First impressions: I really like the menu screen, it shows off the graphics well, and I'm a big fan of early 2000s-style visuals. It's a Unity project, so I was pleasantly surprised that my PC didn't immediately start doing a loud vacuum cleaner impression. Performance was solid... until suddenly, mid-first-level, my PC decided to take flight. That's not a huge deal, I don't have a great rig, and I've worked with Unity so I know optimization is a pain. (I just wanted to say: I hate Unity ^^)
Gameplay: I like the premise and the story setup. The tutorial is well-done (not to brag, but I didn't really need it, haha). Moving into the game, I noticed the story goes pretty deep, on the second level there were two dialogue windows on screen at the same time. I'll be honest: this is a personal preference, but I don't really understand why so many tower defense devs want to tell stories. I don't think TD is the best genre for storytelling, but that's just me.
The first level was no problem. The second level made me retry. I thought I was doing okay then there was a spike mid-to-late game, or maybe I'm just dumb. Hard to tell with difficulty balancing, as we discussed! :D (but you doing a much better job at it than me)
What I loved:
- The hero mechanic and control is great. For me, it's important to have something active to do during waves in a TD, and this nails it. I even found myself wishing I could control more units. (like an rts... will get back to that)
- The game is already very polished no jank here.
- Great sound and music. I'm starting to appreciate this stuff more now that I'm doing it myself. Sound design is hard.
- The tutorial explains every little thing, makes it easy for newcomers to get started. Handholding done right.
- Upgrading towers (between levels I mean) is nice, sense of progression, always liked that in tds
- The random effects are fun. I don't know what this game mechanic is called, I think Vampire Survivors started it, you know "here's 3 random powerups choose one you like" now bunch of upcoming td games have this
- Difficulty is ramping up nicely
After playing, I checked out your YouTube channel and learned that this was originally an RTS project! I knew it! That makes sense, the game feels like a custom map mode made for an RTS.
Things I think could be improved (in MY opinion!):
The game needs more spectacle. Right now it feels a bit bleak
- The ingame graphics feel... dull? I don't know what is the right word, or how to express it. The game feels like a serious, zoomed-out, hardcore RTS, which might not be ideal for a TD aimed at a wider audience. The title screen looks so great, gave me a warcraft/starcraft kind of feel and I expected that in game too.
- Camera zoom. We're pretty zoomed out, and I'm not sure why. The maps are just a little bigger than one screen, so why not make them exactly one-screen-sized? (To be fair, I don't know how large you're planning to go with future maps.)
- Enemy spacing. The enemies follow their path too closely. Spreading them out more would give a more menacing, chaotic effect.
- Visual effects. The towers could make BIGGER booms. Go ham on the FX, explosions, impacts, particle effects. Really juice it up!
My suggestions:
- Remove crafting and inventory or just really simplify it. I think you've nailed the core mechanics, and you clearly have a knack for game design and balancing. I don't think you need this extra mechanic, a handful of upgrade modules will do. Right now this part feels a bit bloated.
- Make the UI more "slick" and intuitive—so even a mobile "gamer" could find their way around easily. It would be fine if it was an RTS, but then again, it depends what audience you are aiming for
- Again, the visuals. Make the towers chunkier, stand out more from the ground, and the effects more... MORE! :D
- Don't worry too much about the story beyond providing basic context. (Again, this is my personal preference.)
These are the changes I'd make if I wanted to sell it to a broader audience. But you know, I'm just one guy, and as far as my achievements go, my opinion ain't worth shit. :D This is obviously a passion project, so maybe you don't want to change any of these things because they're exactly how you envisioned them. I'd totally get that too.
( I tried to organize this into some sort of review, but I ended up going all over the place, sorry about that.)
So, to end it: This whole project is already massive and well made. I can't even imagine building something this big alone. Keep up the great work! I hope I see this game fully published someday!