 seconds or if the timer slowed back down to normal after it rolled over to the next 10 seconds.

Great work on having a finished, playable game for your first jam! A tower defense game is a fun, unique idea.

minipeps 2022-10-07 17:24

I like the fact that you can choose to prioritize upgrades or more firepower, plus there are quite a lot of variety depending on which options are given to the player. I also appreciated that the player can see what the enemies will do next and plan moves according to this. Great compo game! :smile:

shibaya 2022-10-07 21:58

Great job on your first gamejam! Fun game!

furano 2022-10-08 13:19

I tried this game on my phone and it surprisingly worked quite alright!

Congratulation for your first jam! You managed to publish something with is already a feat! (if you look at the stats, more than 50% of all projects aren't published at the end).

A few point you could improve for your next ludum dare: * your game need more feedbacks. It's kind hard to now atm when a tower hits an enemy or when an enemy hit a tower for example. You should show that kind of info. You can use either cheap trick like making them red for a few seconds of that kind of thing all the xzy to complex fxs and particles. * you uploaded a unity development build. Those are usually much larger and way laggier because they embedded tons of debug and profiling information. Building for release is just one tick away and will result in a much smoother game

What is really good about your game and that you should keep for the next one : * the how to play was a really nice addition! It is sooo useful when you are not fumbling around to understand a jam game! No need to be self condescending int it however : your game is a great jam game and I had fun in it! * I had 0 bugs and everything went smoothly, which is quite a feat! * the gameplay was alright but could benefit greatly from being "spicier", with more things going on or stuff to do in between the 10s timer.

Anyway congrats for you first jam!!

tetrapteryx 2022-10-08 18:10

This is very ambitious for a jam game! You did a great job making all of the elements work together. It may not be super polished, but it works well as a demo for a larger game, so I hope you continue working on it!

If you do continue beyond this jam, I think what you have here would work really well as a turn based game, instead of being tied to time. Having lots of options to weigh, plus information about the enemies' next moves, made me want to plan my actions out more strategically. I ended up using the pause/fast forward buttons to essentially play it in turns instead of letting the 10 seconds play out, and it was nice to be able to take in the information and act at my own pace.

otterfaelure 2022-10-08 18:54

I'm impressed by the depth this game has.

My one issue is that sometimes the placement of the towers wasn't working properly. Not sure why but sometimes I had to click A LOT before the tower would deign to acknowledge my wishes and sit where I asked it to sit.

Other than that bug, there were no issues. Which, kudos for managing that in a game jam. I sit in awe.

Thanks for the fun! I was totally absorbed for a few minutes.

purpledartfrog 2022-10-10 10:51

I think this one falls into the same trap as mine... it would have benefited from a step by step tutorial. The concept seems interesting, but isn't easy to pick up. Creative aproach :thumbsup_tone1:

gonzalol 2022-10-10 11:17

It's a good entry but it looks more like a mechanics prototype than a finished game. Anyway, it's a very nice product for a COMPO, specially as your first time. Some thoughts: - The developer art skills are strong on you :D - It would be great if some kind of animation indicates you what happened each turn - Keep working on it, it has potential.

n-n 2022-10-10 11:33

I liked the game. Implemented quite a few mechanics. Especially pleased with the availability of the tutorial, it really helped to understand and have a good time. Great job :)

jamdong15 2022-10-12 07:16

Hey! :) It's been a while but am from the "3 Underrated Games" post.

This game is awesome, especially for a first game jam. Conceptually, everything is there, and I think it's actually really impressive how it was still fun to play despite being relatively low-fid. One suggestion I'd give is to break down the tutorial a little bit more (show tooltips / instructions as player plays the game); we struggled with this in our game, too, haha.

