itch.io

For years,  The Sun never set. His children and followers had vanquished the night, and claimed the sky as His own.
That changes today. The Stars' last children: Helmet, Hood, and Hat have been summoned to bring back the night.

A simple 25 minute turn-based RPG.
Fight your way through 4 worlds, each with 5 waves, unique enemies, and a boss. 

Each turn, you will see who your opponents are targeting, allowing you to plan your course of action carefully.
Do you protect an ally from an oncoming attack? Or do you finish off an enemy before they use a support skill?

https://alkalinepineapples.itch.io/helmet-hood-hat

Originally just wanted to talk about a few of the new Trashie variants, but I ended up compiling a list of variants that I never really touch for reasons that aren't just "I don't use this strategy"

• Giant Harpoon:
  • You'd think something with infinite pierce would be godlike in a game with absurdly dense enemy waves.
  • Unfortunately, it's damage is simply too low. While it can hit WAY more targets than the Harpoon Hwacha, it is often less effectively at dealing with crowds than the Hwacha simply because the Hwacha can actually kill things whilst the Giant Harpoon can only chip away at everything with the DPS of a level 1 Gunner.
  • One obvious suggestion is to buff its damage. Or maybe have the harpoon be more powerful the more enemies it pierces, to make it really shine against crowds.
• Mass Scavenger:
  • If I wanted a Trashie that takes longer to give more scrap, I'd just go with the Processor path which specializes in this niche.
  • One suggestion is to have the Mass Scavenger have the same production interval as the Bulk Scavenger, and adjust the math accordingly.
• Jelly Blob:
  • This may fall into "I don't use this strategy" territory, but I don't see how a weak knockback is worth choosing over more health.
  • I honestly don't have any ideas for this. Even if its knockback is heavily buffed, I don't see why I wouldn't just combo a Wire Fence with a Birdshot-variant instead. If a defensive Trashie with an inherent stalling ability is what I want, why not just use the TP Wrapper and it's future variants?
• Basically Every Mouse Trap Upgrade:
  • The Mouse Trap is this game's Potato Mine equivalent. A low-cost unit that serves well in the early-game until it gets rendered obsolete by the chaos of even the mid-game. So why are its variants so damn expensive? I have saved up for Boardclapper a couple of times, but it never really feels worth it. And there's no way I'd be saving up for a Teeth-Chatterer when it doesn't even have the health to withstand the kind of waves I get sent by the time I can afford it.
  • The Bear Trap falls into the same problems as a lot of other towers in that it focuses on single-target damage in a game with incredibly dense enemy waves. But even then, at least the other single-target Trashies can work safely behind a wall instead of having to face the horde head on and instantly die. It's only purpose is to lead into Box and Spike Trap, which I'll admit are pretty useful. 
  • The Spike Trap's windup time could definitely be sped up a little, the low amounts of XP I got from a run that uses it tells me that it didn't get much of a chance to shine despite being literally placed in the frontlines with Barricades to keep enemies on it.
• Barbel and High_Hat:
  • I don't see any reason to convert a perfectly good ground-attacking unit into an anti-air unit, especially when there aren't much air units to anti. In fact, the basic air enemies damages ground units upon death, so a close-range anti-air unit is a bad idea.

Actually, sudden side tangent about air units.

You had a decent thing going on with the Search Drone. You can either use anti-air units to kill it, or double down on ground defenses to deal with its summons. A pretty clever way to encourage anti-air units instead of forcing the player to utilize them.

Unfortunately, the Rocketeers are coming. They are a textbook example of the lock-and-key problem: an enemy that is nigh-invulnerable until the player uses a unit that specifically counters them and does nothing else, by which point said enemy becomes a complete joke.

This isn't strategy. Being forced to dedicate a column to a specific Trashie because you literally cannot defeat a basic enemy without them doesn't feel as good as incorporating said Trashies into your strategy because they give you an advantage, like with the Search Drones and even the Satellite Rovers introduced alongside the Rocketeers.

I'm going to copy a previous commenter's suggestions and suggest that the Rocketeers eventually drop in the middle of your field. Now it's your choice whether to use anti-air units to defeat it in a more favourable position, or design your defense around the fact that some enemies will drop into the middle of your field. Now anti-air units aren't forced upon the player, and the player now feels more strategic when they choose to dedicate a column to specific Trashies by their own will.

Battery and Dumbbell's XP rates are still horrible.

I may be completely wrong, as I don't have 100% knowledge on every Trashie's XP-gain condition, but I think an issue with the XP rates is that it only counts kills rather than total damage dealt.

Even if the Trashie has done a lot of work over the course of the run, if it isn't strong enough to outright kill an enemy before another Trashie steals its kill, it won't gain any XP.

That's all I have for now.

Finished all the normal modes. Here's some extra suggestions:

• An option to always keep healthbars on.
• With the Unit Repair upgrade, placing a Glue Mat on top of a full-health Glue Mat replensishes its glue.
• If you're still looking for Scavanger variant ideas, here's two suggestions for the missing final tier variant:
  • A tower that attacks when you feed it scrap, like the Magnifying Grass from PVZ2
  • A refinery that stores its scrap indefinitely until you manually collect it. It starts out at a rate slower than the processor, but the rate increases over time the longer the scrap is stored. Rate resets when collected.

Also, how does gaining XP work? Some of my trashies (namely, Battery and Glue Mat) seem to be getting XP at abysmally slow rates, despite how much I've been using them. I know attacking is definitely a factor (my Lektrik Fan used to also get little XP until I got the variant that attacks faster, after which I was able to buy the rest of its variants after just one run with it) but what are the other factors?

Quite a solid take on a PVZ-style tower defense game!

I think the focus on upgrades is pretty neat! plus I like that the harder versions of the levels have actual new challenges instead of just spawning more enemies than usual.

Two suggestions sounds wise:

-The siren sound effect is a hell of a lot louder than everything else. I get that it's supposed to stand out among all the other sound effects, but perhaps you could tone it down a bit.

-Perhaps the Processor and the Refinery trashies could have a special sound effect for when they give you scrap, like a toaster ding or something. Serves as some kind of reminder to refill them again.

Also, there's a bug in the collection screen where if your mouse cursor is moving even just a tiny bit, clicking on a trashie/exterminator won't cause their info to show up. Nothing game breaking, but a little annoying nonetheless.