ACT [Lynte] Tentacle Tower Defense (RE253657) (RJ253657)

[Lynte]

Heh, I can recognize it's Hews right away.

 

[Inspector_Whatsup]

I think I have an idea. Now, please don't take that as me imposing onto your art (all artists should do what they want), but I think the issue stems from the odd shape and the lighting effect you put on the cloth piece.

My suggestion would be to remove or dampen the lighting on it (maybe add a bit of a slightly offset color to the breast aspect to highlight it), and then add a visible collar to it to kinda separate the piece from he face. Unfortunately, I'm a complete travesty at making art myself, so I can't illustrate it at all.

 

[Lynte]

Maybe if I have free time in the future...

I already hooked up all the animations into the game and I have to move on.

 

[Lynte]

There are still a few things I need to do before the next demo release, so I don't think I'll make it by the end of this week.

• Translation to Japanese
• Fix some font issues: this came up because I was missing some Japanese characters :/
• Put it through light re-testing

Yeah, sorry.

And another thing, I'm wondering if you guys think I should make a blog or something. Currently, this is the only place dedicated to updated info of this game. I used Facebook and Twitter for some updates, but they're not solely for those.
I'm thinking of using Ci-en, primarily, but writing in English and maybe broken Japanese. I've never run a blog/webpage...

And a third thing, I'm taking a hiatus after releasing the demo unless there are some really bad issues I need to fix. I'm fucking tired.

 

[unkownmyriad]

There are still a few things I need to do before the next demo release, so I don't think I'll make it by the end of this week.

• Translation to Japanese
• Fix some font issues: this came up because I was missing some Japanese characters :/
• Put it through light re-testing

Yeah, sorry.

And another thing, I'm wondering if you guys think I should make a blog or something. Currently, this is the only place dedicated to updated info of this game. I used Facebook and Twitter for some updates, but they're not solely for those.
I'm thinking of using Ci-en, primarily, but writing in English and maybe broken Japanese. I've never run a blog/webpage...

And a third thing, I'm taking a hiatus after releasing the demo unless there are some really bad issues I need to fix. I'm fucking tired.

Making a game is hard work. Just ask Sakurai.

 

[Lynte]

I've updated with a new demo in the OP (و ˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و
The OP should also be updated with matching information.
I put links to Twitter and Ci-en I made for this game in the game itself but they're empty atm. Feel free to follow if you use those sites, though. I'll start using them once I share it around Japan.

And here's a gif of some mechanics inside it.

※There is no "Level 20" in the demo, though. I was just using it to test out certain settings.

Nothing new in the gallery. The only change I did with the gallery is to make it play a little nicer with resizing.

 

[Inspector_Whatsup]

After a bit of testing, I can certainly say the game's coming along very nicely. The UI takes a little bit of getting used to, but once that's over, all the info is very helpful in controlling the flow of combat. The straightforward fights at the beginning take a nice curve towards increasing complexity without being overwhelming. There's abit of trial and error every now and then, but that's no big deal, I'd say.
The enemy sprites are really small, so you can occasionally miss an alien slipping past your defenses if you're too focused setting stuff up elsewhere. The H-animation, albeit disconnected from the gameplay itself, are pretty nice to look at (here's hoping they get sound somewhere down the line). The only visual letdown for me right now is the very pink-ish color palette, but I'll assume that could change at some point.
As for sound in general, there's not much to say. The game's still in an early stage, so I can understand audio design not being the top priority right now. What's there is serviceable, if unremarkable.

For me personally, the difficulty is still kinda steep, but I also suck at tower defense games, so I can chalk that up to me not gitting gud enough. Haven't run into any bugs, but I also didn't try to break the game, so there could be some, I just didn't find any.

Overall, great job, @Lynte ! I'm rooting for your success!

 

[kiko]

Hmm, so it's basically plants vs zombies hentai edition?

 

[Lynte]

Ah, there's a bug where the blue haired one's gallery animation is messed up. I reuploaded a version a small fix for just that.

After a bit of testing, I can certainly say the game's coming along very nicely. The UI takes a little bit of getting used to, but once that's over, all the info is very helpful in controlling the flow of combat. The straightforward fights at the beginning take a nice curve towards increasing complexity without being overwhelming. There's abit of trial and error every now and then, but that's no big deal, I'd say.
The enemy sprites are really small, so you can occasionally miss an alien slipping past your defenses if you're too focused setting stuff up elsewhere. The H-animation, albeit disconnected from the gameplay itself, are pretty nice to look at (here's hoping they get sound somewhere down the line). The only visual letdown for me right now is the very pink-ish color palette, but I'll assume that could change at some point.
As for sound in general, there's not much to say. The game's still in an early stage, so I can understand audio design not being the top priority right now. What's there is serviceable, if unremarkable.

