hold the fort you say ? its more like hold the fart
Reviews for "Hold the Fort!"
Excellent game, especially for a first one published. Few things which crossed my mind, though:
1. In-combat repair was really powerful. 3-6 survivors on repair duty make it almost unnecessary to worry about damage, as long as you play good enough. Second problem is that it makes it almost unnecessary to spend stamina on repairs - you can just repair completely in the first half of the night.
2. Traps are borderline useless because of these hoppers. You rarely has time to take care of them, and by the time your first barricade is broken, most of your traps are very likely to be disarmed by these little buggers.
3. Hives and piglets are fun in theory, but in practice they are covered by toads in 90% of cases. This turns them from enjoyable "priority target" type of enemy (which is fun and actually challenging), into annoying "I hope I'll kill these toads fast enough" type of enemy.
4. In case of defeat, replaying the same mission with easier difficulty is a bullshit - sorry, but it really is. If I fail, I do not want the game to be like condescending kindergarten teacher, I want to replay it on the same difficulty, but with different tactics. Maybe at least ask your players what do they want?
5. Best way to train new heroes is to assign non-heroes as leaders. Combined with "illness" mechanic, it makes you simply ignore your heroes for the most of the game. And this is twice as bad because these perks are extremely powerful.
6. Last boss was epic :D Definitely was worth waiting for. It is a bit sad that he simply ignores all of your barricades, though. Also, a bit too easy.
Of course, these suggestions are not really for this game - I write them here in case you will make another game. And, dude, I will be really happy if you do! Keep up your work, it is actually awesome.
a7s1h1 responds:
Thank you very much for such a detailed feedback! I'll try my best to use all your hints in my future projects!
As others have mentioned, this is awesome for a first game! - but it does have its drawbacks.
Something about the balance doesn't seem right, I reached the end of the game with just one or two heroes, then continued playing to find out about the other perks but it's gotten tiring. When I try to train an archer to become a hero, I choose him as the leader, but then I don't have the chance to enjoy the perks of heroes I already have...
Archers with less than maximal strength are quite limited with their range, which makes them problematic as leaders. But being a leader is the best way to level up, so it's a dilemma.
It would have been nice also to be able to drink a potion when I want, not automatically, rather than be left with a bunch of tired archers.
I did like the variety of enemies, the time management, the graphics were quite nice - not very good but their cartoonish style makes it all look fine :) I'd love to see an improved version in the future.
a7s1h1 responds:
Thanks for the review! I was aware of most of the drawbacks people complaining about. But unfortunately not all problems can be solved as easily and fast, as I desire.
Not bad, but not knowing what perks give is kinda stupid.
Potion work stupid, you can make them 3 times effective just taking leader as somebody with low endurance and every sentry will have around 900+ stamina by using 4-5 potion (they do more damage than you and having rest of them repair you can practically shoot only for losing stamina and getting those 85%+ accuracy) in that way I could do 2 times train and one rest, making few potions and again next day i have 900+ stamina for sentries.
Game is way to ease, boss is boring, starting lag on levels 20+.
Tips going randomly is bad design, I found out that tip with 85% accuracy near end of the game.
Ill effect it was meh, I just changed to other sentry what didn't had max endurance that additional 1 or 2 skill points is better than playing by hero class (seriously they are not even that good)
I only played it longer because of my stupidity to want to know whats are other perks (then maybe its not so bad design, but it was tedious not fun at all)
a7s1h1 responds:
Thanks for your feedback and insistence:)!
Nice game, one thing would make it a five star.
I didn't understand how one of the hero powers worked (I thought that the builder perk would make him super effective on repair duty), and so did a stupid setup, so I lost - that's fine, I did something stupid, I lost. Nicely, I get an option to try again, but - I have to try *with the same setup*. Even though the retry is easier, if my setup is really bad, I have no chance to beat the level. If I could redo the setup, I could probably beat it, but as it is, there is no point.
I am not sure whether or not losing multiple times makes it get progressively easier and easier, if so, maybe after dying 10 times I could beat it, but that makes the whole thing pretty pointless. Given that this is more a strategy game than anything else, and that there is a limit to how much difference your actual in game performance has an effect, I should be able to play around with strategy.
So overall really really nice game, good mechanics, nice graphics, good physics for the controls, but please redo the losing mechanic, and let me redo my setup (preferably including the three action points per soldier, as these can be critical to success).
One more thing - I personally would prefer a perk mechanic where I know exactly what I'm choosing. Given the effort it takes to reach hero, it is very annoying to end up with a perk I don't want. Even more importantly - once I have picked a perk, it should tell me *exactly* what effect it has on mechanics, and not just give me a general description.
a7s1h1 responds:
Thanks for a detailed review! Initially perks were completely random, but its probably the reight idead to make them visible, I'll think about it.
The game becomes easier with each defeat: there is an inner parameter - enemy points, which determines the limits of random combination of the enemies in the waves. Each time you win it rises, each time you lose it falls. But if rising is X, the fall is 1.5X. So after winning 3 times and loosing only 2 times after that you'll fall back to the initial difficulty.