Nice tower defense game! I included it in my GMTK Game Jam 2019 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :)
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Only One Tower's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Adherence to the Theme | #70 | 4.588 | 4.588 |
| Overall | #221 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Design | #273 | 3.926 | 3.926 |
| Originality | #645 | 3.735 | 3.735 |
Ranked from 68 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Nice twist on the genre!
Constraining the player to have only one active tower at the time definetely adds some strategy in this. I liked it, and I'm not a tower-defense fan to begin with.
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Single DigitA really fun execution of what should have been kind of a wrote idea. The key to this game is definitely in the balancing; it would have been really easy to make a game that's too punishingly hard or a total breeze. Balance takes time! You guys managed to hit that mark fairly well inside of 48 hours and that's to be applauded.
Telegraphing weaknesses could have been a little more immediately clear, but I still think the idea overall was a good fit for this take on the format. Outside of that, it's actually really hard to find things to critique besides your normal spit and polish! Well done, and a very nice legally distinct evil eye tower to boot!
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My Big ShotGreat game! Once I got the hang of it, I got a bit far. I really liked all the mechanics and the way that they were implemented. The game keeps you on your toes at every second, always introducing you new types of enemies with different sets of weaknesses ways to attack you. I honestly can't think of much in the way of a critique, things like what can be improved and whatsoever. The only thing that comes to my mind is more content, which means, from my point of view, that you've done a really good job.
Submitted
Charge Kid (gmtk2019 version)Great game! Once I got the hang of it, I got a bit far. I really liked all the mechanics and the way that they were implemented. The game keeps you on your toes at every second, always introducing you new types of enemies with different sets of weaknesses ways to attack you. I honestly can't think of much in the way of a critique, things like what can be improved and whatsoever. The only thing that comes to my mind is more content, which means, from my point of view, that you've done a really good job.
Submitted
Charge Kid (gmtk2019 version)Really cool game, I wish non-weakness also had some effect on the enemies (like flame slowing knights but doing lil to no damage)
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Morse CourseI'm not a fan of tower defense games, but this one had some interesting ideas (liked it when a cannon destroyed a spot). Not sure how this could be done, but I think it should be more obvious what's every enemy's weaknesses. Maybe a mouse interface could make the game feel nicer and more intuitive (I had to recall which button did what every time). Nice sprite work and setting.
Check our game! https://cerosware.itch.io/one-stick-shooter
Submitted
One-Stick Shooter!So much fun to be had with this game, its strangely well polished with smooth animations and mechanics. Each power has its use although the single shot is way better, the waves spawn in a fair order (Except those cannons, they just kept comming) and mixed with the different units you have a game loop that makes you pay attention and prioritize targets every second, a nice gem of a game to be found in this jam. (Although i hate the king, that guy i couldnt for the love of god murder)
Theme, you got one tower and that defines the whole game, a tower defense with only a hero to defend tends to be common but there is no such shenannigans in this game, you truly are an immobile tower.
Originality, tower defense with only one tower has been already done, but its the best one at it.
Submitted
Crystal WickThanks so much, man!!
The king absolutely needs to be burned in order to get killed, and you WILL have to tank some artillery shots. I don't know it's the best design, but it does make you feel a little bit more desperate, haha
Reading reviews like this makes one really happy, glad you enjoyed it! It is absolutely not original at all, hehehe, but i tried to take my best shot at it.
Finally played your game! Sorry it took me so long. Life got in the way. It really got me thinking about control schemes, i really want to do something with an alternate control scheme and what special design i can take away from it. Thanks for that!
polished, fits the theme well, well done. is it just me or do you have to be extremely fast to do anything about cannons?
Submitted
The Right Way to DriveKinda! You still got some time, but it's kinda on purpose to make you teleport away. Teleporting is instantaneous, so it's not that bad!
Killing them is another thing. If you can get them on fire before they go away, you can easily dispatch them, otherwise it's gonna take a while.
Also the boss spawns them infinitely!
Thanks for playing my dude <3
Great game with a well-executed idea! I've seen a couple other "tower defense, but with one tower" idea and I like this one the best because it really leans hard into what's cool about tower defenses (comboing tower types, juggling lots of threats at once, things that bend the rules, etc.) I felt the first few levels worked great as teaching tools, I played 3-4 levels then restarted and got to level 12. Assuming level 12 is the last, that's a perfect length.
Someone else mentioned this but I felt kinda cheated on the last level because taking out the mortar enemy had no effect other than wasting my time. Might be just better to make him invincible to better communicate that you should focus on the actual laning units. Still, mortars were my favorite part of the game because they forced me to micro and made me feel cool for dodging their attacks.
As an incredibly small pedantic ask, I feel like it would be nice for the tower to fire immediately upon being built rather than having a delay, which would reward the player for being able to switch quickly.
