Posted October 06, 2023 by Rebel Paws
Welcome back to One More Night...
I've spent the duration of the jam, having my own little jam; a jam about updating the game to drop some cool features right away once the voting is done! The feedback landed generally where I expected since I knew launching this for a jam the gameplay would be lacking and very basic. Which for a mobile game is great, for a computer game....very AAA feeling. But with the feedback I was able to adjust what I thought would help complete the game to what people actually wanted. So thank all of you for input!
While very disappointed the game ended up almost dead last....My plans to work on it won't stop. I started work on this update immediately after I pressed submit and it's quite an update for what I could do in my spare time over the past few days. Here's what got done!
Speed It Up!
Okay onto what was actually worked on. I first added the most basic features which ended up being game speed ups. This is something I wanted already but due to some setbacks that hit me like student loans on my way to Starbucks; I didn't get to.
First up the interface animations are much faster! This was a simple fix but a huge impact on the game. Thanks to @Reshuu for the feedback on this.
Aesthetically Pleasing Sir
I know visuals aren't super important compared to gameplay; but while doing the speed up touches on the game this was easy to get done. I added some new button visuals to the game; and I feel like they fit pretty good.
If the game went towards a commercial stage down the road I might then consider hiring an artist to really up the game on them. But I think right now they're solid and really up the level of quality for the game.
Specials!
Archer Towers now have specials! These towers command multiple archers, but I've added some RNG to these units. Archers can perform a "Perfect" shot which activated the seeking variable flag on their arrow allowing their arrow to seek out the target guaranteeing a 100% hit no matter where they're at. I felt like this was cool because it could cause clutch moments and memorable "WOAHS!". As well as just being something nice that can happen.
Archers can also perform "Quick Draws" which is another RNG even that cuts their attack cooldown in half; effectively shooting another arrow off faster.
I thought these could be cool perks you can do with upgrades on the tower. But after thinking I think these should be standard events and if upgrades come down the road then the upgrades would increase the chances of these events.
Shield Towers can perform a "Perfect Defense" which just negates an attack.
Healer Towers can perform a "Mega Heal" which will heal twice as much and they can also enter the "Mana Flow" and half their time for the next heal.
These are just cool little things that were fun to add and adds some more RNG to the game.
But don't worry! Enemies have their own specials! Enemies can now do evades, critical strikes; and reduce the time it takes to attack.
I got a lot of stuff like this I'd like to add like status effects and stuff. But this is still super early in terms of development; and there's no concrete plans for how far it will go.
Balancing As Everything Should Be
There's a lot of little changes that don't fit in just one place but here; here's what got balanced!
Skeleton Minions attack every 6 seconds and only deal 0.5 units of damage. This may seem like they're super weak; because they are or should be. I couldn't even test the game properly without getting rocked in because these basic enemies would just slap me around. They can spawn up to 50 at a time so this nerf on them from their 3 second attack rate and 1.5 damage dealt was very needed. They still pose a danger but that should be less of an issue as the game grows.
Healer Towers now heal every 7 seconds instead of 10 seconds. The main reason for this buff is that they're the most expensive tower, and they're pretty expensive. But they felt like a McDonald's burger, I'm paying premium for a subpar product. So I wanted to buff them up and make them more useful. They're now really powerful and possible broken, but I feel as I add in systems and more enemies and events; it'll balance out. There's just no heavy hitters in the game yet.
Arrows now move faster! They were moving 10 units a tick now they're moving 15 units a tick. They would often miss targets moving because they weren't fast enough. So this should help with that.
Starting gold increased! It was 50 but I bumped it to 100 so now you could buy an archer, a shield tower; and a healer with a couple spare clams. I think this will increase engagement right out the gate since there isn't a clear "I can only really buy 2 of these or one of each" but rather a little more choice you have. I also hate dying on night one in games like these; it's just demoralizing. But being spoonfed is also demoralizing so I feel this buff in starting gold will walk that line nicely.
Camera can now zoom! Pretty basic thing but something new.
Decor can no longer generate within 1 block of the home tile. there was a big issue with the tower UI getting covered up and enemies being hard too spot. So those tiles no longer generate decor.
Until Next Time!
Next time we'll be back with even more! This has been a substantial amount of work towards the upgrade; and all worth it to make the game more fun and interesting. I know it seems like there's still issues and the game has gone a mile but is still miles away from the smallest town nearby. But, the jam was a prototype stage, this is polishing that prototype to show a vision; the next step after this is securing the foundation further then add more fun stuff in.
There's things like wave distribution and difficulty that hasn't really been implemented and that'll be game changing. Status effects won't be in the game yet. There's a lot that a tower defense that's really good might have that this doesn't. It's only asked to understand that this is basically a late ALPHA or early BETA rather than a complete game.
Next thing on the list for update is a tower update so we can get you all upgrading your towers, selling them; and more! And after that a bigger focus on enemies that come at you.
Currently I can't pay for new models to get made, right now this is just a jam game with an update; for now.
Thank you all for playing once again and I hope this new update brings in some gamers looking for a ride :)