itch.io

Hmm, sorry! Do you remember what you were doing at the time?

Ah yes, definitely a planned feature to be added!

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you can mouse over or click on a creature either in the store or roster to see their ability. Is that not working?

Congrats on the win! Sorry about the lack of a proper victory screen, this was a jam game so that's how it goes haha. The higher tier cards are pretty rare, but the ones you mention aren't quite as hard to come by as for example the doomsday/tiger missile. You're totally right though that the game is a bit heavy on luck at the later stages. Stacking your deck with topdecks and keeping it small helps though.

If you're interested in seeing more games like this, give me a follow if you'd like. There is a sequel in the works :)

Next update is coming very soon! It will be mostly cosmetic this time, but I promise it will not disappoint!

Great win, 19 rounds, wow that's a long game! I would love to hear your feedback for sure!

The primary matchmaking system is that the game queries our server looking for a team that: has the same number of rounds/hearts/wins, is in the same room, and is not the team you just played in the last round. Both versions work the same way in this respect.

If this lookup fails, then the exe version actually has an extra step. When you launch the game, it creates a cache of a few hundred recent teams, and looks for a match among these as well. This is mostly to allow offline play, which is why the web version doesn't bother, as it's kind of an expensive operation, but if there's not a lot of teams uploaded yet then this can happen frequently.

There's also a third condition if it's not able to find a team this way (which should only really happen on the web), where it falls back to a cache of teams that is included in the game build (one purpose of this is to ensure that if the game servers are ever shut down, or you're playing an offline version that has never connected to the internet at all, the game is still playable).

Finally there's a fallback where it creates a fake team, which will have a name starting with "The Fake ..." and you won't see their stats displayed. This is mostly for development purposes so that an opponent can be created when I increase a version number for the first time, but a player could technically encounter it if they're the first to make it to very late rounds in the game where there's no other teams to match.

The primary matchmaker system shouldn't ever give you the same team twice, so it's likely that you're falling into the third condition if you're playing on the web. Since there's not a lot of data there, it makes sense you'd see the same teams repeatedly. Once there's more data from people playing the game, this problem should fix itself. If you happen to see the issue again, take note whether or not the wins & hearts of your opponent exactly match yours. If they don't, then you've fallen into one of the backup conditions.

Regarding having a lot of draws, there's no specific handling of this, but the later your round number gets, the less data there is to match you against, so it's also far more likely to fall into the backup conditions where the matchmaking is less good.

I'll look into this some more. Are you playing on the web or the windows exe (they actually have slightly different matchmaking algos, although this shouldn't happen in either). Part of the issue could also be that since I've updated the version in the latest patch, it can only match against teams created with that new version. As the game is played more, the pool of matches will get bigger.

The relics I have already planned out are mostly about boosting effects in-combat. I'd like to make sets of relics that enhance all of the major gameplay strategies (tall scaling, wide scaling, summoning, death effects, sniping), as well as that add new elements. In addition to the shop cost scaling relics in now, I'll either be adding relics and/or possibly other minions that scale the stats of minions in the shop. I also haven't thought this totally through yet, but I have an idea to make "magic items" that are available in the relic selection but equip on a specific minion.

I'd also like to add Curses, which act like negative Relics, or possibly have both positive and negative effects. I'm not sure exactly how or when these will get handed out though.

Great suggestions and feedback! Some specific responses:

> You adding "better matchmaking" means that the difficulty is way different now.

I think this was actually a little messed up, it should be a bit better now at matching similar teams.

> It would be a huge buff for any of these decks if there were more ways to guarantee you ended up with specific units.

I'm considering increasing the chances of getting a minion in the store that you already have, which would help with finding combines. I just don't want to go too far with this since the clan selection also gives you a strong way to steer toward a seeing a certain unit. Maybe this won't be needed though with relics adding new opportunities for rerolls.

> I think you could fix this by adding more stop-gap variants to the mix. Like if you examine every combo creature in this game, and then you add 1 or 2 extra combo pieces, in the form of an item or creature that could work with them.

The relics should help with this as I begin to add more, too. The idea behind a lot of them is that it should help boost certain combo themes as well.

