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Thanks! I'll check out that VOD when it comes out! 🙂

Thanks for streaming the game Hythrain!! Yeah Brooke never got a voice since the project never got that far, if I get the chance to do a reboot we'd look for voice actors and have story cutscenes and all the goodies it never got to have.

I haven't considered trying to have things revert back after you return from a checkpoint, I'll have to look into that! What were some of the secrets where you only had one chance with? I can look at them and try avoiding designing future secret spots the same way or add functionality to revert things after respawning at a checkpoint.

Thanks for checking it out!! I was totally inspired by the PS1 and early PS2 era for the aesthetics. I've had some folks in the past talk about crashes on lower end PC's back when I was working on this project,  it's not well optimized and surprisingly hard to run, if I ever get the chance for try #2, optimization and clean coding is one of my focus points!

📢READ ME YO!! 📢

Hey ya'll, dev here! I'm thinking about revisiting this project with a tiny vertical slice prototype and I'd love to hear what you guys imagine a reboot brings back, removes, and adds in. Personally, I feel like this game has too much going on and I'd like to stay a lot more focused if I get the chance to try Brooke again.

No guarantee this wacky sidescrolling project is coming back full swing but I've already done a bit of prototyping and I've actually liked how it's gone so far, so we'll have to see!

Heck yeah no problem dude!!

I dropped everything so I could play the newest certified BurtBot classic 🚀🚀🚀

Hey, thanks so much for trying out Crazy Kitchen! I already got a nerf ready to make the carts more fair so no worries there, they definitely were not tested enough so that's on me haha.

So it looks like you had an issue where switching to one household appliance didn't set the two unselected ones as passive so they weren't attacking, was this an issue throughout your whole playthrough or did this just happen only once? Do you remember if there was anything that happened before hand that may have caused it? I haven't heard of this problem before but it could be an easy fix if I can find a way to replicate the glitch.

Thanks again for playing!!

Thank you so much for letting me know!! Someone on Discord mentioned this to me very recently as well so I'll post an update that alerts folks about this. Maybe I'll add something to the game's cover art to show this is the real deal haha, thanks again, pretty crazy situation honestly!

Very clever core mechanic!!

I think having O and P feels kinda awkward to use so I would recommend trying either offering left and right mouse clicks or using the arrow keys with Z and C, a trend I've seen with PC games like this that don't have mouse controls. 

I think the bullet speed during the initial firing and the recall should be much faster and I think some interesting powerups and enemy types could help break up monotony too. I found myself finding it awkward to hold down P to recall the bullet with the homing and kept thinking it would feel a lot better if recalling was way faster and just direct to the ship, so you could dash behind some baddies, fire the bullet, dash around some others, quickly recall it through them, and so on.

Very cool concept, keep up the good work!

Hey Mist, sorry you had a rough time with the game! As I've mentioned to other reviewers those troublesome carts have a nerf for it's health and speed ready to go for the next update so they shouldn't be able to blow past defenses as easily.

There was an attempt to make fast moving enemies that were supposed to make it less viable to camp at the spawn point like the carts themselves and enemies like the yellow Fasts and the green Diamonds, but it's clear other enemies like the white Ghosts and the blue Jumpers even with their unique movements still get hit pretty badly. I did have an idea where the Ghosts could already start in their Sneak state where they move faster and are invulnerable and the Jumpers could have a starting jump after spawning that moves them further than their usual jumps so they can at least have an attempt to spring ahead defenses right next to the spawn areas.

 One tactic I had in mind to defeat the carts and other fast enemies were the Knife Blocks set by the dishwasher, but I think I had some folks say the Knife Blocks just don't do enough damage and so I'm gonna try to buff them after seeing what exactly is causing them to feel like they don't work that well.

I can make it so that the cart's tutorial box doesn't move with the cart after it's spawned, that can be done in time for the next update!

The "l33t" speak is actually based off of early 2000's songs that replace words  like "to" and "for" with number variants as a sort of flavoring, such as S.F.M.P.'s "Try 2 Luv. U" and Naoki's "Brilliant 2U". The game's UI is inspired by this era as well, often called "Y2K" style. If this kind of flavoring is clearly not favored by players, I'm open to revert it back to "normal english".

There's plenty of core issues with the game that I think I'm starting see more clearly with all of the reviews and playthroughs I've checked out, a lot of feedback has helped for sure and it'll pave the way to shake this game's issues off, so thanks again for your honest input it helps a lot!