For me personally, the difficulty is still kinda steep, but I also suck at tower defense games, so I can chalk that up to me not gitting gud enough. Haven't run into any bugs, but I also didn't try to break the game, so there could be some, I just didn't find any.

Overall, great job, @Lynte ! I'm rooting for your success!

Thanks

Still steep, huh? Some retrial is expected for this game. I don't think the survival levels even go past 5 minutes in the demo.
Though, ideally, I wanted it so first-time players don't have to retry more than 3 times a level - unless a level is exceptional.
Did you get stuck anywhere in particular?

I don't think I'll ever bother connecting the gameplay to the hentai in this game. I never really intended to.
There are just some things, like story and music, that I had to decide not to prioritize.

By contrast, I put a lot of effort into gameplay, UI, pixel animation and sound. Though it is my first time handling them (formerly just programmer and artist).
So far, I just cobbled together and tried to clean up whatever sounds I could find from freesound and asfxr on Audacity. I'll try to get better at it.
The H animations should have both SFX and voice though...

Hmm, so it's basically plants vs zombies hentai edition?

The initial idea was to make a PvZ clone and slap some porn on it.
It's strayed a bit from that since. But yeah, try it out.

 

[dijitz]

So far I really like the game, n mechanics. I think the the main difficulty, is coming from the cooldown rate. If you happen to lose several units at once, you are put at a severe disadvantage as you don't have time to try and recover, because the cooldown prevents it. I get you want to prevent possible spamming of units but it doesn't help that you get spammed by them. Maybe even allowing upgrading units to make em a bit stronger would suffice.

 

[Lynte]

So far I really like the game, n mechanics. I think the the main difficulty, is coming from the cooldown rate. If you happen to lose several units at once, you are put at a severe disadvantage as you don't have time to try and recover, because the cooldown prevents it. I get you want to prevent possible spamming of units but it doesn't help that you get spammed by them. Maybe even allowing upgrading units to make em a bit stronger would suffice.

Did you yourself find the game difficult or are you just referring to the prior replies in the thread?

 

[Lynte]

Gave up on level 3.

Still the same "wait for a bit and then swarm player with same 1-2 units" cheap cheese.

Nothing fun in it, plays like a chore and wastes my time by letting me build my stuff first and then roflstomping everything, because I wasn't clicking like crazy and following TEH PERFECT STRATEGY the whole time.

3 levels in, still only one resource tower and only one attack tower.

I managed to drag myself through the previous demo with the help of time hacks, but this time I won't even bother.

Calling this a "PvZ clone" is an insult to a much superior and fun game.

I can give a little more leeway to the player's cooldowns and some tower stats. And hope that and Fast Track Mode are entertaining enough.
Gallery unlock codes or a bonus/おまけ mode where the player is much stronger is also an option.

But more content is just not possible for me. I'm not a team of professionals like Popcap. And I'm not particularly trying to be better than them.

If you're willing to give it another shot, perhaps the alternate win conditions on levels 5 and 6-8 might interest you?

 

[dijitz]

Did you yourself find the game difficult or are you just referring to the prior replies in the thread?

I did find it difficult but I'm also quite tenacious. I realize that it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out the best way to procede with each level. However, you get punished pretty badly if the roflstomp a lot of your towers at once. Lowering the cooldowns should help out a bit. Cus I got stuck plenty of times with alot of orbs to use for towers but couldnt replace the destroyed ones quick enuff to save myself. This game requires real thinking and strategy which is a good and bad thing at the same time.

 

[Lynte]

Alright, I'll make note.

I'm also trying to poll other places for difficulty.

 

[rakukonpaku]

Personally I haven't had any real trouble with the difficulty but I have some experience with these types of games. I found that spamming resource towers as much as possible before any enemies actually arrived usually left me with a surplus of resources to spam towers as needed. Resource towers are also cheap and fast enough to use as a makeshift barrier to buy a second or two to replace an fighting tower, though a couple levels did push a lane or two to the emergency beam.

 

[Lynte]

Personally I haven't had any real trouble with the difficulty but I have some experience with these types of games. I found that spamming resource towers as much as possible before any enemies actually arrived usually left me with a surplus of resources to spam towers as needed. Resource towers are also cheap and fast enough to use as a makeshift barrier to buy a second or two to replace an fighting tower, though a couple levels did push a lane or two to the emergency beam.

Thanks for the input.
Yeah, people might not be learning the importance of resource towers. But it's hard to tell since I can't watch first-time players very often.
Generator already has a lower cooldown and lower price than any other tower to incentivise placing it down early. (The creator of PvZ actually mentioned using this technique in one of his talks)

Spoiler: Using generators as barriers is definitely a viable tactic.

