Genre: *Strategic puzzle* that looks just like tower defence, but really, *really* isn't.
...
Duh, okay. Maybe, a *little* bit.
Controls: Mouse and your Mind
The Plot
Your Keep is under attack, my Lord! The treacherous Red Keeper decided that there isn't enough land for us both, and brought over the cannons to prove his point. We need to be quick and retaliate, my lord! Build up your defences, destroy enemy's weak spots and above all else, *keep your Keep alive*!
Game Concepts
- This game is a turn-based strategy-puzzle-tower-defence - Each turn you, the Blue Keeper, may build one tower from our limited supply - You can only build the towers next to our keep or the towers connected to our Keep via a chain of other friendly towers since peasants are too cowardly to leave the comfy tenets of the towers and risk their life under enemy's fire - Every tower besides House, Wall and Reactor needs the energy to operate - so make sure that your towers are built next to a friendly Reactor - In order to complete the building process and see your towers activate, you need to finish the turn - everything takes time to happen, good sir!
The Towers
*Mandatory mini-wiki that you don't have to *keep* in your mind*
- Keep - this is your castle, Sir! We need to protect it at all costs! While it can withstand *some* damage, I bet you wouldn't like your wall paintings to fall, my lord! - House - this is where the peasants live! We have a nigh limitless supply of those and can use Houses to connect more important Towers, as well as block our opponent's shooting, so feel free to use them loosely! - Reactor - that technological wonder powers our towers up and allows them to function, vital for our defences. Take note: it will only power your towers up in cardinal directions! - Cannon - the classical offensive tower, shoots in a straight line vertically or horizontally and damages the closest tower on the line. Our long-range artillery! - Wall is our first and the last line of defence can withstand quite some damage until being destroyed. - Bow is more flexible than the mighty Cannon as it can be placed facing in 8 different directions, but unfortunately, is quite limited in range. - Shield - this ultra-technological protection device is impervious to any damage from its frontal directions when powered up, but vulnerable from flanks and rear. Very solid for prolonged battles! - Barracks - recruits loyal soldiers that will march forward and eliminate the enemy. Won't create a new knight as long as the old one breathes!
Now, you are ready, my Lord! May your towers stay till the end of time!
I liked your game. The tower building was alright, although a little confusing at times. Played really well, not too many issues. Going forward I think some music would suit the game well, and maybe some story element.
LD-Jam does not approve of leaving games for others to review, but you can find my game on my profile.
Love that type of game! Like the polished graphics and how easy to understand the game mechanics. The sound is a bit lacking and maybe I would have loved to see more animations and maybe some fun and unexpected buildings.
As a tower defence fan, I love what you've done here. Had me thinking by round 2. A part of me expected to "sell" or "destroy" like in other TDs but actually thought it adds and makes it different. I'm sure you've had your own ideas but you would love to see some humour from little characters reacting to being hit.
the game looks so nice and polished, i appreciate that you spent the time making a tutorial which most ludum dare games skip (like me :laughing: ) but it gets frustrating very quickly and i end up restarting the level a million time, it's like a mistake costs you the level, very impressive looking and the gameplay is solid but more variation like more towers would make it more fun, still an amazing entry for ludum dare
@roberto-romao hey, thanks for the review! Your towers attack after the end of your turn, if there's anything in their line of sight! Just press the "Finish Turn" button and your cannon will shoot!
Check it out, please, you'd be missing a lot on the game if you couldn't progress past the first level :)
The low poly aesthetic brought me here. Loved the small board game style feel of it, though animations and sounds could have been improved / added. I imagine that's due to the time constraints of the jam. Great entry nonetheless!
Cool game! Everything is awesome: the graphics, level design, game design, the sounds. However, I didn't have enough music in the background and the "back" button"
Excellent game play. I really like the combination of puzzle and tower defense. If you've ever played the puzzle lab in Hearthstone this reminded of that. I like how you have at the beginning of the game what you will have for the entire game. It really puts the ownership of the outcome directly on the player. You feel when you win it was your doing. When you lose you feel like you know where you can improve.
This is my 20th review and my new favorite. Really nice job.
I love tower defense games. But this is different!! The chess-like turn is really good. Levels are very well designed and the game is pulished. I like it!
Woah that was a lot of fun and a very unique idea! I can't believe how many levels you were able to fit. This felt more like a professional game with loads of polish than a jam game! Very, very good job!
Definitely enjoyed this little puzzle/tower game. Definitely had to come up with some unique solutions to make it work with the limited pieces we had access to. Great job!
I like to see these kind of games where you need to come up with a solution to a problem. This is a well polished entry, with a very good puzzle. I was struggling to resolve the stages, but probably was I being dumb LOL.
Few points I would like to list: The arrows, showing what a unit is doing is a great visual indicator, and the skip button is really nice for people like me who is not really doing well to solve the problems.
