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Key Defence's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #22 | 3.822 | 3.822 |
| Game Design | #34 | 3.792 | 3.792 |
| Overall | #144 | 3.271 | 3.271 |
| Fun | #149 | 3.317 | 3.317 |
| Graphics | #167 | 3.634 | 3.634 |
| Audio | #203 | 3.178 | 3.178 |
| Theme | #764 | 1.881 | 1.881 |
Ranked from 101 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Thanks! Could you elaborate on what you liked and what you thought could be improved?
Rated - Wow what a cool idea, and what a fun way to control the path with your keyboard! I would take this idea and fly with it. Example: make different environment keyboards, a jungle keyboard, a moon keyboard, desert, etc. Super awesome, 5 star innovation for sure. Please check out my entry when you have time~ good day!
Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked the game. What did you mean with different environment keyboards? Do mean that instead of towers, astroids strike at certain keys on the Moon and trees drop coconuts in the jungle. Anyway, I'll check out your game in a minute.
I like tower defense a lot and its idea reminded me a lot of the first one I played in my life that was one on a desktop. Simple and fun. It deserves more stages. I really liked the music, which although simple, helps us focus.
Congratulations!
Well very innovative i never thought a tower defence game using the keyboard , i liked the idea of setting the path having to press the keys!
Nice visuals and audio, cool concept.
p.s. on level 4, the arrangement I tried to use caused the first tower to not shoot the enemies.
it kept shooting here rather than at them, is it because the turret shoots ahead of the targets?
Thank you for your feedback. The turrets calculate were the enemies will be in the time it takes for the bullet to reach them (at their future position). However, this breaks down when enemies are about to change direction. I'll fix this issue in the post-jam version. The turrets will then ask the enemies were they will be based on their pre-programmed path.
Dude, that's what i call a concept! Very cool graphics btw
Really interesting concept, I like how it is different from the usual tower defence sort of games! The use of the keyboard as the playing field is ingenious!
I am impressed that someone finally makes the tower defense game. It's one of my favorite type of games. I had an idea of TD game that players can decide the path of the enemies which different from normal TD game. It will be very interesting if the players could build towers and making a maze. I see a lot of potential in this game. That's incredible that you made the game in 45 hours.
I'm curious if you also wrote the pathfinding algorithm yourself within the time?
There is still some issue in the game. The BGM is a bit short that it loops very often. Also, it is a bit boring after that level started. Maybe some upgrading on the tower key? Or Implement the fast forwards? IDK.
I hope you could give me some feedback on mine ;)
Thank you for the feedback. I did write the pathfinding during the jam, but I already had some experience with making pathfinding systems from before the jam. It works similarly to tilebased pathfinding, but it's a bit more complicated to determine the valid adjacent keys.
The pathfinding system calculates the distance between the edges of nearby keys to determine which keys have a valid connection, it then find the shortest path between all of the connected keys. Then the enemies just move from the centre of one key to the centre of the next key. Which works well, expect for the space key XD.
Regarding the music, I know that it isn't great. This is because I'm still quite new to making music. However, this music is already much better than my previous music track. Lastly, I will also add a speed up button in the post-jam version. So that you don't have to wait so long during the simulation. I'll have a look at your game as well.
I have also some experience on A* pathfinding when I was making the TD game mentioned before. It's so sad that Unity AI doesn't support for 2D games. The algorithm is not very hard to understand. The difficult parts are how to determine the neighbour nodes and to re-path automatically, to me.
Very, very clever. I enjoyed it enough to want to get all the trophies! Solid execution. I also enjoyed the theme and consistent graphic detail.
I really enjoyed playing your game. Clever game design, nice and simple graphics and audio. I wish the game was longer.
Clever game with clever puzzles. I did go for a few trophies as well as they were interesting. The most interesting aspect was managing the turrets' behaviours, in the sense of how they would approach the enemy movement. As straight as possible was my strat.
Graphics are excellent. Obviously the game looks somewhat simple, but it's consistent in its abstract look. And it's colourful too, which helped give it a personality.
Let's talk execution. I think you should have implemented a different colour for the start button, as it's the same as the enemy spawn point. Maybe Black BG and white text, to indicate it's a special key. I would have also tinted the text red, if you were not ready to go, and green if you were. This would move the path validity test from clicking the button itself to adding or removing any key.
