Gargolite

by brusi
co-authored: @stavu
Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.13
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.03
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.08
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.20
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.16
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.92
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.47
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.75
Play online or download: http://brusi.itch.io/gargolite

You start with nothing to help you protect The Orb from the gargoyles.
Turn them into stone and build a tiny fortress in this top-down defense shooter.

You were put in The Cursed Castle Of Gargolite in order to protect The Ancient Magical Orb of Light. Every night the gargoyles come in order to destroy it. You must keep it safe, or else...

See post about pathfinding algorithm.

Credits:

* Programming - Ori Brusilovsky
* Art - Stav Goldstein
* Music & Sound Design - Alon Kaplan, Ety Terry Hermann

Comments36

g-o8 Oct 2019, 10:55
art and soundtrack were pretty nice! gameplay wasn't evolving enough though
still very nice!
pestodesign
pestodesign8 Oct 2019, 13:44
Very nice graphics and a lot of fun! I like it how a simple game mechanic can change the playfield so fast. I played it in browser and it started to lag a bit when turning the gargoyls into stone. :v:
Friudorian8 Oct 2019, 13:50
Completing a circle is an incredible reward, adding an interesting feedback loop to the gameplay.
A little upgrade system and the game would be perfect :)
psychic_ash8 Oct 2019, 17:16
Nice game for a jam. Potential for more features to flush it out for a full game. Graphics and audio were great and controls felt pretty good.
Mor Halperin8 Oct 2019, 17:21
loved the 8 bit metal music ^^
QuietGecko8 Oct 2019, 17:45
Very nice artstyle and gameplay, enjoyed the music and completing the stone circle was very satisfying.
Would have been very nice to have gargoyles vocalizations :P

We also created an entry for the jam in case you wanna check :)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/$172916
Keithdae9 Oct 2019, 12:57
Extremely well made, congrats ! I love the music so much :heart:

Very smooth to play with nice animations/sounds, and the circle mechanic is very interesting !
dib10 Oct 2019, 21:54
I love this! So inventive! Great take on the theme. I would love to play a completed version of this game. Really good work.
Weine11 Oct 2019, 17:39
Create game mechanics. I very much liked how you made pathfinding into a tactical element, and the completion of each wave makes for natural progress steps. Looks like a fun project to continue on after the jam.
LoneWolfDev11 Oct 2019, 18:39
Congratulations!! Really good game! The mechanic of the dead enemies as blocks in the scenario is so good! Lot's of fun with this one! And as they said before, it might have future potential as a game. Great job!
NunoRibeiro
NunoRibeiro11 Oct 2019, 19:56
Awesome! Amazing controls,the art and the music! The only thing I didn't understand was the use of the red crystals: are they our score or they are currency to buy things?
Great game, congratulations!
Pandanym
Pandanym11 Oct 2019, 20:03
Daaamn what a concept !! And a flawless execution to go with it ! The idea was great but you really made it happen with the gamefeel and art :) Amazing entry !
LandoSystems
LandoSystems11 Oct 2019, 21:00
Wow, really really cool game! Simple and clear gameplay, more strategy than initially expected, great graphics, solid sound effects, good music, solid controls. The statue shatter effect was very well done, Just a really great job all around! Loved it!
MateusBoga
MateusBoga12 Oct 2019, 17:56
This is so underrated! I love the artstyle and the gameplay is refreshing and fun! I hope more people get to play this, it's one of my favorites of this jam. Amazing job!
Space Nomad
Space Nomad13 Oct 2019, 12:26
a very, very good game. finally something fresh and new. good job
croewens
croewens13 Oct 2019, 12:34
Super fun concept! In what engine was this made? Juice felt great!
fiwon123
fiwon12313 Oct 2019, 12:35
This game is very nice. TH concept is simple and work hahaha. Congratz
Ruud Cremers
Ruud Cremers13 Oct 2019, 13:23
Fun arcade style game! Do the gems actually do anything except keep score?
samh
samh13 Oct 2019, 14:41
Very impressive music, graphics and animations! They go extremely well together, the whole thing looks very professional and polished. The game was just a bit hard for me, but I had a good time trying think about the best circle patterns and how to maximise my number of gems. However I lost several times when I ventured too far from my orb and did not understand what happened… can gargoyles break walls after a while?
ahistyap
ahistyap13 Oct 2019, 15:12
Very interesting mechanics you implement here! I had a blast playing the game. I'd totally play it if there's more objective or challenge. Also, love the art! Great job!
Asimov14 Oct 2019, 14:46
Holy moly! that was AMAZING! i dont even know what criticism i should give haha.
Work on it an build an upgrade system using the gems and i would gladly pay 3,99 on the Eshop!
sver
sver14 Oct 2019, 14:51
Nice game! Spent way more time playing than aimed for :)
Jeremy Ryan
Jeremy Ryan14 Oct 2019, 17:58
Nice game! I love the art, animation, and unique combat style. I think I played for long enough that I felt like I could keep going indefinitely, partly because it was easy to build up layers of walls and funnel all the enemies into one space to take them out.