In any case, this was awesome. Congratulations :) Thanks again for rating my game.

zimny11 2022-10-12 14:46

That is quite a game for the first time! The game mechanics are really nice. I also appreciate the in-game tutorial. I wish the speed up button was a bit slower (the normal speed is a bit too slow, while speed up is a bit too quick for me). A nice thing, that would add a lot to the game, would be some towers and enemies attack animations and sound effect (also music). Anyway, great job with the game!

rob6566 2022-10-13 08:59

Thanks for the feedback everyone - it's been extremely helpful! I've incorporated a lot of it (and some balance fixes / new content) into a post-jam edition. There's also a list of known issues / future updates I may make at the bottom. You can play it here:

**https://rob6566.itch.io/10s-to-decide-post-jam-edition**

Post Jam Edition (v1.1) - Release Notes

**TLDR; 2 new towers, 1 new enemy, animations, keyboard shortcuts, UI improvements, scoring, balance and fixes**

#### 1. "Game Over" screen re-labelled "You Win" to discourage building towers ~Bluort from PR

#### 2. Score introduced: - Surviving a Tic: 10 - Killing a tiresome enemy: 5 - Killing a bothersome enemy: 20 - Killing a vexing enemy: 200

#### 3. Enemy changes - New vexing enemy that appears after Tic 120. Does not play nicely with towers - Bothersome enemies now start appearing after Tic 60, and vexing ones after Tic 120 - [Max possible enemies per spawn] increments every 25 rounds (up from 20) - Goblin damage (20 -> 15) - Vampire HP (200 -> 150) - Elephant Damage (5 -> 10) - Behemoth Damage (30 -> 20) - Smarter enemy action selection - will add a "move down" action if top row is projected to be full

#### 4. Tower changes - 2 new towers - All tower upgrade HP bonus (20 -> 40) - Fire Tower damage (40 -> 25) - Arrow Tower damage (50 -> 40) and upgrade damage bonus (5 -> 10) - Sniper Tower range (3 -> 4), damage (20 -> 25), upgrade damage bonus (5 -> 10) - Brick Tower HP (200 -> 300) and upgrade HP bonus (40 -> 75)

#### 5. Added Animations for tower attacks, tower/enemy deaths and enemy movement

#### 6. Improved readability on towers/enemies

#### 7. Enemy Actions UI now shows number of enemies to spawn

#### 8. Introduced keyboard shortcuts: - Space = Pause/Unpause - 1/2/3 = Set game speed - W/A/S/D = Work / Tinker / Study / Build

#### 9. Slow game speed is faster (After heated internal discussion, I decided NOT to rename the game "8.333333s To Decide")

#### 10. Bug fixes - Tower upgrades now apply to towers on the battlefield - Previously selected action is now retained (unless it's no longer affordable) - Targeting / damage in rightmost column no longer incorrectly offset 1 row down - Can no longer build on top of existing tower - Can no longer switch action while dialog is up (which broke the current action)

#### TODO / Known issues - Targeting towers take a couple of turns to start attacking - AOE towers take a turn to start attacking (until fixed, this is a "feature") - Enemies occasionally skip moving for a Tic (hard to reproduce) - Towers could use some smarter targeting (creatures that can be killed > creatures that will kill a tower > lowest creature) - Tinker sometimes shows duplicate research options - Add Tooltips / guide for new players - More sound effects / music (I haven't composed music before)

Just tagging everyone that left a comment :) @smilewood @jaykayey @x000000 @m11 @stephen321 @swen @flamus @dysleixc @hotaloca @chaseplays @chitoyuu @jose-bonilla @arcticmattekar @rahtainka @finntastico @digitaldude555 @jimbly @jackaljk @vidarn @maxkyckling @tanis @shimmerscale @minipeps @minipeps @shibaya @furano @tetrapteryx @otterfaelure @purpledartfrog @gonzalol @n-n @jamdong15 @zimny11

rob6566 2022-10-13 09:49

@maxkyckling - Nice work getting to 81! Yep, sounds like brute force :). Probably some more science upgrades at the start would have helped.

@tanis - Thanks for the feedback! Check out the new version I just released (linked above). It has attack and death animations, so you should have a better idea of what's going on! I like the idea of a mobile port - I don't know if I'll be pursuing this game that far, but I am working on a bigger project (a roguelike deckbuilder) that might eventually be polished enough to release. The full time job doesn't leave too much time for game dev though.

