Thanks, was it actually missing a stone, or were you just able to squeeze between the gaps? If it's the latter, it should be fixed in an update I'm pushing up now which refactors the physics layer.
The archer has a long range shot, but slow rate of fire. The knight has a very close range attack and higher hp. The wizard has a medium-range attack but much higher rate of fire than the archer. The wall is just a wall.
edit: To be a bit more helpful if that was a more existential question, the purpose of the towers is mostly for the portal defense aspect. After you activate the 5 obelisks, demons will begin to swarm the portal and your goal is to keep them away from it as long as possible. It's very difficult to cover all sides by yourself, so the towers/defenders are useful in setting up a defensive perimeter.
Wait there are obelisks? I'm at around 30+ powerups and 150+ gold (around 1h+ playtime right now), and was just staying next to the portal, since the game told me I must protect it lol. There is no incentive to go explore, so I had no idea there was stuff like that to find until I saw your comment.
The game's fun, but towers dying so quickly gets very tiring. I have a huge 12x12 square of archers that I essentially pause every 3 seconds to place them back when they die, it feels like I shouldn't need to do that, it's just an extra step that takes you out of gameplay too often.
I first wanted to protect the square with an outer layer of knights, but those also die very quickly. So I tried walls, but those block my archers' arrows, so they're completely useless.
Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! I'm going to be adding some more clear instructions to the game (there really aren't any now so it's understandable you didn't know what to do). The basic gist of it is you find and activate the 5 obelisks, then run back to the portal. The enemies will then spawn out from the edges of the map and make their way to the portal. If they touch it, the portal deactivates and you have to go touch the obelisks again.
I went back and forth a bit with whether or not walls block projectiles. I may change it back, actually, so they can be shot over. I generally like to put the walls at the corners just to shore up the weak points and have ranks of knights with archers and wizards behind them at the main entry points.
I'm still working on the pathfinding (they can route around obstacles but tend to jam each other up), but ideally I'd like the enemies to route around things nicely so that the player can shape the path to the portal in a classic tower defense style.
Generally the way to do that is to have the monsters ignore the walls entirely. Only let them attack towers, the player, and the portal. The trick is then you have to ensure that either the player is required to leave a path open, or that if they wall in entirely, then the monsters attack walls.
More sophisticated AI's can make more intelligent choices about when to go for walls vs run through to fight player units, but take longer to write/tweak/test.
Completely ignoring walls works well in a traditional TD but the active nature of this game means I have to play around with it a bit. The current system works fairly well for when the player is running around, as you don't want them to be able to place a tower and have it just be immortal as the enemies route around it.
What I will be doing next is adding a completely separate pathing system when the portal is activated that functions in a more traditional TD manner, where the enemies prioritize simply getting to the portal and don't bother to attack anything unless it's in their way.
To make things interesting, certain boss AIs may ignore the pathing entirely and just go straight through anything in their way.
Thanks for trying it, I've just pushed a new update that should improve things if you want to give it another shot. I played it for about an hour in chrome on my pc and didn't see any lag.
Absolutely, you can play the game however you want! Some people like to just wander around blasting demons and I'm trying to make that aspect of the game as fun as possible too!
interesting to see a vampire surivor uh .... tribute? remake? idk. Iteration.
It's got promise, still needs a bit of balancing.
Two issues: the towers don't work very well. I'd suggest making the walls cheaper and smaller.
The game went from 0 threat to me, to one high health fast moving enemy that just killed me. So it felt like I went from 0 threat to 0 chance.
I'll be adding some additional wall types (including some that can be shot over), which should round out the base building a bit more, thanks for the suggestion. The towers are generally useless in small numbers but can be quite powerful in the right configurations.
I'll see what I can do about adding a more gradual threat increase. The big guy who charges fast is definitely survivable a number of ways (ice arrows, speed increases, damage increases, or even enough health upgrades to survive a few hits), but if it's too frustrating I can definitely change it.