It's sort of encouraged by the fact that some enemies have enough range to put a generator in between an enemy and another tower. Add to that how Cerberic towers regenerate so there's a lot of value in blocking for them.
I don't expect all players to know it right away, though. So it's not necessary to finish the demo.

I have a suspicion people are also averse to losing towers. There hasn't really been a popular tower defense where that's a normal thing.
People might feel they're doing badly once they lose some towers. But you can win the game even if you lose all the towers, as long as you fulfil the objective.

Either way, I plan to add an option to auto-collect resources. It'll give a little more accessibility. Always clicking is a pain, anyway.

 

[Inspector_Whatsup]

Still steep, huh? Some retrial is expected for this game. I don't think the survival levels even go past 5 minutes in the demo.
Though, ideally, I wanted it so first-time players don't have to retry more than 3 times a level - unless a level is exceptional.
Did you get stuck anywhere in particular?

Sorry for not getting back here earlier. As for your question, I mainly started running into problems after the lancer girls got introduced and enemy numbers in general kept increasing overall.
My general approach to setting up defenses is to spend resources on an entire row of generators while I can (maybe even 2 rows if I know enemy waves take more time to approach), then I start placing spreaders right in front of advancing enemies to ensure all 3 projectiles hitting the same target. Once I have most stuff under control, I start filling the 2-3 righmost rows with more spreaders, leave one row empty (for emergencies), and start filling up the rest of the field with straight shooters. Then I just farm and replace all that gets destroyed and disperse waves with the bomber skill.

I'm well aware that not all fight can be won like that (siege maps are easily won by just planting generators and shooters), but I think the most problematic part is the idea to not let a single unit through, considering not only the sheer number of enemies approaching, but also that you have an entire unit dedicated to just jumping over towers. Yes, they have low health and often die in front of a spreader before she can do anything, but as soon as they either come right behind more offense-based enemies or in larger groups, it becomes pretty difficult for me to maintain defenses on 2-3 fronts at once.

My suggestion would be a slightly more forgiving life system (maybe limited to lower difficulty settings), where all passing enemies deal a fixed amount of damage one time depending on the type until the "core/master" of the tentacles is killed.

 

[Lynte]

Sorry for not getting back here earlier. As for your question, I mainly started running into problems after the lancer girls got introduced and enemy numbers in general kept increasing overall.
My general approach to setting up defenses is to spend resources on an entire row of generators while I can (maybe even 2 rows if I know enemy waves take more time to approach), then I start placing spreaders right in front of advancing enemies to ensure all 3 projectiles hitting the same target. Once I have most stuff under control, I start filling the 2-3 righmost rows with more spreaders, leave one row empty (for emergencies), and start filling up the rest of the field with straight shooters. Then I just farm and replace all that gets destroyed and disperse waves with the bomber skill.

Ah, playing too far forward can be quite difficult. You might find it easier to place your towers farther back.
It pays to wait for enemies to come closer. You'll have more time to build resource towers.
It's kind of a balancing act between how much space you need for generators and how much time you can give for enemies to move forward.

I think the most problematic part is the idea to not let a single unit through, considering not only the sheer number of enemies approaching, but also that you have an entire unit dedicated to just jumping over towers. Yes, they have low health and often die in front of a spreader before she can do anything, but as soon as they either come right behind more offense-based enemies or in larger groups, it becomes pretty difficult for me to maintain defenses on 2-3 fronts at once.

My suggestion would be a slightly more forgiving life system (maybe limited to lower difficulty settings), where all passing enemies deal a fixed amount of damage one time depending on the type until the "core/master" of the tentacles is killed.

Hmmm, I can consider it but currently, there are two main reasons why I don't like a simple life system in TD.

1. They are unreliable. In TD it's a common scenario that if one can get through, typically there are others that can get through. So all lives will be lost anyway. In that case, the player will just feel like a lives system doesn't even exist. And it raises the question of how many lives there should be. The density of enemies can vary drastically per level, so a number of lives that might be appropriate in one level might be useless in another.
   • The Emergency Cannons actually function as a lives system already - except that it's agnostic to the size of the horde that comes through. + they give a small opening to rebuild that a normal lives system would not.
2. They can incentivize unintuitive strategies. If you allow the first few enemies to just eat your first few lives until you have one left. There is the option to use lives to buy time. Instead of spending on defenses, you can spend on income gain (resource towers). Because of the difference in income, whether or not you employ this strategy can change the difficulty of the level entirely.
   • In an extreme example, imagine if the first 3 enemies come in the first 20 seconds. You could kill them remain at full health, or you could sacrifice your lives build generators away from them. In the next 20 seconds, the player who chose the latter will be able to build way more generators than the player who chose to do the prior.
   • Emergency cannons, because they start on partial cooldown, don't allow this kind of behaviour.
   • Granted, players in lower difficulties are unlikely to care about this strategy.