@shimmerscale - Thanks :). Yeah, I've added some visual feedback in the new version. I didn't bother working on tutorials any more (mostly because it's not as exciting to work on and it'll probably only have a limited audience), but I'd definitely do that if I extend this further. Re changing game speeds, I found the keyboard shortcuts in the new version helpful. I alternate between fast and pause.

Thanks @rahtainka! I hadn't done any animation before and wanted to focus on what I could do quickly. I've just added some visual feedback to the post-jam version.

Thanks @minipeps and @shibaya!

@furano - wow, I'm really surprised that worked at all on phone! I definitely didn't expect it to work. Re the development build - yeah, Unity's giving me an error. I didn't bother trying to troubleshoot during the jam, as the development build was only 6M, but I might try to figure it out (I have other projects that build ok): ``` Failed running command /usr/bin/python3 "/Applications/.../Brotli/python/bro.py" -o "/.../Build/ludum_dare_51_rob13.data.br.compressed" -i "/.../Build/ludum_dare_51_rob13.data.br" --comment "UnityWeb Compressed Content (brotli)" (process exit code: 1) UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent (int,intptr,bool&) (at /../unity/build/Modules/IMGUI/GUIUtility.cs:189) ``` Thanks for the feedback! I did think of things to do between timers to make it 'spicier' - maybe consumables or the ability to move towers. I haven't implemented anything yet though.

Thanks @tetrapteryx! Yeah, I agree that it would work better as a turn based game. My favourite games are roguelike deckbuilders and similar games without time pressure (so I can pick them up and put them down, and think about decisions). If I extend it any more, I'll very likely remove the timer and just add a "next turn" button.

Thanks for the feedback @otterfaelure :). Out of interest, which browser/device were you playing on? A couple of others have mentioned similar problems.

Thanks @purpledartfrog! Yeah, I definitely skimped on the tutorial. Next jam (or if I expand this project any more), I'll definitely spend more time on it.

Thanks @gonzalol - yeah, it's definitely more like a prototype at the moment. The new version has some animations, but it's still pretty unpolished. I've done a bit more work on it now, and added some animations, but more forte is definitely more programming than artwork.

Thanks @n-n! Glad the tutorial helped. I probably put too much fluff in there, and not enough tutorial.

@jamdong15 - thanks for the feedback! Good to hear that someone thinks the game is underrated :) - I'll have a look for that post. Yeah, I definitely skimped on the tutorial. I saw some games that did it really well, building it seamlessly into the start of the game.

Thanks @zimny11! The new version might help a bit. The "slow" speed is a bit faster, and it has keyboard shortcuts to switch speed / pause quickly. I've added animations too. No new sounds or music though - I haven't written music before, but I might dabble a little before I try another jam.

rob6566 2022-10-13 11:43

My highest score so far: high_score.png

otterfaelure 2022-10-13 17:52

I played on Opera - Windows Lenovo Legion (laptop). Hope that helps in bug finding. :D

enderswype 2022-10-14 12:52

interesting game, i got to fight mamouth but the fuucked me up x) the 10 seconds aspect of the game is ... optionnal ahah

mrwarranty 2022-10-16 00:34

I had some fun with this one! I especially liked the humor you put into the tutorial. The interface was a little bit tricky to parse; it would have been nice to see the units' actions in real time a bit more clearly. But as a sort of programming-oriented design, it worked in its way, and it was interesting. Thanks for this!

rob6566 2022-10-16 10:36

**https://rob6566.itch.io/10s-to-decide-post-jam-edition**

Post Jam Edition (v1.2) - Release Notes

** Added high score tracking**.

This is my first attempt at setting up a server for a game. Seems to work nicely, but the security is pretty weak. It sounds like the best way to secure a game is to replicate the game state on the server.

studiokraze 2022-10-18 13:00

Some good gameplay, though a bit hard to know what was going on with damage and such. Having the fast forward mechanic was a good workaround of the 10 second theme. Would be good to have 2 speeds for the fast forward as the fast forward was maybe a bit too fast.

Played on my stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zedkraze