Heyo! I really like the idea of allowing the scroll wheel to select an appliance! I'll also look into the rest of these suggestions and critiques. I think for the first level with the tutorials I can try extending the amount of time between the first few rounds to give the player a bit more breathing room to learn how things work. Thank you to Ryan and Nick for trying out the game!!

Yo hythrain! Oh how I waited for this review!!

First things first: Carts are getting nerfed, I totally didn't test them enough LOL Lots of other reviewers have been saying very similar critiques, I'll be doing the impossible and fix those four-wheeled son-of-a-guns.

I can look into making the Knife Blocks better, I definitely wanted them to be viable so I'm all for fixing them up. Do you think it's purely the fact they don't put out enough damage? Do you think they need something interesting like the chance of laying a single pile that's stronger than the rest (like a single pile of red knives acting as a critical hit?), or do you think it's something more mechanical like how long it takes for the knife piles to be put out, etc?

I can also look into rebalancing the HP increase speed as the rounds go on, if it seems like enemies get tougher just a bit too fast I can always tune it easily, no problemo.

I'm so happy to hear you were genuinely hyped to play this... like of all games to be excited for it was Crazy Kitchen, that's... crazy! What an honor, thanks for playing!! 

Aye thanks so much for playing!! Something came up the day you went live so I didn't get the chance to come visit, but I did get to watch the entire playthrough. So happy to hear you had a good time!

I had fun trying to figure out fun ways to keep the maps feeling fresh and got inspired to add scenarios like the different game modes from Bloons TD 6 and the scenarios from strategy games like Roller Coaster Tycoon.

I do have a nerf on the carts on both their HP and their speed ready for the next update, but I also see that having multiple carts spawned in a row is pretty brutal so I'll be changing that so the two are plenty spaced off. If this is still too difficult I can always push the rounds with multiple carts to be later too. Things should feel like they gradually get harder so I'll continue to work on balancing stuff!

Endless mode does technically exist it's just not very obvious atm, if you beat a level and you play it again, it should change the target round to beat text into "record" during gameplay and you'll keep defending until the pantry is out of tasty snacks. I can look into making this more clear!

Thanks again for streaming and reviewing the game!!

This game rocks!! Creative, fresh, and clever, love this kinda stuff!

Hey vmeezo! I watched your playthrough of my game, thanks a ton for streaming it, I took some notes to answer a few things mentioned in the stream:

At 1:14:48 the Diamond enemy wasn't regaining it's health for the next layer, which is a glitch, but that has already been fixed and will appear on the next version everyone can play.

At 1:18:00 you talk about how while controlling the Fridge it feels a bit weaker than if you just don't control it, and since the Fridge did get nerfed a few months ago, I can look into slightly buffing it again since I may have overnerfed it (it usually takes a few tries before the balance is perfect haha) The goal is to make sure each main Appliance feels equal and viable to use, just a bit more handy than others in certian situations, so I will look into this!

At 1:19:33 there's mention of the characters not having any animations, I got plans to get the baddies fully animated, so that will be added to the game eventually.

I'm planning on adding effects for things like when the Big Bois explode into 10 Basics at At 1:24:12, I image that it goes "boom" a few times while they're being spawned haha.

The Diamonds like at 1:24:55 do have 3 layers to them, so I have them start slower and get faster each layer, if they feel annoying to fight, I can try making the first 2 layers even slower so it feels a bit more balanced. Maybe I could do something where after breaking the 1st/2nd layer, they pause for a moment before speeding back up again, giving a unique feel to how they traverse the track versus if they were just reskinned Basics (pink guys) that just have more health. I always like the idea of giving each enemy type unique traits, but never with the intention to annoy the player.

I mentioned to Paladin Ecko this already but I have plans to nerf the Cart enemies since they seem to usually get way further than most enemies ever get, even if they're meant to be harder, I think I need to slow them down LOL

Thanks for giving the game a shot, even if you're not the biggest fan of tower defense games, that means a lot to me!

Thanks for giving the game a shot! I also noticed that "active" tower defense games aren't too common so I decided to cross that with a character switching game. I can look into seeing what mechanics need a bit more explanation, I'll be looking at others' gameplay footage and see what mechanics players get confused with the most. I haven't heard of Citywars so I gave that a look, seems interesting! Reminds me of games like Dungeon Defenders haha. For the level before the economy stage, I can look into making it a bit easier, like I mentioned before I'll study some other player's playthrough of it to see specifically what's making it so much harder than the last levels, whether it be the track length/design, the general difficulty, etc. Thanks for playing!!

Hey thanks for checking it out! I watched your playthrough from your stream, awesome stuff man, glad to hear you enjoyed it! Was super honored to hear you liked how the game feels unique, I really wanted to make it feel fresh, and yet also kind of familiar, like an old flash or PS2 game you can always rely on, so thanks for that!