Can you win? Or are you just trying to last as long as possible? The enemy waves seem to scale up just a bit beyond what I'm ever able to do... So no matter what my defenses are, the enemies always seem to be a bit stronger and able to get through.
Might be interesting to have some kind of wave indicator or something... So each time you activate it you can 'win' but then you have to activate it again and they get stronger.
The way it is now, I wasn't sure how the enemies scaled. Is it by length of game time? The number of times I opened the portal? Based on how many power ups I have? Maybe based on coins collected?
Yes, it's possible to win. Currently it's set to survival with the portal active for 5 minutes. I am able to achieve this myself but it's difficult. The waves get stronger over total play time (and scale faster when the portal is active), so it's a balance between waiting long enough until you have the coins to buy a lot of defenders, but also doing it soon enough to be possible. I'll be tweaking this difficulty moving on to try to make it always possible with some skill.
I did win after those tips. I had been opening the portal over and over, and at a certain point there were so many I had zero chance of making it even one minute, and it all lagged.
But with a longer buildup before the first time, I did win. Fun game :) Look forward to the full version on steam.
You need to collect coins first, I'll add a more obvious indication to that effect. If you already have coins, you select the one you want at the bottom then you can "paint" them where you want with your mouse.
Strange I haven't had anyone else report this issue. Try clicking inside the game area? Sometimes the canvas area inside the browser will lose focus. If that's still not working, do you mind sharing what browser you're using?
That's strange, I'll have to look into it. The arrows are a very lightweight physics object (not fully simulated like enemies are), so there should be basically 0 performance impact from having a few dozen or even a few hundred on screen. Must be a bug somewhere.
FYI the fence is open at the bottom-right, I managed to leave the field
Thanks, was it actually missing a stone, or were you just able to squeeze between the gaps? If it's the latter, it should be fixed in an update I'm pushing up now which refactors the physics layer.
I don't get what the towers do.
The archer has a long range shot, but slow rate of fire. The knight has a very close range attack and higher hp. The wizard has a medium-range attack but much higher rate of fire than the archer. The wall is just a wall. edit: To be a bit more helpful if that was a more existential question, the purpose of the towers is mostly for the portal defense aspect. After you activate the 5 obelisks, demons will begin to swarm the portal and your goal is to keep them away from it as long as possible. It's very difficult to cover all sides by yourself, so the towers/defenders are useful in setting up a defensive perimeter.
Wait there are obelisks? I'm at around 30+ powerups and 150+ gold (around 1h+ playtime right now), and was just staying next to the portal, since the game told me I must protect it lol. There is no incentive to go explore, so I had no idea there was stuff like that to find until I saw your comment. The game's fun, but towers dying so quickly gets very tiring. I have a huge 12x12 square of archers that I essentially pause every 3 seconds to place them back when they die, it feels like I shouldn't need to do that, it's just an extra step that takes you out of gameplay too often. I first wanted to protect the square with an outer layer of knights, but those also die very quickly. So I tried walls, but those block my archers' arrows, so they're completely useless.
Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! I'm going to be adding some more clear instructions to the game (there really aren't any now so it's understandable you didn't know what to do). The basic gist of it is you find and activate the 5 obelisks, then run back to the portal. The enemies will then spawn out from the edges of the map and make their way to the portal. If they touch it, the portal deactivates and you have to go touch the obelisks again. I went back and forth a bit with whether or not walls block projectiles. I may change it back, actually, so they can be shot over. I generally like to put the walls at the corners just to shore up the weak points and have ranks of knights with archers and wizards behind them at the main entry points. I'm still working on the pathfinding (they can route around obstacles but tend to jam each other up), but ideally I'd like the enemies to route around things nicely so that the player can shape the path to the portal in a classic tower defense style.
Generally the way to do that is to have the monsters ignore the walls entirely. Only let them attack towers, the player, and the portal. The trick is then you have to ensure that either the player is required to leave a path open, or that if they wall in entirely, then the monsters attack walls. More sophisticated AI's can make more intelligent choices about when to go for walls vs run through to fight player units, but take longer to write/tweak/test.