This game is a solid 5 star game!! I just love it and the puzzles are keeping my mind engaged a lot!! Overall, awesome game!! Good luck on this Ludum dare.
very well polished game.. low poly graphics are stunning and excellent level design. it keep me thinking and restarting :laughing: great entry :thumbsup:
Really good game, good job. Hard game, but still fair. Could be a godd idea to add a new button "auto play" 'cause press end turn until the end is a little bit annying
Very good! Got stuck a bit in the AEGIS level - but it feels as if with some more tries it could work :slight_smile: Nice turn based strategy puzzler with well prepared levels. I also love the level of polish you put in it sound and graphics (even if it seems to use premade assets). I also liked the tutorial style first levels and the gradual introduction of new building types and weapons (towers, shields, bows,...) Great entry! :thumbsup:
There were a few bugs for me: I don't know how to reproduce, but at the last level, at level 12 the bottom enemy cannon made two strange behaviors. As I was retrying a lot once it shot the house behind the wall, and once the wall didn't lose hp when it was hit by that cannon. It's cool how new the game elements were. Few of the puzzles were fairly challenging, I had to try for a good 5-10 minutes sometimes. Nicely done!
While we did assemble premade stuff together as you can see it, would be still unfair to take credit for someone else's work :)
One of the solutions for Level 9 would look like this:
Pro tip: as you're waiting for your tower to destroy the enemy, you can build houses in front of the enemy's cannons and protect your own stuff from being destroyed
We have gotten some bug reports about level 12, but we need some consistent way of reproducing those, otherwise it's like searching for the drop of water in the sea :)
I usually try to avoid making games with too much deep strategy in game jams (people never read the instructions :P ), but you did a really nice job introducing the game's concepts in the tutorial. That's impressive. The art style is also really tasteful. This game has a lot of potential to be made into a full game that you could sell.
you got me hooked haha, i truly enjoyed this! level design is great and keeps at the desired amount of challenge (at least to me). The overall aspect of the game is pretty polished, congrats!
Wow this is a really cool entry, I gotta say one of the most entertaining games I've played in this Jam. I think as criticism the only suggestion I have is this game would greatly benefit from an "undo" button so you can replay last turn. I know you are not asking for feedback on audio but I gotta say the music an SFX you chose go really well with the game, and the graphics are stellar. Thanks for posting this game, cheers!
Great work on this one, really nice! Sometimes I could not predict the behaviour of the soldiers, whether they would rotate or keep attacking the target in the direction that they're facing, but other than that, it is a really nice mix of a tower defence game and a puzzler! I especially like how you set up a tutorial and that it feels just so polished with the soundFX and the UI.
Great overall aesthetic, and I appreciated how well all the individual functions meshed together during the actual gameplay. These things can be difficult to balance, but you managed to make it engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. Some great puzzle work, well done.
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for us to check out! If you'd like to watch again, the highlight is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/617290863
This was an interesting puzzle game, thanks for sharing.
Some feedback: - It's super nice that the game explains itself both with the short tutorial and with good level progression. - I think the bow range indicator looks more like an arrow than a stopped line. Took me a few tries to understand how that worked. It also should probably stop in the middle of the last tile it affects, not the end of it, to make crystal clear that it's not *hitting* the next tile before stopping. - Level 10 and 11 were extremely easy. E.g. the latter, 1 reactor, 2 bows and 1 cannon next to my castle, done. - I wish there was some kind of thing to tell me how well I did. Did I manage minimal turns? Minimal buildings? Maybe even minimal damage to my buildings? - Adding undo and level skip buttons was \*chef kiss\*. Excellent decisions! The undo doesn't just allow you to correct mistakes, but also leaves room to experiment and experience the game through observation instead of reading. - I think I should be able to cancel by right-clicking. And maybe I could select with shortcuts, e.g. the number keys? - I think if you are in the process of positioning something, "undo" should cancel that, instead of actually undoing the last thing you built. - In the web version, there is a bug that produces additional knights out of barracks when undoing. To reproduce: Build a barrack. Let it produce a knight. Continue until the space in front of the barrack is empty while the knight is still alive. Press Undo. Finish turn. Marvel at the second knight produced by the barrack.
That's it. That's all I have to complain about. The game is fun, looks amazing, is extremely polished and absolutely fantastic in general, and I really enjoyed puzzling my way through. Excellent work!
Phew. That last level took a loooong time to figure out, but in the end I had my knights to clean up because I ran out of arrow towers. Didn't help that I couldn't use Undo at all due to the bug that messes up the barracks state!
@tobiasw Wow, that' been a lot of very useful and constructive feedback, as well as a bug report and a walkthrough :thumbsup:
Thanks a lot, this is a tremendous help for us to try and move it forward!
We will balance level 11 to be a bit more complicated, level 10 is considered to be more like a training level, since you're getting to learn a new mechanic there. And the bug of undoing Barracks/Soldiers - good catch, though it will be a bit tricky to fix that :wink:
As of the Undo button - that's a feedback from our players :v:, thanks a lot to everyone who played Keep the Keep. While we were a bit hesitant initially, since it's making game easier - but in the end it reduced the need for unnecessary repetition, and that's a good thing for the game not to be tedious. So, good change after all.
LD-Jam does not approve of leaving games for others to review, but you can find my game on my profile.