I took some notes on your playthrough:

i saw during your gameplay at 24:23 that you didn't recognize the powerups as actual items, I'll be soon giving them visuals so it's clear they're items haha. I was debating about making them something like sodas or sauces. I'll also give them a cool 'shine' effect for extra clarity.

I caught some issues that I thought I had fixed like the extra debug "title" appearing on the results screen and it saying "Endless Results" even though it's your your first time playing that level (Both should be easy fixes!)

at 26:10 and 29:40 you talk about how you'd like the buttons to be consistent when switching between appliances, then realize they actually are the same there's just a bit of a cooldown before you can switch. I can try adding a visual that makes this more obvious to avoid confusion i.e. dark tint on the switch icons when switching isn't available, etc.

At 29:03 the cart actually isn't supposed to spawn stolen food bags until it reaches the pantry and turns around, a glitch that is actually already fixed I just didn't get the chance to push it onto the version everyone can play.

At 34:42 and 36:47 to clarify, each Appliance can build a mini-tower (the Oven builds those red turrets, the Fridge builds the grey Mini Fridge, the Dishwasher builds the Knife Set). I'm wondering if I should make it so the player can built any mini-tower with any Appliance since I thought about adding a 4th or 5th mini-tower (had some critiques that 3 minis just isn't enough, and I totally can see that). I'm still in that phase of "Soooo what should we do now?" so I think I'll try to come up with a big plan before diving in haha.

Some things I'd like to try adding include fully animated enemies and appliances, a special attack/ability for mini-towers when upgraded to Level 5, nerfing the cart a bit, a button to toggle game speed like Bloons TD6, and of course general balancing, lemme know if any Appliance/Mini-Tower felt too weak/strong, this is an equal opportunity Kitchen LOL

Nice work slaying those demon Jigglypuffs, thanks for playing!!

This looks really cool!! Looking forward to the future demo!

Nice little game!! I found a crazy glitch though, if you jump and then immediately talk to an NPC you'll go flying upward! Also, the restart button doesn't work. Also, I second LJF's thoughts about the tutorial it feels like it throws too much all at once, I'd give the player a bit more breathing by putting in more time between teaching new mechanics.

Thanks for streaming my game!! Got a lot of great notes here! I can add an outline effect on the currently selected tower that shows at all times so even if you go behind a wall or other towers you'll still see the tower your controlling. Already got some work done to help the dishwasher's towers be more powerful. I have it tuned so the upgraded versions move the knife piles much faster, I remember another streamer mentioned they just didn't feel like they were being put onto the track fast enough. 

I had the idea before to try adding some enemies that are weak/strong against different elements (Fridge is ice, Oven is fire, and Dishwasher is maybe Sharp or Metal?) So I think I'm gonna finally give a go! Do you think it's better if for example an enemy is totally resistant to everything except one element or is it better for it to be just weak against one element but takes a normal amount of damage to everything else? I wasn't sure what was the best way to handle this haha. New enemies besides elemental ones are being designed and tested as we speak too! I will also be adding in a custom cursor so players can see what they're aiming at better!

just filled out the form 👍

Thank you for this masterpiece I hope this game blows up 🙌🔥

Awesome, I totally can try out test builds, looking forward to what's next!!

Super awesome little game, everything is polished and looks/feels great. Tons of talent on the dev team, bravo!!

Hey np man!! I totally get the struggle with music haha, looking forward to Waythed 3 and the improvements it'll bring ✌

Solid fondation, but I think the game is just a bit too generic, stylistically and in gameplay. Sprite work for things like the blocks you jump on are just a bit too "hey that looks like Mario Bros" for my liking, and I wish there was something that made this stand out more. Flex those creative muscles, I think you can still make this work!

I wish the difficulty in the main levels starts just a bit higher than the guide levels feel cuz this game has tons of potential, but it's just a bit too hard to get into the main levels, since they feel like that crushingly-difficult old school kinda feel, which works for some but I think most people would rather the game slowly build up to that level of difficulty. One thing I'd like to see is the level design given some room to breathe; most levels feel really tight and claustrophobic atm.

Having to press spacebar/ W or S to make yourself heavier versus the traditional jump is such a small change but it gives this game such a massive difference in feel compared to other games. Balance out the difficulty curve, you've got something here!

Oh also, the music didn't really seem to fit well, the game has this 2000's Flash/PC Game aesthetic and I think something like House or Trance would pair with the visuals much better!

Thank you!!

Synthwave and Tanks is a combo I never thought I needed!

