Thank you! Game is actually balanced (mostly) but the problem is that I expect player to have my level of strategy knowledge. If it was full game the difficulty curve would be stretched so player wouldn't get overwhelmed.
Here's some tricks I use
Never use spells until no enemy will attack you (expect if formation of enemy will be scattered)
Sometimes sacrifice health to get most of the spells
Use fire to kill archers, ice to slow down tanks, lighting to kill lone enemies in lane, and metal bullet to balance out the field
Thank you for playing my game and for thoughtful review. I'm glad you liked the SFX because it wall really rushed.
First about endless replaybility, this was something I was hoping to achieve although gameplay can be repetative, although it doesn't become too quickly. If game gets updated, Inwould followed the pvz1 formula with campaign levels with deckbuilding options and mini game levels with special rules .
Because of such lack of variety (which is justifed due to game jam limit) usually there is one dominant strategy.
For overpriced spells, I must not to agree, the costs are perfectly balanced, but there are two flaws which make you believe so, first because I never teach player the complexity of strategy you need to do to battle effectively, practically people who played more games like chess would understand it better , the second reason is because lighting 5 and bullet 5 are too much weaker than fire 5 and ice 5 which are over powered. This makes game unfairly luck based, sometimes I get only strong spells and for that reason I reached wave 120+.
About tool tips, I tried to follow pvz1 formula, where you get thrown with random plants and zombies, and you need to figure out what are their powers. The better solution would be if I focused more on showing visually burning or breaking armor (I think ice is clear enough, npi).
My strategy is to never attack unless enemy are going to attack next round or they break formation which is good for effective damage dealing. Also often I sacrfice health for better attack efficiency. Ice1 is very useful against units like elite knights (9/4 one) as you can ignore them for many rounds just to delay them back and use aoe spells on them + others in back.
Thank you for playing my game! I'm glad you liked it. I agree 5 bullet and especially lighting 5 were much weaker than fire and ice, this is something I figured it few days after deadline through playtesting,
Also cool insight in game's development, in start , there was no mechanics of enemies carrying mana crystal, but then I figured out there is no way for player to get stronger while enemies keep sending stronger and stronger units. Mana crystals was the quick solution, which worked super well in the end.
About the game I gave you, the idea is to show you how it managed to set up the base of the game and bring the variety as soon as the game starts. That way, creating the hook for the player because , well first impressions matters.
It's hard to tell what is causing performance issues. You have to debug using "process of elimination". Basically you remove one part of the game mechanics and check does it impact performance. Do that for each part you think could make problem, like try smaller levels, no enemy collisions etc. .
Maybe it is not solely performance issues but browser compatibility issues. Even if there is workaround solution I would focus on finding what it is, just so I don't make same mistake again.
try introducting "power" mechanics very early to game, that will make player know there is actually something to look forward playing. I have to had a LOT of patience to figure there is actual such mechanics in a game, and otherwise game seemed like just most basic thing ever. Check game "Johnny upgrade" it shows very good example how your game could work much better if used correct way of level design.
For optimizing tips , you asked for inside "Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?" I don't believe anyone will have performance issues in such simple game? Computers are much more powerful than that, either you are trying to overoptimize or you made a huge mistake in logic where you call same script billion times for no reason. About having clean code, that comes with experience, just write more code.
I really like the idea, but there were many things were bothered me, especially because I see potential in the game.
1. Feedback isn't good, sometimes all my sword dies at once by other sword, I have no idea why, a lot of time random text appears "swiftly, clumsy , idk anymore..." but I have no idea what they do , and how I can build my sword around those mechanics (expect maybe use good keywords don't use bad,diminish the strategy aspect). Many times animations don't correlate very well, swords disappear before animation finishes, it feels confusing.
2. The actions you need to do to get from quests to battle are uneccessary, why you can't simply go to direct battle, but you have to select quest (within papers without images, which is different problem...) and then press battle. It would be much better if you could directly go to the quest.
3. Game is lacking strategy element. In your GDD you mention auto battle pets as inspiration, and you marked game as "Combo" game, but I can hardly see any combinations, I just get random swords, and hope it works. Even if there were special effect I cannot see how they work, so I can't plan what to do. Also for quests, I cannot even see the power of enemies, and I feel like it's up to luck would you be one-shot by random OP sword with unknown ability, or attack worst 3/3 sword and get only 200 coins and piece of wood.
I read other comments, and the are less or more saying the same things as me. My suggestions are to look game with similar mechanics, and see what they do. I suggest idle games from kongregate. Also I suggest you checking Swords & Souls: Neverseen that is a very good game , which make players hype to battle after hard training. For idle games it's about grinding for something which you know it's OP but you can't reach it easily. You must make player have clear goal in mind which needs to be reached, so player will be happy after reaching, rather than just having random battles.