> This could manifest as gaining 10 coins now, and losing 10 coins next round. For some teams, it's debatable if there will be a next round. But it would help.

This is a great idea for a relic! It could give you X coins now but -1 coin per round.

> -Give us access to all 5 slots for party members and 3 slots for items from the beginning. If it was completely open from the start, people would have access to more choices and chances to spawn something that fits their build.

I think the way it is now is needed, just because with so few options early on, giving more slots would mean you can always pick what you want and every game would start exactly the same (which would be boring).

> -A loyalty mechanic could also be nice. Perhaps every 3 rounds a pet has been with you, they gain one experience point. It massively buffs anyone who decides to keep the same units around. This would greatly benefit you if you keep the baby units from the start around. It adds an extra level of strategy to consider replacing a unit or letting it grow.

I think permanent upgrades accomplish this somewhat, as you always have to weigh selling that minion that's been soaking up bonuses to swap for a fresh one. Relics will also be giving new opportunities for stat bonuses too.

> -Lastly, a knowledge base that lets someone view all the monsters and at what rounds they spawn would also be helpful. It evens the playing field and cuts any new player's learning curves. If the info is easy to look up, including a list of the items that spawn, possibly even with the % chances they have to appear, then people can do much better planning.

I will definitely be adding this at some point!

I really like the idea of being able to increase the size of your team in-battle, I could probably add that as a relic!

Thanks for the awesome feedback, as always!

> Something horrifically overpowered but I've never managed to get to do is a team consisting of all Scotts, each armed with an axe.

This is a great idea! I think the only situation where this would fail is against a spawner deck (zombie fam or imp/chomp/critter), unless you could really boost their health to outlast it.

> I feel like if the upgrades provided equivalent value to what gems of the same cost as the unit would provide, then it would be more worth it. Because I could buy gems that raise everyone's stats, or I could buff one guy, inconsistently.

This is a good point, it's important to balance the cost of gems vs. upgrades and it may need some tweaking still. Of course since upgrades boost abilities it can be much better still, but as the game stands now I think stats are a bit more powerful than abilities, so it tilts in the favor of gems perhaps. I think the buff-everyone gems may be a bit too cheap, as well (especially compared to the random-two gems).

Relics are going to shift the balance of power a bit, too. They'll have global effects some of which will make certain abilities more powerful.

Please keep the ideas coming! And let me know if you think any specific minions or items are too weak (or strong, but I like a few OP minions, I just don't want any useless ones)!

Ha, same I do actually have an old mac but when I put a relatively modern OS on it to test things, it now crashes when I try to run anything. I have a couple friends with macs who will test things for me, it just takes time to coordinate, and frequently takes dozens of test builds to finally get one to work.

Native linux builds are much more straightforward and I have a linux box handy that I use for web dev work.

Thank you, yes I actually do plan to got native linux and mac builds on GOG as soon as possible! Linux will probably be available shortly, but a mac build is a few weeks out because it's less straightforward and difficult for me to test (I don't own a mac so I need to borrow one). Apologies for not having these available yet!

Thank you so much for playing, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! There will be some smaller updates to Tower Escape coming soon, and I expect to have updates on our next game within the next few months!

Wishlisted!

Give it another try, the latest version should dramatically improve performance in late game and especially with fire.

New minions are unlocked by scoring points with that clan, so if you play with minions from a clan you'll unlock more of them for the next game. With the full game release coming in less than a month, I've limited the demo to include just what can be unlocked in 2-3 normal playthroughs, so there are some minions (especially in the Corrupted & Enchanted clans) who will only be unlockable in the full game (as well as the majority of relics).

I'd appreciate any feedback about the variety available here actually, as I do want the demo to offer the full game experience while still of course giving people something extra if they decide to purchase. If you think the options are too limited here I'd consider increasing what's available.

Thanks so much! A lot of features were planned from the start and just take time, but I'd say about half of it is from you and others playing those early builds and making so many great suggestions :D :D

Yeah, my plan is to basically have multiple branching upgrade paths, where you can either go pets or towers. In theory, maybe an army of pets could hold things off just as well.

