Ludum Dare #23compo

Tiny Defense

by haslettj

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.62

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.62

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.12

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.15

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.50

Audio★★★★★★★★★★1.00

Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.78

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.38

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★59%

It's rough, but functional. I didn't have time this weekend to do much polishing. I would have liked a few additional sprites, but that wasn't in the cards either.

The difficulty could use some tuning as well.

I learned a TON making this game. I'd done some of the mini dares and the warm up, but I didn't submit anything. I'd been challenged with some some graphics issues that I worked on on this game.

The "web" version seems jerky when spawning new enemies. I don't experience that with the executable jar. Feel free to try either.

Instructions:

DEFEND YOUR TINY WORLD AT ALL COSTS

Click on the screen to ensure it has the focus.
Hit the space bar to begin.
use the right and left arrow keys to "move".
use the space bar to fire.

I had a blast in this event, I will definitely be back for another dare!

Comments17

ilo23 Apr 2012, 14:16

Very tense when lots of enemies are on screen. Good job!

Hume24 Apr 2012, 00:25

Too...many...aliens...d'aww!

I played the web version and there was no jerkiness. Smooth like buttered silk :)

oldtopman24 Apr 2012, 00:27

Finally, a space invaders overhaul! I would never have thought to do something like this on a sphere.

RiamuDiMentis24 Apr 2012, 00:31

Very cool, I think I'd rather up/down arrows vs left/right... Maybe add both?

Andrew24 Apr 2012, 19:44

I've seen similar games pop up in past compos. But this one has the advantage of having a lil guy going round and round rather than a turret spinning or something.

YSelf Tool24 Apr 2012, 21:17

Good job, but lacking sound/music.

KevinWorkman25 Apr 2012, 01:33

Nice little game, fit the theme nicely. You might consider using the free Java hosting at http://StaticVoidGames.com. I'm the creator of the site, but I think it beats dropbox. Either way, good work.

haslettjauthor25 Apr 2012, 01:55

I'm actually surprised I got this much done over the weekend. I wish I had time to add sounds, and some death animations. I was able to resolve the delays by changing the HTML to cache the .jar file.

FaBrito27 Apr 2012, 00:22

The balance of this is very good! Congratulations on the well executed idea!

Kassoon27 Apr 2012, 00:54

Pretty neat! It's tricky to line up shots with the keyboard, I think I would've preferred it if he followed the mouse cursor.

LukeRissacher27 Apr 2012, 00:57

Congrats on finishing - fun for a simple game. Controls felt good. Sound effects would have been nice.

PabloAM28 Apr 2012, 16:47

Not bad, but the mechanics has been used in lots of games. Maybe a bit more innovation raise up the game :)

Rectifier28 Apr 2012, 20:48

It's certainly functional. I enjoyed it for a few minutes.

I hate simultaneous-shot limits in shooter games, though. Just give me a firing delay, dangit!

netguy20429 Apr 2012, 15:23

Got the alien beat down. Challenging game.

namuol30 Apr 2012, 01:19

It's like a radial version of Astrosmash! Although most people will probably compare it to Space Invaders.

When simple mechanics make for intense gameplay, you can't really go wrong. Add some more interesting enemy types, sound/music, and a layer of polish and I could see a game like this getting 100s of plays a day on the right browser-game site.

ratboy27132 May 2012, 17:21

Why is the screen soo big? What sort of dimensions are you expecting this to be played at?

Other than that, nice and simple gameplay, though I wish the enemies had a better AI than "randomly float across the screen"

DDRKirby(ISQ)11 May 2012, 12:10

Haha I find it funny how many of these "one guy defending a circular planet" games we've seen this LD ;P

Yes, add some audio next time--it's a piece of cake nowadays with tools like sfxr/bfxr/labchirp, so you don't have that much of an excuse :)