Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Solar Sentinel
By negdo, grizeldi, pickydogfish, MoffKalast, TheRedDevil and Spadey01
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 319 | 3.60 | 25 | |
| Fun | 396 | 3.39 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 496 | 3.15 | 24 | |
| Theme | 492 | 3.56 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 20 | 4.58 | 25 | |
| Humor | 548 | 2.52 | 22 | |
| Mood | 570 | 3.14 | 23 |
Wow, this is a really detailed game for a jam. The tutorial was really helpful, I went at it freestyle at first and did not even realize I could connect towers!
Main criticism is that I wish I could connect towers *through* other towards instead of one being in the way and blocking it (and really grateful that you even had a tooltip/toast explaining that). A lot of great stuff going on here, solid work everyone!
I like those 70's Viking-esque stretched out tanker trucks, even though they are antagonists here.
Wow, you put a lot of work into the details here. I really like the art style and concept, cool game!
I love the visual style of this game, it's really stylised and well done.
However, unfortunately I found the gameplay to be a bit lacking, there isn't much depth as there is only 4 towers, but the challenge is pretty much gone as soon as you get 1 laser with just a couple connectors attached to it, and nothing will ever challenge it.
If it were fleshed out a bit more and had some more challenge and mechanical depth to it, I could definitely see this being a really good game.
It wasn't initially clear that I had to connect things - the view also often gets cluttered being able to rotate the camera would help a lot here.
@surr-sloidah thanks for the feedback! We are aware that it lacks some depth and tower diversity. We first planned to add another type of power, wind, and make the two types of energy play together with weather. Sadly there was not enough time to add that, and neither was there enough time to properly balance everything. Maybe we will put some more work in after the jam, but given our track record don't get your hopes up haha.
@salmonmoose camera movement might be a good idea yeah, especially the collectors block quite a bit of vision. About connecting towers, i hoped i explained it well enough in the tutorial level, but i guess not.
This game is absolutely gorgeous. The models, the colouring, the depth of field. All the little details I love too, the way towers near each other have arms to transfer energy...
I love that you can visually see the forest degrading. I love the little level indicator in the top right, too. Such a neat way of display that information!
A few pain points: - Audio was very repetitive and the explosion sounds felt out of place compared to the rest of the sfx - I agree with others, it got very difficult for me to connect towers at a certain point because of the camera angle - I was confused why I couldn't just click away to deselect things, it was odd and unintuitive to me to have to right click cancel - I wish there was some way to see how many waves have passed and how many are left - It felt out of place to me that the Pylons couldn't accept multiple connections when that very mechanic was such a staple of the rest of the game - The relays seemed useless to me because I could just surround towers in solar, there was no need. I think they would have become a lot more useful and there would be more depth if the number of available tiles was limited more, or if relays could accept multiple connections. - I see the efficiency rating on my solar towers but... what does that mean? How does that affect me? How do I manage that mechanic? Was I not paying attention in the tutorial?
With that being said I still think it is a good entry because of how good it looks, how well it works with few bugs despite it's logical complexity.
Also moving buildings. I love moving buildings. Such an unnecessary detail but absolutely amazing. I loved watching them float up and then over slowly, and it is a really innovative way of making sure moving doesn't become OP.
Also one more thing of note: I got some terrible flickering/checkerboarding on my RX 480, but it otherwise ran well, though I imagine that is more of a Godot problem than a you problem, I figured I'd mention it. I suspect it has something to do with you having vsync enabled whilist my monitor has AMD Freesync on, but I wouldn't turn off freesync to test because.. that's asking for trouble. :sweat:
@sharks I've just noticed in your screenshots that it would appear you have multiple solar towers connected to one relay. Am I crazy? I sware it told me I couldn't do that when I tried.
The graphics and the focal depth effect are amazing, the sound effects are a bit hard to listen too for a long time though. overall a stunning entry, great work!.
@sharks Thank you for the detailed feedback. Some of these are painfully obvious things I'm not sure how we managed to miss :sweat_smile:
Audio was mostly duct taped into the game last moment and was very much not a focus as our usual audio guy was unavailable, so it does get repetitive fast. Definitely something we would've looked into if we didn't spend hours dealing with godot 4's bugs :stuck_out_tongue:
Deselecting works with RMB or ESC, but I agree, clicking away should also be an option, as well as some camera rotation options. Noted.
Pylons (=the currency generating towers) only accept 1 connection, but relays should accept multiple unless something broke.
Regarding solar panel efficiency and moving towers: the original plan for the game was that the solar panels produce power according to the amount of clouds covering them (that's the efficiency rating), so the player would have to move stuff around and rebuild networks. Sadly we ran out of time to tweak all the numbers and the end result ended up being a more standard tower defense where moving doesn't have much use.
Regarding flickering on an RX480, godot4 we used is in beta, so it's very likely it's related to that.
Solid TD. I liked the art. Could have done with a start next wave button. It was good. Kudos
Really cool 3D graphics, interesting idea and very smooth gameplay!
I'm amazed by all the details and polish in that game, the starting menu was really neat idea as well. Tower defense mechanics were on point. Overall great job!
Got several game crashes when tried to use Relays. You can see it here:
https://youtu.be/HdOGrrm8ftw
Also it seems levels has no end, played one level 10+ minutes and the trucks were coming non stop.
Love the art and ability to pump the tower with a lot of panels connected to it! Clouds is a neat feature.
Things I missed the most: - tower power value - wave progress indicator, remaining waves count.
(I also have 15 minutes gameplay video, will post it once uploaded)
Full video, still not sure if that level is "beatable":
https://youtu.be/P7pEh-ha4Wc
The graphics are absolutely top notch. You've done amazing with that.
I love the models and the concept. Can't beat a good tower defense!
The only issue I will say is when you get far into the level, you have solar panels everywhere and it can look a bit disorienting but other than that, nice job! :D I didn't manage to beat the level :(
@icxon thanks a lot for the feedback. Actually, atm all the levels are endless. There is a certain amount of preset waves, then trucks start randomly spawning. We will change that, or at least make it more clear in a small post-jam update along with some other small changes. Hopefully Godot will let us make another working build.
Hey @icxon I've actually also run into the relay issue today, it's an infinite recursion thing when the tower is linked with itself. Until we get v1.1 out with various bugfixes I advise avoiding those self connections :sweat_smile:
@D3kryption you may have actually beaten the level, we currently lack a screen that gives you the option to switch to endless mode, so if you see trucks pouring out without a pause you've already passsed all waves.
I'm a fan of tower defense games. This was fun. I liked the graphics. I enjoyed the power routing mechanic, it reminded me of a Warcraft 3 map I played many years ago.
I managed to crash the game in the first level when trying to connect some towers. I did the tutorials, and the first level didn't end when I destroyed all the trucks, the second level I ran out of forest and the trucks kept coming. The sound got to me very quickly, and there was no way to turn it down or off in the game. I would have liked to be able to rotate the camera around so I can better see where I am placing towers.
I filled the first level with towers and destroyed all the trucks endlessly. Is there no end to the levels?
Overall, I had fun. Would like some more towers to play with.
Fun to play, visuals are great. Would love to see more.
The models are so good!! great job :)
As others have pointed out, there are small balancing issues and some bugs but the overall presentation (especially the graphics and artstyle) more than make up for it Good job!
Love it! ^^ I beat each level with as many towers as I could get, I really like the idea of diverting power off land with more sunlight, I never utilised it though, I probably would have if the sunlight was stationary - but I think your idea of sunlight moving over the land is better.