If you're planning on sticking with the idea of blowing up tanks as a way to chill, you could try putting in some vaporwave style music. The current classical tune (which I presume is placeholder) doesn't really fit. I got a few picks that you could listen to for some ideas, I imagine the music being just lively enough that it makes you wanna tap a foot to it, but retains that more down-low tempo:

If you're looking for some ideas for secondary weapons or items the player can pick up, there's this old tank game called Battletanx: Global Assault (specifically the Nintendo 64 version) that has an interesting roster of secondary weapons you can check out for brainstorming. I made an unlisted video for ya that showcases all of them below! I think players being able to explore the map and find extra weapons could be super cool and add variety to the gameplay. I imagine the weapons in your game being tuned for the gameplay/vibe vs. just the same ones as the examples here haha.

In your game, I did notice that there wasn't much reason to not use the Pitch when firing, since it would hit enemies more often than just not holding it down, so maybe Pitch could be used to specifically help target enemies that are really far away, but can't hit enemies up-close, and vise versa?

I imagined instead of breakable city buildings there's instead old ancient ruins or tall crystal structures that shatter completely once damaged enough. It could help the game stand out being in this totally different world and environment vs other tank games, but it also could be easier to implement these instead of entire full-fledged buildings.

These are just some thoughts I had, you're free to take this game in whatever direction you'd like! Feel free to reach out to me if you're looking for a test player or would like to hear more thoughts from me, cheers!!

Thanks so much for giving my game a go!! I can totally make the difficulty adjustable! I'll keep it simple for now with a single slider that tunes stuff like how much higher enemy health gets as the rounds go on and the speed multiplier increasing much faster. The Fridge is getting nerfed as we speak!! I also heard from others it's OP so that blue guy is gonna get toned down so things feel more balanced.

I got new enemies planned so you won't always be fending off hoards of pink and blue Hungrys, I'm thinking about focusing more on introducing bigger, tougher, slow moving enemies vs. just throwing a bazillion little guys and calling it a day for every round. The game auto-generates rounds after 10 so I'm gonna handcraft more of them that introduce new enemies, offers more unique combos of enemies, etc.

I've still been a bit stuck on how I can make the late game after round 30-35 more exciting, but I think I'll figure out something after talking with more fellow devs and other players, thanks for the great feedback!!

Glad you enjoyed the game!!

I know others have said this before but a single player mode would be awesome! My 2nd controller isn't working atm so I couldn't try it out

Thanks for the feedback!! Glad you've enjoyed it again! I did my best to make things feel more balanced.

Something I've been a bit stuck on is the balance and gameplay of the mid to late game, so I'll have to take a look at what everyone's suggested so far and spend some time really thinking on what are the best choices. I do know I like the idea that the game should be designed to keep the player on their feet, contrasting to other TD games where the player can potentially build defenses and just kinda let it go on it's own for a while, but at the same time I didn't wanna make the game feel like the player has to constantly move around every second either. It's a balancing act and I'll have to work on it!

I'll look into balancing the Fridge so the other two are a bit more viable! I got plans to release the per-round metal payout cap and adjust the payout as the rounds go on as well. Will do my best to upgrade this game the best way I can, thanks for playing!!

I learned throughout the years that the more you embrace change and keep yourself flexible, the more fun you'll have building fun stuff and the better you'll get, so hopefully I'm doing an okay job at that LOL. A lot of the great points you wrote about were already in the back of my mind, but it's great to actually hear it from others. I've already begun writing down all of the ideas and feedback I've been given by you and others that have checked out this revamped version! I already wasn't like loving the old aesthetic and the other issues with gameplay balance and stuff weren't helping, but now it's way more fun to work on, glad I made changes!

Optimization is something I'm gonna try to get work on after I reach out to some peeps that know Unreal Engine really well cuz I dunno why this little game runs so poorly on a lot of hardware, so hopefully I can get that fixed up down the line! There may be something unused but active that's CPU/GPU intensive so I'll have to do my research on that, can't beat up baddies at 10FPS LOL.

Options menu is comin', just been bit busy doing tons of work on the gameplay, I can make a quick menu that at least lets you adjust the graphics and I'll add a restart button too.

The metal is capped at 200 but I can easily release that cap, when I get to work on this project again I can send you some test builds to try and see what's the best way to increase the metal after 200! Same with the buildable turrets I'll be overhauling their balance. I think what I could do is increase the speed the knife blocks put out knife piles and raise the amount of piles that can be out at once per block.

