u/je386

A few days ago, I got a very honest and harsh, devastating but helpful, critique some days ago.

I thought I had finished the game and "only" had to bring it to more platforms and do marketing, but now I know I have to redesign and rethink to make the game fun to play so that players will stay longer than 4 or 5 levels.

I already have more complicated mechanics in later gameplay, but noone sees these if the players jump off early.

I have some ideas about new mechanics to make the game more interesting, but I am not sure in how to make interesting, coherent levels with a good gradual increase of complexity out of them.

I need help from a level designer or at least some material to learn more about level design.

I am developing Defender of Egril, a Turn-Based Tower Defense Game in a Fantasy setting.

Now I would like to add Villains, which should be kinds Boss enemies, but I am struggling on what special abilities they could have.

At the moment, enemy units have levels, health points and movement points.

Some are immune to some attacks.

There are normal units like wizards which can summon deamons, green Witches which can heal enemy units and red witches which can disable Towers for a while.

Also, there is the end boss Ewhad, which summons a bunch of deamons which get mightier from turn to turn.

I am thinking about bosses which give bonusses to enemy units, like speed, health points.. or could split enemy units in two..

Maybe a large troll which can throw other units towards the target..

But I would like to hear your ideas.

When using AI generated music, sounds, images or videos, people often talk back and tell about "AI slop" or "stealing from the artists" and so on. You know what I mean.

When disclosing that AI was used for the code, noone seems to be interested. And somehow I feel this is unfair, as if programming and software development in general was seen as less worthy than the elements that come from "artists".

So, I would like to hear what others think about this and have ideas why this might be the case (also welcome to discuss if you think the whole think is bullshit).

I made a game that is available for a bunch of platforms as a hobby project.

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Now my problem is how to get players to know and try it. What makes this easier is that it does not cost money, what makes this harder is that I have close to no budget.

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So far, I try posting on some fitting subreddits, also I made some stickers and give them to people I meet.

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But there should be more options for someone with no marketing experience, right?

_Defender of Egril_ is a Turn-Based Tower Defense Game in a Fantasy setting.

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You build towers like spear, bow or wizard towers to defend against enemies like goblins, orcs and evil mages, which can summon demons. You can decide yourself which tower aims at which enemy and let the automatic handle the other towers.

Of cause, you can earn coins from defeating enemies and buy more towers or upgrade the existing ones.

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In later game, you can use ability points you earned with experience to learn spells or gain abilities that will help to fend of mighty enemies, in the last levels even the mighty Ewhad himself.

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You can download it for windows, mac, linux and android:

https://defender.egril.de/download

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Of cause, the start page is also available:

https://defender.egril.de

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You can get the android version on the play store

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.egril.defender

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The game is and will be free of charge, without in app purchases or ads and is open source.

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Written in Kotlin Multiplatform with Compose Multiplatform, Frontend and Backend, for Desktop, Mobile, Web.

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Code: see

https://github.com/julianegner/defender-of-egril

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It has been 10 days since I got production access, which I needed to make some changes.

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So, today I hit that release button, thinking it might take 2 to 3 days, and I want to show it to some people on saturday.

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First, I got an Error, because my data-privacy page was displayed to the user, but before, a HTTP 404 was thrown, and the prod release tool did not like that. So I changed the logic on the website and send the change to google.

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In the end, it was about 3 hours, max 4, between the applying to release and the actual release.

I want to export a map, but I need a fixed image size (in pixels). Is that possible in the paid Version?

So far, I only checked out the demo, and before I buy the app, I would like to know if this is possible, as this is the thing without the app would be not the right tool for me.

Background: I wrote a while ago with the creator of Canvas of Kings that I am thinking about using some images made with the app for a computer game I am developing, and he said it is okay to do so.

Edit: another option would be to import an image and then put the elements on it.

I hear so much about revenue, about wishlists, steam capsules.. but my game is not on steam and there is no price on it, it is free and will stay free*.

So, all I want is people to play it.

How does that affect the marketing? How do I get people to recognize and try the game?

It is available on web, desktop and android (sideloading for now, but on play store in about a week) and it seems most people try it in the browser first, which makes sense as there is nothing to install.

* It is free and will stay free because it is open source under AGPL.

So, I have prod access now, but the play store capsule (app page) is not up to date.

So, as I have to work on that anyway, are there any hints and tips for that?

I guess that having a small video and some photos of the gameplay together with a text that describes the game in a way that sounds interesting should be the way, right?

Closed Testing is done, production access is requested... now what? Just wait or do more updates to show activity?

Any ideas or hints?

I added support for different color weaknesses, high contrast, messages about sounds, less motion option, keyboard-only navigation, mouse/tab only navigation, keybind changing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DefenderOfEgril/s/2iduBhjUeg

This is all in the settings and should be usable, but can users really get into the settings and adjust them to their needs or are there hidden hurdles that prevent them?

I imagine than for people with visual disablities it might be hard to find the settings and set them and giving a way to set them from another place or have larger settings elements might help.

I already have a direct link to the settings

https://defender.egril.de/settings

But do I also need direkt deep links to the individual tabs of the settings? Is there something I can do to make using the settings and the app easier?