Posts made by Scubadoo2

I'm doing something new by typing this out as I go through the game so it might be jumpy. Also, if you want a summary of what I thought of the game, I have a TL:JWF at the bottom.

The intro is nice, telling us about the history so things tie together, but it will only keep going if I click in the actual text area. I was keeping my mouse way out of the way so it wouldn't be distracting, but it wouldn't go on until I clicked in the text area.

Got to the dream scene and explored a tiny bit before the spawns came in. Thought I could just go around them like in the previous build to see how big the area is, but when trying to go back got completely killed before getting to where I started. I more blame myself trying to explore and not take the hint when the spawns were way too far ahead to try outrunning the creatures.

Now at home, getting the main talk from Dwerv's father. Pressed a couple buttons to move the text along, but apparently only space works (found that quickly at least). Still like the story setup.

Doing the tutorial on "How to be a Warsmith". Just got the spinner turret and the info box that pops up had the mouse icon on it as well. Just a little bit distracting, but I wasn't using the mouse at all. The shadow-turret where it shows you were to put it still to me seems to disappear way too quickly. Maybe if there was a slight fading transition so that I know it is disappearing or just have it dissapear when I am right on the spot for the turret would be nice.

Birds on the log when you start going out. Nice touch! Also tested out the turret on the first slimes. Feels so good being able to take swarms. Also just noticed that the icon colors change when it's about to spawn baddies, and it isn't hooked up to the timer. It seems to change color when they will spawn in... 3 seconds? That was very handy when figuring out when I should remake my turret.

Just got to the bridge and found a problem, one of the bees wasn't close enough to the turret to get hit, but was able to attack it still. Not sure if the turret was too close so it didn't need to even move or just a strange once-in-a-blue moon chances, but I was able to still pass it after taking some hits. I didn't get the picture of it attacking, but it was this bridge.

Those color warning really helped with the main fight in front of the... pub? brew storage?... I forgot. Aerie is still cute! Not sure how he knew I was using turrets while he was stuck in a building and stuffed with honeydew ale, but I'm probably overthinking it. Probably just looked out the window.

Just noticed that your grandpa tells you how to control which turret gets taken down when he gives you the other two power stones. I just figured it out on my own the previous times. Good thing I listned too, because it seems to be which one is closest to where you are facing and not just the closest one.

FLOWER SPIDERS!!!... also tried cutting wheat again. no luck.

Just saw the orcs. Devious little plan. I always found it strange that they talk about their plan while facing you, yet never notice you. O well, need to fight these boars... and took a big beating from them too. Didn't notice the one that spawned behind me.

... Hold on, Dwerv's father knows about the turrets too? So what part of the fade-into-myth-and-bedtine-stories is the part people no longer believed? Or is Dwerv's family the only ones left that remember it? I can get grandpa since he had the power stones and the workshop. I can get Aerie since I assume he's Dwerv's grampa's pet. But his father too?

The boomerang is back! Didn't expect it to come back since this is mainly about turrets, but I wonder if this means breakable boxes are back too.

... That was a close one. You guys ramped up the difficulty on this one. This definitely felt like a major challenge.

... I want to smack that chieftain. Not believing the ones that actually stayed back. Not to mention that there are also no Elfairie bodies either... speaking of which, I haven't really seen any sign of a battle. Also considering that Dwerv's dad was the only one left behind, I'm surprised that they needed to send pigs in to eat the bodies. He could have just stood there and fought all the pigs at... I'm going to stop criticizing the story, we are here for gameplay, not nit-picking a story apart.

Whew, my health healed up going into the next zone. was worried I'd have to do the rest with just 1 hitpoint. Good thing too. Now I know these arrow turrets are fragile. The bees took out one of them. Luckily that gave me some gems to put down a spinner turret for the boars to fight. Also feels strange trying to be close to the fight now that I have a boomerang to help take down enemies.

Got the key! Found the treasure, and inside was... armor and some gears? I can get the gears, they seem to be the currency in this world, but what do I do with the armor? In fact, where did it go?

And now just leaned that boars outrun arrows. need to remember that.

Well, this island was interesting:

Thought I could put crossbows on the two divots on the outside. Nope, first wave boars. Went with the bow-and-spinner tactic which turned out really well. Didn't even get hit. Really helps that bees go after anything that is close to them, so just make sure you put a spinner in their way and everything should turn out well.

... Is this a bug (no pun intended, but very fitting). These spiders aren't chasing me.

Used this time to test out power of my crossbow and boomerang... for some reason the boomerang is stronger.

... Had to stop for now, will add on when after a good night's rest.

Good rest, now back to Dwerve.I knew it wasn't going to save my progress since this is an alpha, so this is a good time to test some more things out.

Played the intro again. Decided to do it the "intended" way and run from anything that spawned. First thing I get is boars. Tried going down another path, but the boars caught up to me very quickly and liked me before I can even see if I could go down there. Felt more like I lost a race instead of being surrounded.

