Ludum Dare #41compo

Element Crush

by vfqd

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.33

Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.33

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.29

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.40

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.35

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.32

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.25

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.54

Play in browser post-compo: https://vfqd.itch.io/elementcrush and original build (for ratings): https://vfqd.itch.io/element-crush-original-build

Element Crush is being made into a full game!

Follow me on twitter - https://twitter.com/vfqd_

And join our discord - https://discord.gg/GpE5K3s

How to play:

- Left click to select an element, left click again on an adjacent element to swap
- Right click to deselect an element
- ESC to return to menu
- Get 3 of the same element in a row to combine into a tower
- Get 3 of the same tower in a row to combine into a stronger tower
- Fire -> Flame Tower; Water -> Water Tower; Forest -> Wood Tower; Mountain -> Stone Wall; Mine -> Gold
- Combining more than 3 will result also in gold
- Click on towers to see where they can attack
- Enemies will spawn at the red arrows
- Click the gold arrows to clear a row (costs 15 gold)
- Click the buy HP button to buy a life (costs 10 gold)

About:

Element Crush is a mashup of a match-3 game and a tower defense. There is a 6x6 board where one must make towers to prevent enemies from getting through. The match-3 elements make it tricky to maintain towers in the correct places, making each move important.

Tags: #2d, #arcade, #casual, #fantasy, #magic, #pixel art, #tower defense

Genres: strategy

Tools: Pyxel Edit, Unity

Comments32

Damien Remars23 Apr 2018, 15:13

:heart: I played 5 or 6x!

p-r25 Apr 2018, 00:15

stunning

Persijn25 Apr 2018, 20:31

For players: You can upgrade to level 3. Only done it twice.

I think this is the best game a have played this ludumdare so far. :star2: :stars:
Now i have no idea why you have scaled the difficulty so strangely.
After the 3 or 4 wave there are just to many enemies on the screen you have to delete them with gold arrow. :sob:
The water tower damage is just too low, even at tier 3 it does little damage to enemies.
On the 4 wave there is a sound bug? The volume gets really high as the wave spawns?
And if you read this dev please keep working on this and post it on sites where people can find it.
This game can really become a really good brower game.

:fox:

vfqdauthor26 Apr 2018, 08:53

@Persijn Thank you so much for your kind words.

As for your feedback, I think I agree with you on all the counts. In retrospect I would have made the walls and the water towers both stronger (shoot faster and more health respectively). Also the enemy scaling could have been done better, it's the kind of thing that would have come out with more playtesting, just ran out of time. I'll certainly think about working on it more, if there's enough interest I'll do a post-compo version with some simple bugfixes but I might come back to it more properly at a later stage.

Thanks again for taking the time to give such awesome feedback :star2:

Jiri Hysek29 Apr 2018, 11:37

Wow, this is cool. Concept, visuals, audio.. Oh and replayability, really great entry, one of my favourite.

Pavel Smejkal30 Apr 2018, 14:22

I played a game with the same theme mashup already but this one was far better. I also really liked graphics style. It reminded me of Heroes III. Fine work!

Jimbly30 Apr 2018, 14:35

Final score 563 =). I made a level 3 water tower in my second game, hoping its range would get bigger, but it did not, and it was not strong enough to get any farther than I did in my first game. This was a great entry, I really enjoyed it! I think maybe the number of swaps should increase as levels go farther, as things get awfully difficult and that would help offset it a bit.

From reading other people's comments, I had absolutely no idea the gold arrows would clear enemies! I thought it was to clear rows of your board that were getting ugly, that could be clarified. Maybe I need to play it one more time, knowing that...

Jimbly30 Apr 2018, 14:47

Got 900 or so points on my third game, one level farther, but difficulty scaled way too quick there. It would have been nice for getting bonus gold for combos where I do one swap to clear multiple things. Also, matching 4 towers always seemed like a giant waste.

