I'm working on a video game with @TobiasVyseri. A small tower defense game, a satire of the classic Flash tower defense genre that was popular before Flash's demise. 2D, 10-30 levels.
Neither of us have ever designed a video game before, but we are serious about it; she's already made a lot of the art assets, and I'm learning Godot and have a prototype that is playable albeit extremely simple and boring.
Counts as released if any member of the public can play it without needing to contact me or jump through other hoops. An open beta counts, a closed beta does not. A demo version does not count. A version only available from my website, not yet approved by distributors (e.g. app stores, Steam) does count.
Update 2025-03-06 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Minimum Quality Standard Update:
The game must not be a lazy, unfinished demo.
For a paid release, at least one person the creator does not know must be willing to pay for it.
For a free release, at least one person the creator does not know must explicitly say they enjoyed playing it.
1,000People are also trading
@IsaacKing did you ever play the tower defense game "Antbuster"? imo one of the greatest free online flash games ever made
@bens I tried it a long time ago but didn't like it. I'm trying to play it now but it's nearly unplayable. The visual design is terrible, I can barely read the text. And it keeps prohibiting me from placing towers without any indication why... Nice concept but seems poorly executed.
My favorites were Bloons TD 3&4, The Space Game, and Vector TD. Core Defense is also really nice, more recently.
@IsaacKing this antbuster? https://armorgames.com/play/522/antbuster
I like it because the ants adapt and learn to avoid the towers by following the trails of those that survived, the completely open architecture is kind of unique, and the pie stealing dynamic is pretty clever and adds a whole other layer of complexity.
the graphics are crude, but I think it was designed by one dude (Marcel Stein) for fun
plus the tech tree and synergies between the towers results in a lot of amusing strategies
@bens Oh so that's what their pathfinding is. I noticed they were avoiding my towers but only intermittently. Clever.
What synergies do you have in mind?
@mongo Yes, self-respect. I don't put lazy unfinished creations on my website.
If you want something more objective, let's say at least one person I don't know must be willing to pay for it, or if I release it for free, someone tells me they enjoyed playing it, or something to that effect.
@IsaacKing Good luck, I'm rooting for you! Gamedev is notoriously fraught though, (I have projects that I haven't publicly released even when in some cases it'd be minimal effort to do so...) so I'm betting NO on priors