Amazing, I especially liked the shop UI design! Here's some suggestions. First the "move" mechanics, I figured it it even exists after first playthrough, maybe there should be clear indicator it exists and how it works. Also for the moving, it's hard to see what are you moving until you put mouse on it, it's hard to visualize complete picture like that. Since there are some items which boost another depending on the position, that should be shown visually (like lasso shaped indicator).
Everything is overall very good (graphics, polish , sounds). I just find gameplay very repetetive. Each level is more the less same concept. As casual mobile game it could work, but I personally miss the variety. Check game bad ice cream which have similar style but large amount of variety.
Very good. I think there should be minimum threshold for bomb count required to kill the dragon. Maybe at least 3 . I completed each level with one bomb, it was very easy to do with one bomb.
I really like the main character design. I feel this game would work much better if it has more variety in challenges, maybe there can be multiple levels with puzzle elements. Currently it feels to simplistic and short.
I very liked the visuals. The gameplay was very confusing to me. You're ghost after 2 min of random wandering you meet weird dogs which can dig ground?? I feel like I'm missing something very important, game isn't very clear what are you supposed to do. I can destroy random ground tiles, and I cannot find anything in them. Then I switched to another dog just to get lost in the dark, it was very very confusing.
Try defining clear goals, that's very important for games , especially for puzzle games where you know what is the goal but the real problem is the reaching it, not finding it.
Incredible! I like the balance between tring to collect ammo and preserving health. I have no complaints for game, just it would be much better if you made dedicated thumbnail/capsule/cover art for the game rather than having screenshot.
Good idea, but visual feedback is lacking. For example it's hard to tell when you are going to explode, and at the moment you explode it doesn't show destroyed elements breaking the immersion. Still it was very fun.
Great presentation. It's too hard but you already know that XD. I think is because you assumed everything know how boss fights from that genre works. Also if player had enough time to learn the movement better, it would be much easier to figure out how to dodge boss' attacks.
Incredible! Level design was very good (expect that one platforming part after sliding on moving platform), and player's character moveset feel very good. The missing wall jump animation was feeling off for me, and sfx could be improved.
Very fun. Maybe it's get too hard too soon (or i'm just that bad lol). It would be nice if there was egg sound effects when bouncing and stuff. And that 2 minute long intro was unnecessary.
It's okay! Gameplay could use more variety. It would be better if there is some kind of immersion, like you get ninja at beginning scene shooting a shuriken instead of just existing randomly. Same for flying vegetables, maybe if you were shooting some flying targets, balloons, and different kind of objects which behaves differently than just being there.
Nice idea! But few things were off for me. First all cards looks the same, they should not relay on text as much after figuring out what they do, they need some visuals. Game seems to easy, there is a plenty of time, and you can place like 100 cards for available time. Gameplay seems repetitive , infect 1 heart person, then "sneeze" and "touch" all infected , repeat. I wish there is a bit more challenge.
Amazing! For sure one of the best games on this jam. I would just say to take extra attention to introducing player mechanics, for multiple occasions I tried to go through small 1x1 holes as a skull, which looks just right size to pass by, looking at the skull size, but in reality game is designed you can't pass them as the skull.
Also a minor detail, closing doors on top of entities should kill them , now they got stuck.
Good job! I just have a complaint, it feels like possessing bodies is just isn't that crucial for gameplay beside just trying to stay alive. For example possessing archer doesn't get you new useful ability, archer is even weaker that default guy. The special abilityof characters are not even listed in controls , I figured it to spamming random keys (space). But game doesn't let you focus on character skills and selection because you're too occupied defending with a sword.
Well done! One thing I have to mention is that this kind of "upgrade" game there is always some final goal to reach. Burrito bison has to take revenge, penguin from learn to fly needs to crash iceberg. If there is some final goal it would be more fun to try to reach it, now it's just little bit repetitive. For example it could be having 4 levers in some levels which you can't pull all at once until you get upgraded, and the boss appears, and then player will be motivated to get to that part to see what happens.
Good potetial for game. Maybe little bit hard, I always have negative money, and I wish there is better hook, something to look forward to when playing.
Well done. I wish there are mory story elements, I think it will fit perfectly in this kind of game (which is ironically opposite of what people usually do, put story in games which doesn't benefit from)
Very good. Gameplay is a bit confusing though. There are red cirles , should I destroy them or not? Also they look too similar to spike red balls, and I feel I wander randomly without clear goal, there is no enough curiosity or sense of exploration.