I'll definitely be adding more mechanics to the upgrade selection once I add more upgrades and paths to choose from. It may be that even instead of a hard banish, certain choices will lock you out of others. I could go with a banish though, and of course reroll. Pets will probably be purchasable with coins just like tower guardians are, but will be much more expensive since they're permanent.

I plan to add dogs next and lots of other animal options to follow.

Is there something else that would be more obvious? I might change them to barrels

That's a cool thought, a stationary object that attacks you. I'll consider adding something like that when I implement enemies that can shoot you as well.

The torches are really just goody bags for loot drops, the light doesn't do anything. You can shoot them to destroy them for the loot, if that wasn't immediately obvious? I couldn't think of a better sprite to use for these, except maybe a destructible barrel. The fact that they're light makes them easier to spot though. They spawn periodically just off-screen, same as the enemies.

I'll check out the enemies still spawning outside, I probably need to reduce the boundary a little, as if they spawn exactly on the fencing stones the physics engine may push them outside.

Great ideas about the charging abilities and indications, and thanks for the bug report!

I've been considering adding a "run" button that lets the player move slightly faster but stop firing their weapon during. I may also add dash as an unlockable skill card. Maybe these will be the same thing.

The mark and shield ideas are interesting, I'll play around with those concepts a little. Shields would be another good ability to add as an unlockable skill. Lots of skills like this to add different attacks will also be added soon.

I'm also considering allowing the player to shoot through obstacles, since the main reason I disabled it was so you couldn't exploit the AI getting stuck behind stuff. I might end up doing this only with a certain arrow type though.

One change I've already made which will be in the next update, is that arrows now have a "knock back" effect. This can be really helpful to counter charging enemies by stopping a bit of their momentum.

I'm glad you like the changes! It's much closer now to my original vision, it just took some time to get there. Yes, you can technically make funnels and kill boxes with any defender, but the purpose of the walls is to make something with lower maintenance that you can use for part of your structure. I like to build a "back" with walls, then use knights for the sides and front so I only have to keep a close eye on one place. You can also line the outside of your walls with archers if you don't mind replacing them periodically.

I'll be adding stats in mouseovers to the defender cards, but currently it's:

• Archer: 2hp, shoot speed 1, range 7
• Knight: 5hp, shoot speed 3, range 1
• Wizard: 1hp, shoot speed 2, range 5

They will spawn outside the map sometimes, I'll prevent that at some point, but for the moment the game actually periodically picks them up and drops them somewhere inside the map, so they won't build up out there.

You raise an interesting point, there should either be no max health at all, or the heal option should not show up unless you're down 3. I'll also be adding a reroll, I think a coin is a high cost but I guess it's still better than missing an entire upgrade. Maybe I'll increase coin availability to compensate.

There should not be a limit to the number of multi shot boosts you can take, I think you've just been unlucky. Maybe what I'll do though is have each subsequent boost give you more arrows, so multi-shot initially gives you 2, then the upgrade gives you +2=4, then the next is +3=7, and so on. Combined with +damage upgrades, that could really give you some crowd clearing ability.

I may experiment with mixing upgrades (such as acid spreading fire), I'll need to think on that one.

Ha, that's very clever! You can definitely push things with the permanent upgrade minions and free zombies. You do have to be careful though, as each wave gets harder so you could potentially get yourself into a bad situation if you delay too long. I really don't mind "broken" combos in the game (they can be fun), but anything that seems like too much of a "grind this optimal strategy every game" is a negative gameplay effect I'd like to address so I'll review this one.

Ah, you went into a gap between trees that's small enough for you to fit but they couldn't come in after you? That's an interesting situation, reminds me of a classic horror movie setup where you're hiding in a log or something from a monster that can't get in, but you're also just trapped! If it "felt" like a bug though, I could probably do something to prevent it.

Ha, nice! I'm going to be improving their pathfinding so they'll go around obstactles soon, but for now enjoy being able to exploit their stupidity!

I'll be adding in an exploding arrow ability soon, so don't despair! I will also be implementing upgrades to the arrow effects so that the spread chance and speed of fire can be increased, more closely resembling the old effect as well (but without killing the framerate).