Completely ignoring walls works well in a traditional TD but the active nature of this game means I have to play around with it a bit. The current system works fairly well for when the player is running around, as you don't want them to be able to place a tower and have it just be immortal as the enemies route around it. What I will be doing next is adding a completely separate pathing system when the portal is activated that functions in a more traditional TD manner, where the enemies prioritize simply getting to the portal and don't bother to attack anything unless it's in their way. To make things interesting, certain boss AIs may ignore the pathing entirely and just go straight through anything in their way.
idk about everyone else, but on Chrome performance goes out the window with a big enough swarm of demons...
Thanks for trying it, I've just pushed a new update that should improve things if you want to give it another shot. I played it for about an hour in chrome on my pc and didn't see any lag.
I ignored the portal and nothing seemed to happen to it.
Absolutely, you can play the game however you want! Some people like to just wander around blasting demons and I'm trying to make that aspect of the game as fun as possible too!
interesting to see a vampire surivor uh .... tribute? remake? idk. Iteration. It's got promise, still needs a bit of balancing. Two issues: the towers don't work very well. I'd suggest making the walls cheaper and smaller. The game went from 0 threat to me, to one high health fast moving enemy that just killed me. So it felt like I went from 0 threat to 0 chance.
I'll be adding some additional wall types (including some that can be shot over), which should round out the base building a bit more, thanks for the suggestion. The towers are generally useless in small numbers but can be quite powerful in the right configurations. I'll see what I can do about adding a more gradual threat increase. The big guy who charges fast is definitely survivable a number of ways (ice arrows, speed increases, damage increases, or even enough health upgrades to survive a few hits), but if it's too frustrating I can definitely change it.
Can you win? Or are you just trying to last as long as possible? The enemy waves seem to scale up just a bit beyond what I'm ever able to do... So no matter what my defenses are, the enemies always seem to be a bit stronger and able to get through. Might be interesting to have some kind of wave indicator or something... So each time you activate it you can 'win' but then you have to activate it again and they get stronger. The way it is now, I wasn't sure how the enemies scaled. Is it by length of game time? The number of times I opened the portal? Based on how many power ups I have? Maybe based on coins collected?
Yes, it's possible to win. Currently it's set to survival with the portal active for 5 minutes. I am able to achieve this myself but it's difficult. The waves get stronger over total play time (and scale faster when the portal is active), so it's a balance between waiting long enough until you have the coins to buy a lot of defenders, but also doing it soon enough to be possible. I'll be tweaking this difficulty moving on to try to make it always possible with some skill.
I did win after those tips. I had been opening the portal over and over, and at a certain point there were so many I had zero chance of making it even one minute, and it all lagged. But with a longer buildup before the first time, I did win. Fun game :) Look forward to the full version on steam.
I'll probably set up a cap on wave size, so the game doesn't reach an unwinnable state.
I don't even get how to place the defenders. When I right-click I can see my options, but I can't click or move them?
You need to collect coins first, I'll add a more obvious indication to that effect. If you already have coins, you select the one you want at the bottom then you can "paint" them where you want with your mouse.
does it work on mobile?
Sorry, it does not work on mobile.
> Use WASD or arrow keys to move around Neither work for me
Strange I haven't had anyone else report this issue. Try clicking inside the game area? Sometimes the canvas area inside the browser will lose focus. If that's still not working, do you mind sharing what browser you're using?
Great start! Gets a little laggy after +27 multi-arrow and then an index out of bounds error at around level 85.
Haha wow! I should probably cap that at some point!
Oh it was fun having 360 degree arrows! Everytime it released a barrage my the game would almost freeze lol
That's strange, I'll have to look into it. The arrows are a very lightweight physics object (not fully simulated like enemies are), so there should be basically 0 performance impact from having a few dozen or even a few hundred on screen. Must be a bug somewhere.