Complete: Weather the Swarm

Hello, I just wanted to mention my first Construct 2 game, Weather the Swarm. Though I am posting this in the finished creations section, I am still very much open to any feedback about the game and I am actively patching it and solving issues. Let me know what you think, and if it makes sense to me, I will tweak the game. Thanks!

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/strategy-games/weather-the-swarm-14437

Description:

Weather the Swarm is a strategic game in which the player must construct unique turrets, barricades, and traps in order to hold off an invasion for as long as possible. Force your enemies to take the most difficult paths, skewer them with spike traps, riddle them with arrows, freeze them with unstable cryo-mass, and much more. Unlock abilities and research new technologies in order to ensure your defenses will hold. Dynamic and randomly generated enemies make it unlikely that two waves spawn with exactly the same composition. wave after wave will crash down upon you, but you must weather the swarm.

For more information please visit my website: http://keithjohnstondesigns.com/weather_the_swarm.html

Notes:

• This version of the game only uses .ogg audio files in order to meet Scirra's file size limit.
• The "Tutorial" link on the main menu sends the player to a how-to video on Youtube, but links to other web pages are blocked while the game is hosted by Scirra.
• When played on mobile, less powerful devices often suffer from v-ram limitations, causing the game to crash.

wow.. tons of work.. great job.

2 critical comments:

1) the tutorial is VERY wordy and there are some bugs when you are playing like sections get cut off if some other event happens. Instead of fixing that I would look into UX type improvements where you can communicate functionality with a visual opposed to having to narrate it. For example, don't tell them about the NEXT WAVE button, it's flashing, that's good.. but also make the button swell in size with a Sine behavior.. that will unmistakenly catch someone's eye as to what to do. No need for wordy text or narration. Most people playing have played games and understand what to do when a button is flashing and hoping up and down. - but honestly I didn't see the flashing alone..not until the narration mentioned it.. it was too subtle to pick up visually. So I would add some sort of size animation to it.

2) I don't understand the infection mechanic.. I like the idea of it, but it seems unbalanced. I don't get enough money between rounds to replace those towers.. I saw no way to heal them or remove them once infected. The tutorial says something about barriers help prevent infection, I didn't understand how though. Another thing, a shadow or a grid system might help me know where to place a tower or barricade...it could also explain how to prevent an infection showing me possible places. Right now when I place a piece.. I'm not entirely sure how the enemies route will be changed..until I actually place it..which is too late. I don't mind that trial and error - but don't make the enemies so hard then.. I died on easy by the 3 wave more than once!

Thank you for taking the time to play the game, I appreciate your honest input!

1) You definitely have a point about the tutorial. I am not happy with it in the least. I originally released the game without a narrative tutorial, but many people who tested the game rejected it simply because they were confused and did not understand how to play, which surprised me. I put in the tutorial as a half-assed way to explain the core mechanics and it ended up being more work than i intended and got a little lengthy. I will look into implementing a better non-verbal tutorial in the future, I am just swamped with other things at the moment, but I can definitely make that button animate to draw attention to it.

2) In regards to the infection mechanic, this is how it is supposed to function: A drone infects a random turret every so often, if the turret is not selected and the signal is not jammed (via the console where you can match the nodes and the frequency of the drone) the infection will slowly spread, at an increasing rate, to nearby turrets. To bring up the console, simply select an infected turret and match the sliders to obtain a reward and restore all infected turrets. The sliders as well as the frequency selector both turn green if the signal is properly adjusted.

It seems to me like the console to restore the turrets was not opening for you, for some reason? I understand that the mechanic itself isn't as intuitive as I would like it to be.

Additionally, you can refer to my website for more information, as it explains the various turrets in a little more detail:

http://keithjohnstondesigns.com/weather_the_swarm.html

It was bugging me today - I made an entirely new tutorial, which is now live. Thanks for mentioning it, lol.

cool! I like the swelling "!" so I can click for help when I'm ready or on my own accord. excellent.

because of that I now understand you have to "fight" the infected towers with a minigame... AWESOME idea.. except.. I don't "get" the minigame. I move the circles to where the red (I assume infected path) is and I get a good *click+beep* feedback, but it doesn't seem to fix the turret!

again, not sure what I'm supposed to do there, but, prompt me by making something swell and/or flash. After I move the circles they seem to lock into place, there's seems to be nothing more I can do...and the tower is still infected.

don't tell me the answer, just update your game and tell me when you do and I'll test it...

also put a CLOSE "X" or some way to close those "!" help popups.. when I click off them, I'm prompted with the green shadow of placing a tower wherever I happend to click.. which I don't mean to do.. so allow me to click without making misclicks..

one further comment regarding that green shadow of what tower will go down.. I find it a little too much to see it cycling through the choices, I think it would be better to just highlight and have a glowing flash on the menu which is always up anyhow...

also can you do grid snapping for the mouse when in placement mode?

Your suggestions have made their way into the game and are currently live.

Great observations, thank you. Feel free to let me know if my "fixes" don't address your problems well enough.