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Recolonizer – Tower Defense's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #2 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Graphics | #2 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Gameplay/Design | #2 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Fun | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Audio | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What would you like feedback on?
I want to know if the game difficulty is challenging without being frustrating, and if the game is fun enough for me to spend time adding an infinite wave mode + a story mode.
What did you update?
I rebalanced the waves, unlocks, build/upgrade prices, enemy health and speed, and added a mechanism to call waves early for extra cash.
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Comments
Nice work, I really enjoyed this. Comically, the win sounds like defeat, the timbre is too sad-trombone and “Defended” is so close to “Defeated”, even though it’s green, I kept thinking I lost briefly.
It was challenging but I can’t tell overall if I’d get frustrated long term. Since there’s no indication of the path, I’m guessing you have to remember how the waves go, which isn’t bad if there aren’t too many but I could see being annoyed that I keep dying around wave 9 or 10 out of 12 because I lost track of which specific thing is under attack.
To be clear, going through the first few levels were very enjoyable. I’d generally lose the first try but get it the on the second since I had a better idea what to expect and understood the field better. Restarting was quick and I had a general idea of how I messed up and how I’d rectify it.
For me, the zones didn’t add anything, I’d prefer to just pan around. Having hotkeys to jump is good but since multiple zones can be under attack, I’d rather just pan so I know where my mouse is instead of waiting for the pan and losing precious seconds because I don’t want to miss click. I also struggled with the offscreen arrows, I wonder if zooming out but the area is surrounded by fog and the arrows only go to the edge. And zooming in focuses on the mouse cursor so it’s really easy to get an over view, then focus where it’s needed.
Everything was easy to understand, attack zone were clear, the coloring for the upgrades was good. I don’t know how many towers there are in all but I like the synergies (the last unlocked was the barrel of oil). I think the call a wave for cash is great so I can possibly work that into my strategy.
Thank you so much for trying (and even enjoying?) Recolonizer!
First off, I laughed at the "the win sounds like defeat" comment. These things are so subjective, I've gotten all sorts of comments about the sounds but never heard this one before... And indeed, maybe I'll change "Defended" to something else. Brains, man. Sometimes they work in weird ways...
Some comments about the mechanics:
They kinda have a pattern, but there's some RNG to keep you on your toes. I'd word it as, "remembering how they go will give you an advantage, but will not guarantee you anything".
Exactly my intention – reward attention to detail and learning from mistakes.
About the location system:
That hits hard, but I agree. The version I'm cooking after the PJJ feedbacks gives the zones a bit more function (no spoilers), but indeed you put the finger on the biggest issue with the zones – they're too restrictive. I will go back to the whiteboard to allow the freedom to pan between zones and hotkey. It's time for the location system to mature.
This one is intentional – only Fort Wright has intense fog, specifically to "nerf" the map view and force you to be lower to the ground, or squint. As for whether this is challenging in a fun way or annoying way, I'm not sure. But I don't see a reason to change it at the moment. And yeah, the arrows are to help you see offscreen. Keeping them onscreen resulted in a bit of visual pollution and gets quite overwhelming (even after making them quite small...), which I wanted to avoid.
Final thoughts:
I'm really happy to hear you enjoyed the granular upgrades, their icons, and the tower synergy! What was your favorite tower combination?
And yes, if you decide to come back, there's quite a few more things to unlock, including harbors that let you have your own ships to collect money / shoot enemies for you.
You and the other testers have helped me focus my efforts IMMENSELY in this pre-release stage. Thank you again for playing and taking the time to write your thoughts!!
Best,
FLCB
Thank you so much for the feedback. All are good points, and some of them are things I've been trying to deal with since forever, clearly unsuccessfully... (Camera, I'm looking at you)
Let me respond point by point:
1) Glad you think so!
2) Great suggestion on the arrow pointing off-screen; it's exactly the way I wanted to iterate on the current way to announce enemies (location icons flashing red on bottom corner), which is quite ineffective.
3) Not sure how to deal with this one. I'm gonna have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to expose more angles without exposing the ship spawn locations or make them too far away. But indeed, the more I relax the camera movement, the more people want to see of the map. Something needs to be done here. I've gotten feedback about people wanting to smoothly transition between locations when the camera is moved toward the neighboring location, or zoomed out beyond the max (to go to the map) and I think it could be a nice solution to help make the camera feel less... awkward.
4) Thank you! Soundtrack was made by this gentleman here, go check him out! And noted, I'll take another look at the mix; you can also turn the audio to your desired level in the settings, and if I didn't fuck up, it should remember it next time you play...
5) Yep. The game over screen... It's definitely quite raw; it's an aspect that remained unchanged since the first prototype, and didn't mature with the rest of the features. I'll take your feedback to heart and address this somehow; no promises on the specifics, or whether it will be more forgiving hahaha
7) Glad you appreciate it. Hope I can take feedback No. 3 into account to capitalize on this grand scale...
Thanks again for taking the time to try it out! Hope you give it another shot again in the future :)
Best,
FLCB
I like the game. The presentation is good, the UI is functional, and the graphics are coherent,it looks good, even the cover does. In terms of gameplay, everything works as intended, but I think you could add some more juice. For example, when picking up money, there’s no sound effect, and that should be the most rewarding and satisfying sound in your game. Also, when building, there should be a sound. There’s a lot of room for improvement in that aspect. That said, you did a great job with the dynamic music,that’s awesome.
Now, about the difficulty. The first level felt really hard for me. It took me a while because all the enemies were coming through turtle beach, while the other side of the island just needed a few cannons, but on turtle beach? Oh boy, I needed all the cannons with several upgrades just to sink that giant ship that comes out of nowhere at the end. Maybe I’m just bad, but you might want to check the balance on that one. Usually, in these types of games, the first levels are like a walk in the park. On the other hand, the second level was really easy in comparison, I beat it on my first try.
The UI works, but I have some nitpicks. When placing a cannon, the UI showing the different types of cannons and structures covers almost half the screen, making it hard to see the range of a cannon and decide which one is the best option. Maybe making it smaller or transparent could help with that.
Also, when switching to the other side of the island, the zoom resets to a fixed value, so I constantly have to zoom out again and again. It should keep the same zoom level from the other side because, in this type of game, I always want the maximum amount of information available by having the camera zoomed out.
Those were my issues with the UI, but overall, it works well, and I know you can refine it further.
Lastly, the game felt a bit too vanilla to me. Of course, I only played the first three levels, so I don’t know if there are mechanics later on that shake things up. But from my first impression, the only unique mechanics that stand out are manually picking up money after defeating enemies and moving between different points on the island. These two mechanics together can actually feel a bit overwhelming because you can’t pick up money from areas you’re not focusing. I don’t know if that was intentional to make the game harder, but it definitely does.
Overall, it’s a very good game, it looks good, it’s functional, has variety, I'm sure you can refine it an build so much over it. But for now it’s missing something to hook me. Or maybe it’s just me for getting stuck on the first level for too long, who knows.
First off, thank you for the compliments, I really appreciate it.
Very thorough feedback, and incredibly punctual. All of the points highlighted are things I'm aware of and plan on fixing / have tried to fix in the past without success, and need to iterate. Let me give you a point by point:
Lastly, let me thank you again for the incredible feedback. You really took the time to think and analyze my choices and mechanics, and I appreciate it a lot!! Hope you give it another chance despite the gratuitous punishment you received in the tutorial...
Best,
FLCB