LdDB
Ludum Dare #38jam

Stellar Swarm

by mostlyhydrogen
co-authored: @superbusyrobot
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.37
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.23
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.83
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.40
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.43
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.50
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.22
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.69
splash.png
* Web: https://mostlyhydrogen.itch.io/ld38
* Source: https://github.com/mostlyHydrogen/ld38

"The world broke and there's only a tiny piece left. Now these creepy space bugs are attacking."

+ At the start of the round, click anywhere on the screen to place your turrets. You must place up to three before the round begins.

+ A few moments later, you will also get access to a Nuke button, which will quickly clear the screen, but rewards no points when used. It will eventually be rebuilt, but save it for emergencies!

+ Bugs will swarm in from every angle, and it is your duty to protect what little bit of land still hangs in the deeps of space.

+ Ammunition costs points, so if you are very inaccurate, it may cost you more than your life!

+ If you can manage to survive the onslaught and gain at least 15,000 points, you will gain access to a weapon upgrade to better defend the world.
Tools: Phaser

Comments19

Sun-Wukong9 May 2017, 11:51
Oh, I love this concept of "active tower defense", made dozen of prototypes myself but still didn't find a formula fun enough to make into a full game.
Sun-Wukong9 May 2017, 11:51
Oh, I love this concept of "active tower defense", made dozen of prototypes myself but still didn't find a formula fun enough to make into a full game.
Joror
Joror15 May 2017, 15:45
Cool pixelgraphics! I was intrigued by the tactical possibility of different turret placement locations, but could not figure out if there was any good reason not to cluster them for protection.
mikolak15 May 2017, 16:09
My only gripe is that there doesn't appear to be anything to defense other than the turrets, so the optimal strategy is just placing the turrets right on top of each other (also, a keyboard shortcut for the nuke would be nice). Otherwise, solid entry, definitely had fun.
Ben McEldowney16 May 2017, 00:33
A nice effort! Some upgrades or the ability to place additional towers between waves would be welcome. I dig the aesthetic.
Ricardo Morastico16 May 2017, 02:06
Nice game, I liked the option to control the torrents, i took a little to understand what i had to do, also you could put some "drops", so i could have more then 1 bomb.
lucentbeam16 May 2017, 02:11
As others pointed out, there's not much reason to do anything except cluster the turrets in the very center.

Still, I thought it was quite a lot of fun, andI like the vibrant and detailed look of the sprites. I'd be curious to hear some of your stretch goals that didn't make it in.
bentglasstube
bentglasstube16 May 2017, 04:39
An interesting take on a tower defense, but it lacked some depth (presumably due to time constraints). I think with some more mechanics instead of just endless shooting it would be a really neat game, though. Excellent work on the art and sounds.
Drury
Drury16 May 2017, 04:49
62710 is best I can do

I like the graphics, the sound effects were non-intrusive which is good, wish there was music though. The game has nukes which instantly makes it awesome, only needs building destruction to make it even better.
nikkilak
nikkilak16 May 2017, 11:32
I love the idea! Would definitely play more if you developed it further :)
bigsoutherly16 May 2017, 11:37
At first thought it was a normal tower defense game until I noticed the twist. Well done i liked the mechanic!
Kepons
Kepons16 May 2017, 11:37
Nice little game, the difficulty is pretty solid and the presentation is also good. As it's been mentioned before, there could be some restrictions on turret placement and the ability to get more weapons.
FireSlash
FireSlash17 May 2017, 06:09
Neat idea with turret placement. Initially I thought this was a tower defense game, so there was some confusion as to optimal placement, and why the just died the first round.
Alexandr Rum
Alexandr Rum17 May 2017, 08:23
Here she is a real old school pixel art! Good management, I scored 16K points and I liked it.
Gama Croma17 May 2017, 09:27
Nice game, enjoyed bullet economics.
Nergle17 May 2017, 16:35
I like the idea of interactive tower defense.
FuriousWitch
FuriousWitch18 May 2017, 12:47
Very nice! The shooting and delay mechanic was great. I would recommend that you make full screen mode available or zoom in more to be able to enjoy the game more and not strain the eye. Good work :)
taylod0518 May 2017, 18:29
Really enjoyed this game as a whole! I did find if you stack all three in the center together it makes it a bit easy but I really enjoyed the click and shoot gameplay.

Other games by @mostlyhydrogen

compo
Room With Sheep
LD37
Found a bug?
Tell us on Discord