Discord here, thanks for mentioning I forgot to add it to the page https://discord.gg/k4V3kXkzk4

I'll be adding lots more features as I go. The enemies are one of 4 sets I have that I'll be adding, and the abilities are just a few to get started, there will be much more variety soon. Please do share any ideas you have, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks, yes healing abilities are planned for sure. I will either add difficulty settings or some level selection with different difficulties, so one way or another there will be some choice.

Great playthrough, thanks for posting this! It helps me a lot with working out the pacing and balance of the game. I'd love to hear any feedback you have about what you liked or disliked and how you thought the game felt, if you feel like sharing!

Thanks for typing all this up, great feedback here!

Traps are an interesting idea, how are you thinking they'd be distinct from towers? Would they get used up as a minions enters (or multiple of there's >1 activations), then you get your coin back? I can see that being useful when/if I add routing to towers, so you can create trap mazes.

Great point about the screen edge spawns causing problems with towers. I'll consider having them spawn from the map edge, but I'm worried it would create situations where the action is too far away from the player (especially if they get stuck behind obstacles).

Flying and ghostly enemies are definitely planned, both able to pass through obstacles!

The accuracy upgrade increases the arrow's travel speed, yes, not the player's walk speed. I find it useful for defending the portal.

Having ice slow down attack too is a great idea! I personally do feel it's useful, because it can slow down an unlimited number coming at you, unlike acid which can only kill a few. It however is less useful that fire because that's your real crowd control.

That said, I'll sadly be nerfing the fire effect. I was actually looking into some performance issues and realized it was mostly due to a runaway effect in fire spreading. Basically when a minion is in the process of dying, but not dead yet, fire could spread back and forth multiple times. This basically meant a minion who dies while on fire turned into a bomb that spawned lots of fires which spread to adjacent minions. It's kind of cool actually, and I'll almost certainly be adding bomb effects like this later, but it was actually a bug that was allowing fire to spread and wipe out whole crowds instantly.

I love this pack! I've used it in my latest game. You're credited on the page and in-game, I linked to your itch.io profile page, please let me know if you'd prefer it to go somewhere different.

https://slightlymadman.itch.io/tower-survivors

Thanks! All music is by YouFulca https://youfulca.itch.io/

Thanks for the report, that should be easy to fix! Also looking at that I'm thinking I need to tone down the light source on the towers lol

Great points, thank you for the feedback! I personally have found precision to be nice while protecting the portal, but you're right it's at best kind of a "I have nothing else left to choose" option. I'll be adding and expanding more and will flag that one for either rebalance or removal.

I think I'll change Acid pools to get "used up" after a certain number of hits in addition to their time limit (which may need to be reduced).

Good point about fire, I've been burned (haha) before thinking a unit was dead and walking into it. Speeding up the extinguish animation may help here, as well as potentially reducing the size of the sprite overall.

That's a great idea to have ice blocks no longer be impassable but instead slow down movement, I'll definitely try that out! My only concern is that makes its strategy a little too similar to acid, but I'll see how it plays.

I'm rebalancing the end at the moment, one idea I'm playing with is removing a win condition and having a timer that instead ticks up while the game gets progressively harder so you can try for a high score of survival.

I'm currently working on adding two new tower types: knight who attacks close range, but can take many hits, and wizard who gets elemental attacks. They'll either have their own upgrade cards or inherit the player abilities. I'll also be adding coins and some more advanced pathfinding to the mobs so that you can get into some more classic Tower Defense gameplay here.

Thanks again for playing! Let me know if you agree or disagree with any of the above as well. I should have an update by the weekend with some of the above addressed.

Thanks for playing! That's a good point, since it gets progressively difficult over time it could reach an impossible state if you're not able to upgrade on pace with it. I'll see what I can do to tweak that accordingly.

I'll definitely be adding a locator for the portal to help find your way back. Do you think it would be useful to add for the obelisks as well, or did you enjoy the challenge of searching for them?

When I was first implementing fire transferring between enemies when they touch, I messed up and made it infinitely add back and forth, causing this nuclear reaction which crashed the game:

It does have an ending, you need to activate the 4 obelisks and then protect the portal. It's not terribly obvious in-game so I'll be adding some better instructions and clues. You'll need to make good use of the towers to complete it.