GastricSparrow30 Apr 2018, 14:48

Wow. WOW. This is a truly innovative combination and game. All elements work together to help the experience and not just for the sake of being there. Sound fx was the weakest link, but it didn't matter cause everything else is great. I would have been impressed that a team could put this together in 3 days. Then I realised this was a COMPO game. I'm speechless. This is a home run.

aaron930 Apr 2018, 15:48

This is one of the few games that I played through multiple times, I really enjoy it! Great visuals, great idea and works really well with the theme. My only gripes are the difficulty scaling (as others have mentioned) and the fact that the golden arrows aren't explained (I had no idea they were even a thing until I read the comments). Overall a fantastic game :)

Pixelome30 Apr 2018, 16:04

Very cool concept :) The biggest problem for me was the steep learning curve, some in game hints would be appreciated. I thought I was stuck until I figured out that every swap doesn't have to be a combo. I really like the graphics, reminds me of my grandmas cross stitching :smile:

yscik30 Apr 2018, 16:12

This is a great game!

aaron930 Apr 2018, 16:58

I found a bug on the PC version - after you reach around 350 points (not sure what wave number that is) the swap counter resets and enemies won't spawn. Each time this happens the game becomes a little more laggy until it eventually crashes.

madjackmcmad1 May 2018, 03:30

A+ game of the jam so far. BRILLIANT idea for 48 hours, wowowowow. So happy to have found this. I got 1130 or so points so I am pretty much the best in the whole world.

madjackmcmad1 May 2018, 23:13

I am still playing this

Schu2 May 2018, 03:09

This is fantastic. The idea is great, everything works, and it's very intuitive. One of the only games that has made me play through multiple times. I would love to see this made into a full game!

vfqdauthor2 May 2018, 15:44

Thanks everyone for your support and feedback :stars: and a big thank you to @madjackmcmad for the donation :grin: . I'm currently working on a post-compo version of the game using your guys awesome feedback. I'll definitely incorporate the bugfix into the new version @aaron9.

madjackmcmad2 May 2018, 20:09

@vfqd your game is stalling Tangledeep development, why would you do this to us

Hisfantor2 May 2018, 21:59

I really like the idea, it changes the point of calculation to the connect 3, but also the randomness, was very fun to play. I'd like to swap two from any position for 10 gold or something

Biterkid3 May 2018, 03:13

I came here because I wanted to beat @madjackmcmad but I can't... overflowing foom in his veins.
Great game, I suggest a mobile version.

Jiri Hysek3 May 2018, 08:08

One does not simply survive that last wave..

madjackmcmad3 May 2018, 15:47

get rekt nerds

vfqdauthor4 May 2018, 15:43

Hi all, I've just posted a post-compo build with some neat new features and some bugfixes, you can find the whole changelog here: https://vfqd.itch.io/elementcrush/devlog/33013/element-crush-post-compo The main page (https://vfqd.itch.io/elementcrush) will play this new build while the original build has been moved to https://vfqd.itch.io/element-crush-original-build. Give it a whirl! Tell me what you think :grin:

TwinGhosts6 May 2018, 14:05

Awesome game, it felt really solid :) I played both the GameJam version and the post and I really dig this game. The artstyle is nice, it plays well and fluid, nice feedback. Cool idea to use a gridlike overlay, unique aesthethic!

Lovely

PuddleOfWater6 May 2018, 14:59

Very interesting genre combination. :) And nice lighting from the fire. The match-3 part made it harder to place fire towers evenly. But it was a nice obstacle to overcome. :)

irwatts6 May 2018, 15:58

Awesome combination of genres! I went in completely blind and was able to figure out almost all of the mechanics just by trying different things out. The messaging for the tower attack range was a little confusing at first, most likely due to the coloring, which I would have expected to have some red, but I figured it out. Good readable graphics, good sounds, intuitive UI, and fun to play!

Deborah-Soude8 May 2018, 06:33

Woow ! So cool !! Graphics are cool ! GOOG JOB !

simonhutchinson8 May 2018, 17:52

Wow! I LOVE THIS! Brilliant combination. I think this is the most successful combination of genres that I've played so far.

Really addictive too. Great work.