Would have liked a special key for "undo" and "redo" (that's a lot to ask), and one for "reset board" (that's not a lot to ask).
My least favourite aspect of the experience was the music loop. Short, repetitive, and not particularly enjoyable from my perspective. The SFX were fine.
I don't see how the game hits the theme in any way.
Great entry, I enjoyed playing it.
Thank you for the feedback. Your suggestion for the colour of the start button text changing is a good one, I'll add that it the post-jam version. Regarding your request to be able to reset the keyboard, this can be done with the F2 key. The art is somewhat simple and the music isn't great, because my area of expertise lays in programming. Though, I am improving my art and music skills.
I agree that the theme isn't integrated well into the game. However, I didn't want to deliberately make the game confusing and unfriendly to the player, just to fit into the theme. Unfortunately this has been a populair choice among many of the games I've seen so far. I'm looking forward to playing your game and seeing how you implemented the theme.
Hey Mika,
You know when you said "I didn't want the theme to turn my game terrible"? Yeah, that's where you and I should have a beer together. A lot of that in this jam. And your game is enjoyable because you didn't decide to make clicking on letter A activate the Space key, because the game is a liar, trololol.
With that said, the rating system is there and I have to use it as it was designed. So it scores low on theme. My own game also has the theme expressed in an unintrusive way. The premise is our protagonist, Hank, wants to demonstrate the Earth is not a 3D spheroid by digging down. His reasoning is, "if I can't get to the other side, then it cannot be a sphere". What a shame that the game is endless, so he will never find an answer either way. So the game lies to him. Most people who evaluated the game can't know this, so they marked it as not matching the theme. No fault of theirs really, but the philosophy for me is: games are supposed to be fun and enjoyable. No theme is going to get in the way of that.
Also, all jams don't have a rating for Function / Polish / Execution. So, I could give somebody a 5 star in Game Design, but their game crashes 100% repro rate on level 2. There is no rating for "my game actually works". Your game would score 5 on this category, which doesn't exist... yet, it's all important.
Also, all hail programmer art! May it live forever.
Cheers.
I liked try this game. The idea of a tower defence where you build the path and not the turrets is cool. Don't understand how the game is actually embrassing the theme btw... Also since you only place your path, you're very passive watching the enemies getting destroyed. I mean, that's how the usual TDs are but at least there are some stuff to do usually (managing the turrets, upgrading, activating perks like bombers...). Here, it's super slow so after a few levels I started to be bored.
That's a cool entry btw, good job on that.
PLEASE MAKE THIS A FULL GAME!! I want more levels! This is such a cool idea, and I love every bit of it! The graphics, the music, the mechanics, the level select screen; all of it!! Amazing job!!
What a really inventive idea. Not sure how well it fits the theme but the graphics and audio were good so I enjoyed it anyway! Only problem for me was I wasn’t quite sure of the mechanics for the last level, but that was probably just me being an idiot!
Thanks for the feedback. I assume you're referring to the orange keys. Each two keys are linked to each other and are always the inverse of the other. So when KeyA = true, then KeyB = false (!KeyA). The concept behind it is to restrict your options, just like the invisible keys and the black wall keys.
what a neat idea! Extremely
clean and easy to read set up.Very good entry! What a switch from a regular tower defense game! I like how you can use your physical keyboard to place the path! though my "è" and "/" are inverted, even on a keyboard checker website (so that's an issue on my end probably with my Corsair K95 Platinum, but who knows)
I first didn't get where the theme came into play, but reading the description, it was a bit hard to find without it. A strategy game morphed into a puzzle game. Great concept, but not so obvious for the theme of the jam.
Still, I really liked your game! Good job!
If you've got some time to spare, come try and rate mine! 7 different endings, hilarious narrator, worth checking out!
Thank you for the feedback. I actually played your game already. My favourite ending was walking so fast that the narrator couldn't finish his sentences.
Very polished and unique game. The levels were fun and well designed. It looked fantastic as well. Only thing it lacks is that it doesn't totally fit the theme.
Very cool idea of reverse tower defense! Very polished for a game jam!
Nice game! The idea and execution are great!
Great idea! Only thing that annoyed me a little is that the turrets shoot slightly off target. Anyways, nice graphics :) and game design!