I would be really interested in playing an updated/released version of this game! It would also be interesting to have additional scoring mechanics --- maybe enclosing a larger area gives you a gem multiplier.

Great entry!
nsadie
nsadie14 Oct 2019, 18:17
Great concept and well pulled off!
aleksandar2901
aleksandar290114 Oct 2019, 18:18
Really enjoyed the game, great mood, and fun mechanics :smile:
Tanoshi14 Oct 2019, 18:42
Fun game with good presentation! Nice job on the pathfinding algorithm. It would be nice to be able to make bigger circles as the difficulty increases. I'd suggest increasing the player's firing range with each wave.
gamejuv14 Oct 2019, 18:45
I really like your idea and never saw something similar like this from the system. The style and atmosphere are awesome!
johnnysix
johnnysix14 Oct 2019, 19:43
Very nice, really dug the music and graphics. It'd be cool if the wand/staff increased in range or something, the more gems that were gathered.

Bonus points for doing a decent tutorial from the outset to ease the player into the game mechanics.
YorisFresh
YorisFresh14 Oct 2019, 20:08
It was easy to figure out how to play and it was quite fun even when I died a lot. Played it for longer than intended
Purrseus
Purrseus14 Oct 2019, 21:44
Ahhh, I died at 166 gems when a system message popped up and I accidentally switched tabs upon closing it :face_palm:

Your game is truly amazing! The design is really innovative, graphics and audio are fine and most of all, it's incredibly fun! It's hard to stop playing, once you got it going! I'll plunge in for another round, after one play I already think I'm addicted ;)
aeveis
aeveis15 Oct 2019, 05:26
Nice, really good use of path finding! I liked how I could start to form inner and outer rings and sort of a maze to stop the gargoyles. Could see you easily extending this with upgrades or different kind of enemies. Nice job!
Tonho15 Oct 2019, 15:31
Loved this! The tutorial is very smart, Love the details like how other gargoyles break when they're in the same tile as the one you hit, and how the walls respond to being hit
The base mechanic has a lot of depth! It was really fun to come up with strategies like prioritizing creating outer walls to guide the enemies instead of trying to close a circle. This only works because the mechanics were implemented in a very thought out, solid manner.

The one complaint I would have is that the gem collect sound is kind of too much, especially because you hear a lot of it in quick succession

Had a lot of fun with this, really one of my favourite entries!
Danilo Freire
Danilo Freire15 Oct 2019, 21:37
One of the best games of gamejams that i ever played. This is a very interest concept and was so well executed on a gamejam. Congrats for the team! Save the web build so i can play again other moments of my life!
caio_rmota16 Oct 2019, 18:31
I'm amazed, it's such a good idea and I can't remember any other game made something like this before in the tower defense genre.

Really liked the way you sintetized the two elements the player needed to focus (eliminate enemies and protect the orb) into one action, adding a good depth to the strategy aswell.

Seems that you guys know a lot about the theory of flow - while playing, every time I got stressed out by the large number of enemies coming, it was exactly when I was near completing a full circle - creating some space for me as player to breath and start a new strategy while new enemies were arriving. As Danilo said above, definitely one of the best games I've played in a game jam and also going to save the link to use as reference while working on my own projects.

Thanks and congratulation for your achievement!
organicpencil
organicpencil29 Oct 2019, 00:11
Extremely well-done, easily among my favourite games to come from this jam. Nice work!
organicpencil
organicpencil29 Oct 2019, 04:15
Had to come back and play again. Seriously, nice work.
Got to 574 before suiciding

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