Quick Postmortem

Postmortem

I'm really happy that I was finally able to finish this game - it didn't take much more than a month and this game is not something that is innovative or very smart, it is on the same level as a good game jam project, and that's about it. But I've been working on this turn based system for a while and struggling on finding interesting concepts to put the system into, it all started with me wanting to create roguelikes, but the scope for those is way beyond what I can do and for the resources I currently have.

With all that, I'm really happy that I came up with the concept of a tower defense with turn based elements, which is what this game is all about, on top of that, there is a simple wave spawning system that spawn more and stronger monsters as you beat the waves.

What went right: The gameplay loop itself is something that I believe went right, the concept itself is really good. Another thing that makes the game appealing and interesting is the polish - I love polish - I'm all about particles, sound effects, screen shake and whatever else increase the appeal for games. Another thing that really went right is that I proved myself that, with enough planning, and a game with small enough scope, I can still make games on the side while taking my Master's Degree, it's all about progressing towards the right direction, and if you put consistent effort, you will get to the finish line eventually, and it helps a lot if the finish line is not very far from the beginning (i.e. small games)

What went wrong: I raised some concerns before even starting this game, these were concerns I had with the design, and I still think they are in the game and I'm a bit sad I couldn't get to address any of them, maybe I can do that in future iterations of this game idea!

Known Issues:

• The AI has this weird behavior where it attaches itself to walls, for some reason it doesn't really see straight lines as easier paths, it prefer sticking to walls. I purposefully tried making AI dumb, but this is too dumb ?!
• Level Design, that's it, that's the issue. I'm not a Level Designer.
• Game is potentially boring after a while.

Future Directions

• The first obvious future direction is addressing all the concerns I had with the game, which were not having mastery neither secondary goals, adding these can really turn this game into a roguelite if enough effort is put into the mastery aspect of it.
  • FYI, some possible ways to address these are having pickups spawning during the wave, giving player power-ups at the end or during a wave, having more than one level, which can make the game more interesting and put the player through different challenges and adding spawning doors that can be locked/unlocked

• The future direction I really would like to go is adding more roguelike elements into the core gameplay loop, because I believe this can be evolved into an interesting game.
• Another possible change for the future is having procedural generated rooms, the rooms are not big and not very complex, so I believe I can come up with an algorithm for procedural rooms
• There is an universe where this evolves into a full tower defense turn based roguelite, and in my mind, that games you can explore a map and make a bunch of different choices and decisions, and then there is these intense moments that are illustrated as battles, which wouldn't be very different from what this game is.
• Another direction is adapting this system into a tactical turn based thing, which is something that also interests me.