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Storm Guardians's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #71 | 3.841 | 3.841 |
| Game Design | #86 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
| Audio | #122 | 3.611 | 3.611 |
| Overall | #148 | 3.594 | 3.594 |
| Theme | #165 | 3.698 | 3.698 |
| Graphics | #216 | 3.802 | 3.802 |
| Innovation | #582 | 2.833 | 2.833 |
Ranked from 126 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
My game is all about making quick decisions before chaos hits. The currency system in my game forces you to choose between saving and spending, which if done incorrectly or at the wrong time can pose a risk later on. All of the interaction with the game also happens before the 'storm' and during it you are left to hope you made the correct decisions. The game tries to make that 'calm' before the storm just a little less calm and the storm itself just a little more intense.
Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
Yes, the code, assets and sound effects were all made by me completely from scratch (outside of some sound effects coming from Pixabay).
The music used was taken from the YouTube Creator audio library.
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Comments
I really liked the tower defense elements and each tower felt different with unique abilities. overall great game!
Thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed playing.
I really love game. It took some practice for me to get used to it though. Overall, the game is fantastic, it really captures the theme. 5 stars, welldone.
Thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Wow, this is a really fun game! Played it and beat Bert!
Here are my thoughts:
I start this saying I'm a great fan of tower defense genre: PvZ, Bloons Tower Defense, and those alike.
I liked the towers, the graphics, the ambience, and the 2x speed feature is always very welcome in any tower defense!
Tho, I have some critiques about the gameplay, that I hope will be useful in balancing and making the game better if you want to expand on this:
Mainly, I noticed the "interest" mechanic works not to make the player decide how to spend their money wisely, but moreso to never spend the last 1000 (because the max is 10). So, after the first 5 or 6 waves where you regain 1000, it's like it's not even there.
Also, the meta of the game is very spam-centered, as the basic towers are absolutely busted and will do the same DPS (and more) than more costly ones. Bomb towers are also absolutely useless, both in the earlygame and in the endgame, due to not having a great range or damage, and being very slow and costly. Fire towers are nice (I love flame ring tac spam in Bloons) but basic towers just outclass them in every stat. Electric towers are very strong, but do a lot of overkill damage (so reducing their overall DpS), and the presence of not very high HP enemies makes it essentially outclassed by everything that is crowd control (even the big enemies get destroyed by groups of basic towers).
I would've also liked to be able to change the targeting options during a wave for more tight situations (yes, I micromanage a lot in Bloons) as there is not much else to do after the planning phase, other than holding space.
Then, I also noticed some strange stuff going on with projectiles that seem to not have hit but actually have, but I guess that's just how the game is coded.
But overall, great game using the Tower Defense formula! I would've liked to try endless mode if I had more time! Best of luck! :D
First of all thanks a lot for playing my game! This is the longest feedback I've received since the start of the jam so I'll try my best to respond to everything in the best way I can.
The "interest" mechanic was something I came up with early on in development (like the first hour of the first day basically) so until I implemented it I kind of didn't put any more thought into it. When the time came to implement it and my friends playtested the game I noticed it had some issues and mainly what you described. The game is just too easy after the first few waves if you know how to use the mechanic properly. But I think I might be able to fix this by 1: lowering the cap to +5 for example or 2: just making the game harder. Although the latter would maybe make it too hard for people who are new and/or don't understand the mechanic too well.
Tower balancing (and mainly bombs) had been something I'd been tinkering with the last few days but because of lots of bugs being found and needing to be fixed and some feature requests from the people playtesting I decided to do those first and in the end just didn't have too much time to actually take an in-depth look at balancing. I remember during the playtests spear towers had a pierce of 10 unupgraded and 15 upgraded and cost like.. nothing (unupgraded pierce is now 4). The meta then was just.. place spears everywhere. So I'm glad I avoided that.
I get your complaints about not being able to do anything during the storm. I'm also the type to micromanage everything when I'm playing Bloons so it does feel kind of counterintuitive. I'm also a big fan of as little downtime as possible in games, but here I deliberately went for it this way because of the jam theme and I felt like if I let you do something during the storm I'd have abandoned my original idea.
Lastly the targeting. It's the most broken thing about the game and I've had quite a few comments pointing it out. (It also contributes to why the bomb is so shit). Spear and Bomb towers throw their projectiles towards a marker with a position on the enemy, but if the enemy goes too fast it just misses or is too far away it just misses. I know how I could fix this but it would take quite a bit of work (and math) to make this work properly because it would generally be a system overhaul. That's why I decided not to.
I'm really glad you enjoyed it and I was able to give you some more insight into why things are the way they are! I wanted to meet your comment's effort with effort back after all :)
Spent way too long playing this game ;)
That's great to hear, means you enjoyed it so I'm happy! :D
Cute graphics!
Thanks a lot!
always full greed max econ :-)
FACTS! Hahah.
To be real honest, the cap of +10 is making the game a little too easy so it's definitely in my notes for what I should change after the rating period.