So basically, Emergency Cannons currently substitute for a lives system with some more nuance. All levels are planned around never needing to use them.

To the point of jumping aliens; I think they only appear once(?) in the demo on the first gallery node. And I didn't intend for them to be very strong there.
For subsequent levels, the abilities, particularly Lightning Stream, will usually be available to help urgently deal with small numbers of enemies.

 

[moonblack]

Hmmm, I can consider it but currently, there are two main reasons why I don't like a simple life system in TD.
They are unreliable. In TD it's a common scenario that if one can get through, typically there are others that can get through. So all lives will be lost anyway. In that case, the player will just feel like a lives system doesn't even exist. And it raises the question of how many lives there should be. The density of enemies can vary drastically per level, so a number of lives that might be appropriate in one level might be useless in another.

Not true. It depends on the game, specifically on your towers and on enemies. Usually it is either a single very fast enemy (because it is too fast for your towers) or a single very tough enemy (because it has too much HP for your towers) that can get through. If multiple enemies can get through, then either you did something wrong or you tried the level too soon (or the game is poorly balanced).

Also, there's a reason different levels have different number of lives in some games.

They can incentivize unintuitive strategies. If you allow the first few enemies to just eat your first few lives until you have one left. There is the option to use lives to buy time. Instead of spending on defenses, you can spend on income gain (resource towers). Because of the difference in income, whether or not you employ this strategy can change the difficulty of the level entirely.
In an extreme example, imagine if the first 3 enemies come in the first 20 seconds. You could kill them remain at full health, or you could sacrifice your lives build generators away from them. In the next 20 seconds, the player who chose the latter will be able to build way more generators than the player who chose to do the prior.

Again, it depends on how the game is set up. In many Tower Defense games you gain resources by killing enemies, so letting enemies through does not benefit you in any way. But that's not how you have set things up. If you are worried about players intentionally letting enemies through, you can add some punishment for it, such as damaging or weakening all of your towers, stealing some of your resources, etc...


Anyway, After finshing the demo all I can say is that the levels tend to feel too same-y. Build as many generators as you can (usually one row is enough), then start building attack towers and killing enemies. That's it.

 

[Lynte]

Maybe I spoke to generically, but of course it isn't always true. Rattling off all the exceptions would take a long time to discuss and would muddle the point (which is that ECs may be sufficient as a lives system).

Not true. It depends on the game, specifically on your towers and on enemies. Usually it is either a single very fast enemy (because it is too fast for your towers) or a single very tough enemy (because it has too much HP for your towers) that can get through. If multiple enemies can get through, then either you did something wrong or you tried the level too soon (or the game is poorly balanced).

I didn't say they never come in singles. Sometimes they come in singles and other times they come in groups. But that's exactly what I mean. Is the inattention/mistake that let through a single *special* enemy as severe as the inattention/mistake that let through a group of say 5 sort of special enemies at 1% hp? It may have just been a tower placed in a wrong spot or not soon enough that can cause both. But a simplified lives system would punish the latter case 5 times harsher. The Emergency Cannon or a 'bomb' system would treat both equally and say you're allowed something along the lines of X mistakes every Y minutes. And this is my preference. I want to give a chance to those who mess up once but let more than one enemy through.

Also, there's a reason different levels have different number of lives in some games.

Can you give examples of TDs with different lives per level? They might be helpful to study in the future.

Again, it depends on how the game is set up. In many Tower Defense games you gain resources by killing enemies, so letting enemies through does not benefit you in any way. But that's not how you have set things up. If you are worried about players intentionally letting enemies through, you can add some punishment for it, such as damaging or weakening all of your towers, stealing some of your resources, etc...

I agree that alternate resource mechanics for TDs can be explored. And I want to do so in the future. I already have ideas but I don't have the luxury to do them for this game.

Gemcraft specifically had the banish mechanic, where you trade mana (which you also use to build towers) to cancel out enemies that you fail to kill. I don't like this style, though. Because it creates a

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.
When you're winning → no enemies are banished → you get a surplus of mana → you win even harder → it becomes boring.
When you're losing → enemies cut your mana → player agency is gradually taken away → you're just waiting to lose because you can take no action.

Resource per enemy killed similarly creates a feedback loop. Enemies walking through weakening all towers even more so.
And it's feedback loops like this that exacerbate the if-one-gets-through-others-get-through issue.

Having the abilities (which are independent of resources to build towers) to deal with enemies your towers miss is a more fun option IMO

Anyway, After finshing the demo all I can say is that the levels tend to feel too same-y. Build as many generators as you can (usually one row is enough), then start building attack towers and killing enemies. That's it.

Well, all I can say is I tried my best. Fast track mode is already there, and I'll put in a bonus/omake mode for people who want to burn through the content quickly.
Thanks for giving it a shot.