There's a ton more potential here (the game is already great!), would love to see this expanded on with more levels, upgrades, tower types, etc.
Submitted
ArcadiaHello! you got me just in time, i was just back to playing the jam games after a stream, hehe
thanks a lot!!! There are quite a bunch of player info feedback i really need to get down to polish, taking notes as i speak here! The final boss actually spawns them infinitely, and that's quite bad because you can totally ruin your run if you focus the artillery too much on that last level, oops. Need to make a golden looking unit with some kind of noise that would communicate it was invulnerable,
I'm thinking of buffing the fire tower a lot. I have a list of three "powers" that would charge up on the towers while you wouldn't use them, and when you changed to them they would fire with all their might, with the fire tower firing automatically and burning everything instantly. It would probably need to be the faster to recharge, hehe.
Thanks a bunch!!! Going to play your game now that i'm here, you got lucky, hehe. Thanks for the thorough review!
A very cute, fun little game! I agree that it's a little confusing what all the tower types do. I also died in one shot to a mortar enemy, which I wasn't sure was fair?
Submitted
Unicorn UnicycleTower Defenses are all about juggling resources, and in this case, there's only one resource to juggle. And by gosh, it is a juggle! When the game picks up and you have to keep a bunch of different plates spinning, it really gets good, and it's satisfying to beat back attacks on five different fronts at once.
Two suggestions I'd have:
1) Make it a little more clear what the tower attack types do. I think the Fire one was slow combined with a damage multiplier, but because the units' health bars appeared I thought it was dealing damage over time. In the same way, it was difficult to tell that the knights were immune to bombs, since their health bar appeared when hit.
2) At the end, the mortar enemy appears just a little too quickly. If I invested the time to take him out, a new one would spawn immediately, and it felt like I'd just wasted my time for no progress.
All in all, a wonderful game, and a creative take on the one-tower Tower Defense!
Submitted
Only Port In a StormAh, thanks so much joe!! Love the way you phrased that, makes me so happy to read it haha
Your suggestions are indeed stuff that needs fixing! Fire did do a damage over time, but it was so small it was negligible, and if the fire went out the common soldier still died in two hits, so it was useless in terms of gameplay apart from the multiplier.
Also the immune to bombs one is one of the worst sins i have committed in the player feedback department, man D:
Another one is the infinite artillery in the last wave. I should make a different sprite and make it invincible, as it's supposed to be constantly there on the last wave.
Thanks so much!!! I'll play your game when i have the chance, tomorrow!
Saw your in-depth review for the Lonly Wall game and had to check you out! Good execution for the only one tower idea. Well done. I think "tall > wide" in games where I have the choice and you just provided the edge case for a "tall" only game :)
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space for thrustyeah. its a term used in strategy games.
lets say you have the option to place 16 cities in a strategy game like Civilization for example. that would be called playing "wide".
if you would only place 4 cities but those are a lot bigger than the cities the "wide" player placed, thats called "tall".
same for tower defense games. do you place hundred lv. 1 towers or do you place a few high level towers? and your game is "tall" by definition because you only have one tower :)
Wow this is one of the best I've played so far! The sound design and visuals are on point as well. Great work!
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RelyscraperVery strong entry, I enjoyed my playthrough. The difficulty curve is ountstanding and I applaud that you made so many different enemies. Nonetheless, I missed some simple upgrades.
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One Spear, One KillIt would be a really interesting thing to add! I have never dabbled into upgrades myself as a design concept, as i feel it must be really hard to scale things over time, but i have thought a lot about it and how it would impact the game, and i think i want it. Let's see!
Playing your game tomorrow! Too many games in backlog D:
The game was nicely paced and the enemy variety was pretty good. Some of the enemies were a little less intuitive on what they do and what their weakness was but after you learn their weakness it's all good. I really like killing like 10 blue robe guys at the same time. One thing I would suggest is to add a bit more visual feedback on the death tower's attack animation/projectile; maybe like a death laser or something.
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C|TYPEI really did want to do a laser, however Draw events in gamemaker are scary for me and i didn't really find a way to do it with sprites that was worth the time investment, so i had to cut it! I really want some kind of laser lightning thing, a la Kingdom Rush's leveled mage towers. Thanks so much!!
Your game is the first i'll play when i can, i said on discord i would but oh man reviewing one game at a time takes time, and i had a backlog ):
At least people are enjoying the reviews, so it's fun. Playing C|Type tomorrow!
Nice game. The control are so simple to grasp and master but the game get very hard too quickly. Also, It would be nice if there was a tutorial to explain the effect of each tower type on each enemy type since I couldn't infer it myself from observation (maybe bcz I'm stupid). Anyway, it was fun even while I was getting rekt. Well done.
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SURVIVOR
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