Thanks for playing and I hope you enjoyed!
The game graphic and audio was pretty good but it get's boring after Wave 5
if you want rate Mr sunny
/jam/brackeys-12/rate/2973866
Thanks for playing. I'm glad you enjoye dthe graphics and audio and I'm sorry I couldn't keep you hooked for longer.
Great start to a tower defense game. I had a blast playing. BUT MAAANNN THE SPEAR GUY NEVER HITS ANYTHING!!
Thank you for playing! The spear and bomb guys have had some issues with targeting so I'd have to revamp that whole system for it to work properly. I know how to do it but it'd take some math (and a lot of brainpower). So might take a while after the jam, as uni is also starting in a week.
Really enjoy seeing you spam tesla towers though, haven't seen anyone do that before and I felt like they were underpowered a little.
I am in love with the graphics and artstyle you chose!! Seriously beautiful and it felt really calming with the music. I think I'm just really bad though and couldn't get past wave 2. It felt like the blue balls I did end up killing gave almost no money too. However, I will definitely be back to play this after the jam and honestly one of the best looking games I've seen in this jam. Congrats and great work!!
Make sure you don't empty your bank fully at the start of the game. The interest system gives you extra money from enemies based on how much money you have in your bank so you really have to pay attention to that! Just some tips for ir you do come back.
Thanks a lot for playing and the comments about the art mean a lot. It's not my strongest suit so knowing others like it is nice! :)
This looks really good. It looks like you put a lot of work into this. Good job!
Thanks! It really means a lot.
No problem!
I ended up playing this for an hour straight, it's pretty addictive. Making such a fully fledged and polished game in such a short time period is amazing. The little changes from you ordinary tower defense did make the storm slightly more chaotic, for example not being able to change targeting.
It definitely does take some time to figure out what works and what doesn't, I had to try 4-5 times before being able to get past wave 4, but then later on I felt invincible, so it seems that the balancing might need a little work. Otherwise a great game, good job!
P.S. The interest system is also something I haven't seen so far in this genre and it made me reconsider my decisions in the calm phase.
Thanks a lot for playing my game! I'm honered to have been able to keep you playing for so long :D. I do agree the balancing needs some (or lots) of work, it was also pretty much the hardest thing about making this game in my opinion.
I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
I really appreciate the new addition to the tower defense formula in way of a "Interest" system. I only played two attempts but after dramatically failing the first I went hard trying to min-max interest on playthrough two and it made the genre more exciting than it has been in years for me.
In terms of artstyle I like what you're going for generally, I just have a few minor complaints about readability. As a new player coming in it wasn't easily discernable what the different towers did, I think some kind of visual feedback on the tesla towers would make it significantly clearer to the player what role they play and how they work.
I'm glad you enjoyed what I did with the twist on the economy. I get your complaints with the artstyle and I've got to say, the tesla tower was the tower I put the least effort and time into making it's sprites and animations so I understand completely. I'll take the feedback with me to my next game (or an update for this one after the rating).
Thanks for playing!
Loved fighting the storm in a tower defense kind of game, it really fits the theme very well! I did not do well in the game though, didn't understand very well what was the best strategy, I felt I had not enough money to buy upgrades :(
I'm really sorry it felt like that. I don't know if you read the description but I tried explaining it there and also in the game tutorial.
For the rest thanks for playing my game!
I really like your game! It is simple, yet super enjoyable! Your art is phenomenal, the towers being the little guys and the enemies being the storm itself fits the jam theme perfectly. Also loved your tutorial and the art for the mouse cursor. About the gameplay, I spent a hot minute in here, and I noticed some things: the loop itself is very good and catching, but maybe increase by a bit the amount of money you earn per wave? Although difficulty wasn't a problem (at least until the part I got to), I wanted to keep changing and improving my defense layout. Of course this is not a criticim whatsoever, as your game is very well polished and super fun. Congratulations!
Thanks for the compliments. This is my first game jam and first time actually doing art for a game so I'm super flattered to hear that it's phenomenal 😊. The economy and tower balancing has been a problem for me and it's been pointed out a lot this jam, so I've been thinking about how I should maybe change it after the rating period.
I'm really glad you enjoyed the game though, makes me really happy!
Liked the concept and sound effects, liked the mechanics!
Thanks a lot!
Great simple art style I really liked it here. Chill game, maybe a bit to easy I could leave it for few waves without any changes. Overall I liked it. Felt really well done
Yes I definitely agree about it being a tad bit too easy. Definitely with how easy you gain money if you use the systems properly. Thank you for playing my game!
Nice game! It’s very polished, fun, and has a lot of options for a game jam!
Thanks a lot! Polished was what I was going for.
I really liked it
I'm really glad! Thanks for playing.
Good game bro! The game have nice visual!)
Thanks a lot!
There is tutorial, game is fun, td style represents theme really well and the rain just makes it perfect!
Thanks a lot!