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A jam submission

GMTK2023 - Medieval Tower OffenseView game page

A reverse-tower defense game.
Submitted by Justin C — 1 hour, 3 minutes before the deadline
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GMTK2023 - Medieval Tower Offense's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment#39832.3462.346
Creativity#43002.5772.577
Overall#43832.3852.385
Presentation#47392.2312.231

Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
It's the exact opposite of the popular Tower Defense genre.

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

(+1)

Game is really fun if proper strategies are used. It doesn't hold up to others in terms of looks but I had plenty of fun and the idea is solid. I get that it was only made in 48hrs but if it was remade into a longer version with more upgrades and some bug fixes I would enjoy it so much. Don't know if the creator feels like working on this more but if so please improve it, you already have the basics and I had a great time.

Submitted(+1)

Played a couple of reversed tower defense games, and even if this one is not finished, it still holds up. It is fun and offers quite a lot gameplay-wise. Placing buildings around your castle and the non-trivial AI are nice additions. I wish there was a way to speed things up a bit, and also the difficulty can be quite random.

Submitted(+1)

I think my game glitched out because I didn’t have as much trouble as other people. I won in 6 weeks - but also I couldn’t see any of my units, the castle health just kept ticking down. I agree with the other comment that I wish I could have attacked towers instead of just the castle :)

Developer(+1)

Haha, yes, you played on one of the maps with broken navigation. I have a disclaimer in the description explaining to avoid that. I really wish GMTK allowed for small changes to fix game-breaking bugs like Ludum Dare does. It really is a 5 second fix.

There are 5 maps and the first two have broken navigation due to a bug in my navigation building code. I added the extra levels at the last minute and by chance I didn't play any of the broken maps while testing. I played on two of them and they worked, so I assumed the rest also worked since it was all using the same code. Whoops.

You can refresh and get one of the maps that work.

Submitted(+1)

This is a really cool idea for a role reversal. Good job!

Submitted(+1)

I really like the main idea and the way you execute it. With a bit more polish and slower build up (because it became very hard quick) I think this could be an amazing game.

Submitted

Is the goal to get monsters into the castle?

Submitted(+1)

I really like the mechanic of building a town around your own castle to determine spawned units. Also the randomly selected map on load was a cool mechanic, sorry some of the maps didn't work :(

Submitted(+1)

Nice submission! We also did a similar reversed tower defense, although I like your implementation of indirect spawning via building unique structures. 

Submitted(+1)

Neat game. The slow tower is pretty op since time slow effect doesnt wear off, which is frustrating. Seemed very hard to win, the enemies seem to scale faster than the player. Even if the game is unfinished good job for making it playable and submitting it!

Developer

I nerfed both the slow tower and the fire tower last minute, but I didn't nerf them hard enough. I had planned to have units with resistances and weaknesses to those towers but I didn't have time.

And yeah, the scaling of the AI is absurd in the end game. When I was testing I never got that far. I didn't even complete my first run of the game until after I had submitted, at which time it was immediately obvious that the game had balance issues. It's saved slightly by the fact that the AI is only allowed 3 actions per turn (building or upgrading towers), so it just winds up with more money than it can spend by the end of the game.

I like the idea enough that once the jam is over I might polish it into a better state.

Please polish it and add more ideas. The game was so fun and works pretty well for the time frame. I found that farming works the best with the hovels and upgrading castle, but with balance changes I would like the game to be beatable without excessive farming. Keep up the good work my man!

Submitted(+1)

Fun game, I quite like the art style and the ai spawning mechanic does feel pretty realistic

Submitted(+1)

I had fun playing, I like that the AI builds towers like a player would. It would be nice if there was a way to hurt the towers the enemy places for the chokepoints on the maps. 

Developer

I wanted the game to feel like a traditional tower defense game, except with you and the AI switching roles. So I didn't want to add any mechanics beyond just having to overwhelm their defenses with your units. That would have felt like cheating. I wanted it to just be the AI playing the game exactly like a human would, and the human player playing the game exactly like I imagine the AI would: building an army off screen somewhere.

The idea was that it would be a bit rock-paper-scissors-y with certain units being better or worse at dealing with certain tower types, but a lot of the mechanics I had planned got cut for time. I had intended there to be a lot more strategy.

And my AI is almost too good at placing towers. I randomized it a little bit so they don't always place them at the exact optimal positions, but I think it needs to start picking from the top 10 best spots rather than the top 5. I was so paranoid that if it chose from too wide a selection the AI might do things that look really dumb or that it might just make the game too easy.

Submitted(+1)

I think I tried all 5 maps but I couldn't think of a winning strategie - once you comit and it doesn't work you kinda have to start over because you don't get dmg money and the AI just builds very strong towers...also a speed up button would be nice.

Developer (1 edit)

Yeah, I definitely need to reduce the difficulty a lot. It's funny, during development I was worried about the game being too easy, and now it definitely seems almost impossible to win.

I didn't add a speed toggle because I was hoping there would be enough to do during the wave to keep the player entertained. They can manage their base, and I had planned on allowing them to pay money to spawn units at any time but that got cut for time. But in hindsight I'm glad my game doesn't have it, because that's what distinguishes my game from all of the other reverse-tower defense games in the jam.

Submitted

Maybe it would be easyer if you give more information to the player - healthbars for your units or dmg numbers when they get hit so you can see what to evolve and how it affects the game...
Be sure to check ouut mine