A good game, but I think it needs a tutorial (players shouldn't be confronted with a lot of text when starting the game)
Play EM Waves
EM Waves's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #161 | 2.960 | 2.960 |
| Theme interpretation | #213 | 2.920 | 2.920 |
| Audio | #230 | 2.760 | 2.760 |
| Graphics | #244 | 2.880 | 2.880 |
| Gameplay | #275 | 2.480 | 2.480 |
| Overall | #293 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/kielhenkelman/em-waves
Game description
A tower defense game using colored light.
Theme interpretation
Electromagnetic waves, waves of enemies.
Comments
This game is genuinely so impressive, I like the gameplay, so fun dude
Spent like almost 10 minutes on this, The Idea and the way it works is just, chefs kiss dude
Submitted
Jean Junior's: Wave EaterWhat a cool idea.
The concept is super solid, and you've captured a real vibe with the background music and the visuals. I do think that with a bit of improvement on the presentation (things like tutorials, more sounds/visual effects when things happen, etc...) would really elevate this to a real winner. There's definitely too much block-text reading in it's current form, but I understand that that's a compromise since I'm guessing you didn't have time for a full-blown tutorial.
Genuinely challenging at times and vibey. Hope you continue to work on it after the jam, would love to come back and play more!
Submitted
La OlaInteresting idea, I agree some kind of tutorial or onboarding would improve the experience. Good work!
Submitted
WAVE / LENGTHAfter reading everything it became clear how to approach this game, but some super easy tutorial would have improved the experience. I know this is a jam game, so I'm not super picky about this, consider this a suggestion to improve the game if you'd like to continue working on it. You should!:)
The audio fits the mood very well, nice job on that! Pretty cool game
Submitted
The Tale of Cape LoïcUnfortunately it is very hard to understand how it works and how to play. Desperately looking to find how to do what I'm supposed to do...
Submitted
ScrabbleScrambleLove the vibes! I'm having a bit of hard time figuring out how to play though :) E.g. why the laser line comes from the right when placing a red tower down, but not when placing a different color? And the eraser nukes your tower, so you can't re-place them? I think a more in-depth tutorial would be great - but good job, definitely cool.
Submitted
SonaThe eraser does nuke the towers, yes, which I should warn people about in-game. Needing a tutorial has been the biggest critique, which I agree it really needs.
The lasers come out in the direction of the little red blip. So, if the little red blip is in the in the top-left, the lasers come out at the top-left.
Thanks for playing!
Very cool idea and great atmospheric ambient soundtrack!
This game kept me trying for like 1.5 hours. I've reached wave 16 by being lucky. After I got some understanding on how to use qualias I made it to wave 14. I think this can be a really addictive game but its entry level is a bit too high imo.
Some of the weal spots I've found:
1. Balance. Once I got 4xHP red creaps on wave 4 - is that normal?
2. There's this "buffer" system but game tells you literally nothing about it (and I didn't have patience to obtain an upgrade in order to see what it does, sorry)
3. I was constantly switching to qualias description. Not only to know which qualia I want in the moment but also how do I get a particular color. Very tedious =( I would probably play a couple more runs if it was more accessible. I think such type of info should be easy reachable in game. Like a simple question mark icon which being hovered by cursor pops up the colors+qualias breakdown
4. Why can't I edit my towers during the shop phase?? It's so frustrating when you have enough money but oops no sorry you've already had 2 towers and generated 3 qualias and now you are out of inventory space. It totally feels like unnecessary complex
5. Regen doesn't seem to work? Like I had regen: 1 but it didn't restore my hp for a sequence of waves (I didn't take any damage)
These are the major issues I've encountered. Other than than I could suggest adding some quality of life:
- add coming wave description above the towers field
- add restart button
- give player an ability to speed up waves, later on it becomes a bit tedious to watch each wave making its way
- maybe a bit too much, but add a playground where players can learn how the game works. Well, this one is the most optional since you can do it during actual runs, but anyways
These are all my thoughts. Hope it's not too much and can help you in further development!
Submitted
Zero Waves RemainsThank you so much for the well-thought out feedback, and thanks for playing. There is definitely a lot of halfbaked parts of the game, it turned into a rush job near the end (I got too much feature creep).
I'm impressed you got as far as you did, considering the frustrating parts!
Yes balance needs work. Yes, there should be tooltips for qualia and buffer in game. Yes, the way the shop blocks tower placement is very silly. Yes, a fast forward is a good idea. I will have to test if I accidentally broke regen somehow.
I love the concept! And it looks very cool!
Unfortunately it is very hard to understand how it works and how to play. I had to refresh the page and start again 7 times before being able to understand how to pass the first 4 waves. It desperately need some onboarding, explaining how to understand the laser direction (which took me a few restart to get), how to blend colors (did not understand that), etc.
The music sounds nice but audio could be improved with well chosen sfx. The UI can be improved too. Not being able to update the position of emitter you just added makes it very challenging to experiment and to understand what you need to do. I noticed an eraser tool but I won't get back the node I just put in the grid so it feels very punishing :(
It is a very cool concept, highly original. And it fits the theme perfectly. Good job!
Submitted
How to Exorcise Your HusbandIts pretty fun, i havent seen other games with EM Waves, so far its a pretty original idea. I like the art to
Submitted
Harmonic Silence
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