Back at home, I decided to do some exploring and see the place around the house before getting trained. Nice touch of having some dialog for the clothes so I know you don't mind people exploring a bit. Found out I could go around the house... or more behind the house. Got all the way up to here and stopped by some water. Just fill in that square there and I wouldn't have to do a "long" trek back around.

Things going normal so far, and unfortunately ran into that same thing where the bee can out range my spinner turret. Different spot this time too. I still wasn't able to get a picture, but now I'm thinking that it can barely outreach it if in the right spot. Other than that, this going pretty smoothly. The spiders that were bugs the last time worked now as well, so I don't know what happened.

Finally to where I left off last time... How does the merchant even know about turr... wait, he's been watching me. That's probably it. Really need to stop nit-picking the story.

... HOLD ON A MINUTE I WAS LITERALLY RIGHT AT THE END?!?!... O well. At least I got to see some other stuff like if that glitch was permanent and whatnot.

Here is some TL:JWF (Too long, just want feedback)

• The intro went from being able to explore every nook and cranny before the enemies could even hit you to I can barely move anywhere without one catching up and killing me. Needs to be at least some balance so that people can't get to the edge but you properly get surrounded before you get smacked.

• I really like the approach of the tutorial on how you learn the controls and then just go out and test it. Maybe you should have the gameplay text in a different color so that we can better see what is the story and what we should know.

• Everything is at least manageable. Haven't died once, but got pretty close to dying a couple times, and this is from someone who played this a couple times.

• Double check the range of the beefairies because it seems like their range is equal to the spinner and they can get in the right spot with some luck to hit it without my turret hitting it back.

• There is one main hole in the story that the warsmiths and trolls turned into fairy tales and yet almost everyone knows about them. The chieftain is the only one that doesn't know that trolls are real, and I'm not sure if he knows about turrets.

• Put some bodies in the town so that it seems like there was a fight going on. It looked like they just destroyed the village while (almost) everyone was away, but they sent in pigs to eat the corpses. At least some blood stains not from the pigs would work.

Sorry about the last two, I am a person that loves the stories in games and those were some big holes.

First thing that I did when I started was to go to the practice since I prefer to know what I am going to have.

It was a bit confusing at first since I didn't get the tutorial part of the actual game. I could get a basis of what I could do from the screen, but it took me some time to figure out that the workbench wasn't a pause screen but the actual tool bench in the game. It also was confusing figuring out how to get different towers assigned to to my loadout. Also, when going to one of the highlights of where to put a tower, it completely disappears so I wouldn't remember which tower I was supposed to place. Maybe if they came back if nothing is placed there it would help.

Then I finally tried the Story Mode.

This was definitely more of the tutorial than what I thought the practice realm would be. The first level was able to teach me what to do with the towers, especially with taking them down. Was able to get pass the tutorial parts with ease until the big trolls showed up and started taking down my towers. With them I ended up doing ring-aroun-the-rosie, placing towers down to eventually kill them.

After the part where you flip the switches to open the gate (and tried to let those bear-guys pass by, but they just stop half way down the path) is when it started getting tricky. Since I'm not that skilled in tower defense, I didn't know good placements of towers unless they were specifically shown or hinted at. Even with my lack of skill, I didn't feel like it was too difficult. Sometimes I would feel cheated when spawn points would appear where I wasn't looking and get surprised when they run up right next to me.

In the castle is where I felt like the tutorial left and it now was showing me what the game was supposed to be about. Yes, there were some places where it would show me how to use a new tower, but that wasn't bad since it felt like it was just showing what the new tower did. with a complete roster of towers it felt like I was going to do the battles my way and not just the "right" way, but many of the battle rooms still felt like there was a "right" way; especially when I felt cheap-shotted when walls would break down and I wouldn't realize it until they were destroying my towers. It also felt cheap when the camps would change the units that spawned.The new waves required a different set of towers to take care of them and I wouldn't realize they were there until they were already on top of me.

The very last part right before you ended story mode was pretty good, but since there was no tool bench to change my loadout, I felt limited on what I could do (and I missed my spin blades). The changing waves also made it feel like you were supposed to die to figure out what to do the next attempt. It was satisfying when I would figure out one part, but then the next one would show up and start destroying my towers because they couldn't reach or were too tough for them to get killed quickly. I don't mind the change, but there is no warning when they change so it requires quick reflexes to put down new towers before the old ones are destroyed. The very final wave also felt like a cheap shot because they all spawn down at the bottom part of the map, but then start going up since the wall is now destroyed.

Overall, I think this is a great game so far, and the only problems that I have I think can be fixed with these changes:

• When a camp spawns in, put some sort of emphasis on it so that we know it is there.
• Have some sort of symbol over the camps to show what they are going to spawn, like swords and axes or bows
• The walls are only destroyed when the previous wave is completely gone and then put some sort of emphasis on it so that we know they are now gone.

Hope that this helps.