I'll keep in mind the idea that you can "let go" the controls and let all 3 Appliances use their passive attacks, I dig the idea of the risk/reward possibilities with that. Maybe there's like a slight firing rate increase buff or something? I can also add in a switch delay so players can't switch between the Appliances as quickly!

Custom mouse cursor and keeping it locked in the game are comin'!

I'll keep in touch when I get the chance to put out some test builds, your feedback has been crazy helpful, thanks for playing!!

Thanks so much for the kind words!! Before and while I worked on this game I did actually revisit a bunch of older flash games through Flashpoint for inspiration, both stuff I've played and things I haven't check out before, so I guess I had some nostalgia on the mind haha. Been trying to combine that old PC game charm with a modern package so I hope I'm on the right path LOL. I heard from others too that they'd love to see various kitchen themes so I can try giving that a go whenever I get to create new maps!

Thanks so much for giving it a go!! Yeah I def. want to add some much needed spice after like round 20ish, I know for sure I'd like to add more enemy types, I considered some ideas where there's different types of damage that the appliances can do so the Oven could do burn damage, fridge can cause Freeze damage which slows down the enemies, etc.

There's an idea I wanted to try where the appliances are given an extra active attack when you hit level 10. This instead could be a special ability or big attack you could activate, but I'll have to think about all this cuz I'm in a weird spot where it's hard to tell what's the best thing for this game haha. 

I thought about dabbling with a 'city in the sky' kinda direction for the backdrop, I'm glad to hear you like the art style!! I wanted to really double down on something stylized, so I'll keep on tuning it as I go, thx again for the feedback!!

I got the chance to check out your VOD, thanks so much for giving the game a go, I'm super happy you enjoyed it!!

I saw in your chat peeps thought the title/visuals are kinda misleading and yeah I can see that, I got plans to make the game a different theme cuz I personally haven't been too thrilled with how I've gone with the "spooky kitchen" so I'm gonna go for more of a "protect the kitchen from some wacky creatures, and also everything is kinda funny and cute" kind of vibe. I'll do a rebrand down the line. Already got some work done on overhauling the visuals and I'll get to the "eh" UI eventually. More enemy types are planned and I already have a unique buildable/upgradable tower for each main tower working too. Also, the main towers can now earn XP and level up to get stronger too. I'll add some crosshairs so it's easier to aim at enemies for both keyboard + mouse and for controllers. I'll need to look into optimizing the game more, Unreal Engine loves to be hard to run haha. I can totally add an option to play the game in windowed mode when I build out an options menu. I've already made some changes to how the enemies get harder as the rounds go on. I noticed the rounds get way too hard too quickly so that's getting ironed out too!

I'll have an update down the line with lots of improvements, thanks for streaming my game!!

I got a chance to check out your playthrough, awesome stream!! Thanks so much for giving the game a go, super happy to hear you had fun! 

I already got some improvements cooking away in the kitchen:

Enemies now get stronger with more health after each round and continue to grow in numbers too. The main appliance towers can now level up by getting XP from damaging enemies. I may experiment with giving each of them an added feature when they reach level 5 like extra projectiles fired or a new attribute like random crits, enemy slow down in radius, etc. Each mobile tower now has their own unique buildable/upgradeable tower that have a fun kitchen theme.

I'll get straight to work on new, interesting enemies that are lesser in numbers but can take a beating. I can try cooking up a new map layout after I get these previous changes updated into the game!

Thanks for giving the game a go!! I'm currently working on a unique buildable mini-tower for each main tower and they'll all fit the kitchen theme, so generic turrets are going bye-bye. 

That pause menu is gonna be redesigned with clickable buttons and cool looks and everything.

I'll keep the maintenance idea in mind!! I've been trying to brainstorm ideas to get the player to move around and do something actively in late game. There's concept I have where there's an enemy type only the player can destroy that pops up at random locations (they don't move) and the player has to destroy them before they can launch their long range attack at the Pantry. Still gotta actually prototype this to see if it's actually worth going for or not lol

For winning conditions, I wasn't sure yet what I wanted to go for. I thought it would be interesting if there was a campaign mode that offers various objectives per map (or alternative version of the same map), so stuff like reaching a certain round, survive for a specified amount of time, playing with modifications like harder enemies or reduced Metal income, etc. This all depends on if I decide to go for a full blown release or just keeping this as a little experiment, and I'm not sure yet.

So glad you enjoyed my game!! Glad to hear you liked it even if you're not familiar with TD games that's awesome to hear.

Lemme know if it runs okay on your other PC 👍

Other devs before me pretty much summed up how I felt, they mentioned all the stuff I'd mention. This one's really, really cool. Keep it up!!