Tower Defense/Strategy game

Hello everybody!

So, my game is finished and will be released on Steam on the 12th of October. Just figured I post here and promote it a little bit and see what you guys think about it :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/947300/Grim_Nights/

Also, here's a trailer for the game, I really recommend that you view it in 720, or even better 1080:


PS: Once again, many thanks to all of you who gave me valuable feedback and everybody posting here in general, great community and browsing around here always gives me inspiration and helps me out when in need!
 

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andev

Member
If you want to start a new project, there's not much point fighting it if you've lost all motivation for this one. I haven't tried it yet but from the screenshots you've got a really good base so far. The art is really nice and the concept looks good. If you're ready to drop it, you could just put on the final polish and maybe put it on Steam to see how it does?
 
If you want to start a new project, there's not much point fighting it if you've lost all motivation for this one. I haven't tried it yet but from the screenshots you've got a really good base so far. The art is really nice and the concept looks good. If you're ready to drop it, you could just put on the final polish and maybe put it on Steam to see how it does?
Thanks a lot for taking your time to reply, and for the nice comments! In agony I shall contemplate!
 

Geoff Jones

Member
Love the concept. I had fun playing it until my village was quickly overrun by a marauding mob of unstoppable monsters.... The difficulty curve may need to be adjusted somewhat.
 
Love the concept. I had fun playing it until my village was quickly overrun by a marauding mob of unstoppable monsters.... The difficulty curve may need to be adjusted somewhat.
Thanks! And about the difficulty curve... aye, that is probably true.

And now I just realised the version I uploaded had the wrong time setting, so this would explain alot. I will fix this right away, otherwise it will be near impossible to manage the first wave. My bad! And thanks for pointing it out.

Edit: And now it is done. Game now starts at 6 am, instead of 5 pm =)
 
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Geoff Jones

Member
You took an hour of my life :p I was having a lot of fun. The start time def helped a lot. I got through the first and 2nd night, then thought I could pause it by pressing ESC... It closed the game :(
But seriously, great game. With some polish, you could have a gem here. Don't give up on it.

Some bugs and quirks I noticed:
The archers will shoot at zombies from the tower that are in the mines underground
selecting multiple people will jumble them up on the screen.
Maybe make it so that people can move from underground to upper ground without clicking the stairs icon.
Maybe add an option to demolish buildings
 
You took an hour of my life :p I was having a lot of fun. The start time def helped a lot. I got through the first and 2nd night, then thought I could pause it by pressing ESC... It closed the game :(
But seriously, great game. With some polish, you could have a gem here. Don't give up on it.

Some bugs and quirks I noticed:
The archers will shoot at zombies from the tower that are in the mines underground
selecting multiple people will jumble them up on the screen.
Maybe make it so that people can move from underground to upper ground without clicking the stairs icon.
Maybe add an option to demolish buildings

Many thanks! =) Those comments made my day! And very much my bad that I forgot to mention that ESC insta-closes the game. This should of course be fixed, along with the rest of the bugs and quirks you pointed out. Except one othing actually:
You can demolish Buildings with Delete and then clicking a button that appears over the selected building =)

I must say, after reading the comments so far, my motivation for continuing with the game has improved greatly, so perhaps I will keep updating it and posting new versions and progress here. =)
 

Geoff Jones

Member
Well it was probably a good thing that the game accidentally closed, otherwise I would have been sitting there for another 2 hours when I should be working on my own game...
 
A

Alex_Beach

Guest
To be honest, I don't think these type of games do very well on PC. Where they do shine, is mobile. The plus side is that this game almost has mobile-friendly UI and navigation. I would love to play a game like this on my phone. For your motivation issue, I feel ya. It helps me to just work on little things each week. I'll start on a new game, then come back to my old one just to add a small feature for the week. I can't completely give up on a game if 80% of it is already done, you just have to push through your feature list until you feel it's finished.
 
To be honest, I don't think these type of games do very well on PC. Where they do shine, is mobile. The plus side is that this game almost has mobile-friendly UI and navigation. I would love to play a game like this on my phone. For your motivation issue, I feel ya. It helps me to just work on little things each week. I'll start on a new game, then come back to my old one just to add a small feature for the week. I can't completely give up on a game if 80% of it is already done, you just have to push through your feature list until you feel it's finished.
This could be true, however I'm not sure about phone though, with such a small screen and the fact that the game is rather slow paced... but I'm sure it could be playable on a tablet! However I have no idea how to create and app for phones and how that programming works, so although I'm thankful for the input this will be made mainly with PC in thought.

And thanks for the motiviation tips, I'm going to proceed in some similar fashion!
 
More updates:
- Added a third level to guard towers which gives its archers fire arrows!
- Added a simple menu, just press ESC.
- Archers no longer shot at enemies they can't hit, for examples those underground.
- First waves are easier but later ones are tougher.

PS: I have decided to continue with this game, thanks to the positive feedback! =) Next I will fix the vertical travel system (moving units up towers and down into mines, and so on), and I will add a boss, new units along with minor fixes here and there.

2018-03-07 (9).png 2018-03-07 (12).png
 

Dartti88

Member
Hi, I found this game very fascinating and I played it alot!

I found some bugs:
- Archers shoot underground zombies during battle.
- You need click workers again after used stairs
- Fatal error came when enemies destroyed my lvl3 tower. Probably soldier was selected under the tower when this happened
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_elevator_button:
Unable to find any instance for object index '100228' name '<undefined>'
at gml_Object_obj_elevator_button_Step_0
############################################################################################
 
Hi, I found this game very fascinating and I played it alot!

I found some bugs:
- Archers shoot underground zombies during battle.
- You need click workers again after used stairs
- Fatal error came when enemies destroyed my lvl3 tower. Probably soldier was selected under the tower when this happened
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_elevator_button:
Unable to find any instance for object index '100228' name '<undefined>'
at gml_Object_obj_elevator_button_Step_0
############################################################################################
Thank you very much! My apologies for that fatal error, I will fix is soon, problary upload a fixed version tomorrow morning!
 
Alright, now I have fixed a waaay faster and smoother vertical travelling system, atleast I hope so. And I also added Tool tips function, which for the moment is quite empty but it will help you with the new travelling system,
but I'll write it here anyways: Q to move down, E to move up. This should also have removed that fatal error =)
 
Here is a small gif showing some of what I've been working on:
- The first boss.
- A zoom-in function.
- Workers can now repair damage buildings.
- The undead giant boss will attack buildings, as will the largers foes.
- Updated some melee stats so that spearmen are more effective and ghouls not as lethal.
- Updating the GUI in general, and a lot of minor fixes.

zgiantsmashTINY.gif

I will upload the latest version of the game this weekend if all goes as planned =)

bossdie1tinytiny.gif

So here is a short gif showing the boss die. I wanted it to be longer but the size quickly became to large to upload. Anyways, here is it is =)
 

woodsmoke

Member
New boss looks excellent. I like the animation, how his giant arms move slowly before striking. And that smoke when he falls to the ground is great.

Unfortunately I can't run the game because of a wierd virus warning I've never had before. Chrome wouldn't even let me download the file (download failed).
 
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Rob

Member
Nice work, I enjoyed the game a lot. I don't think there's a problem having this type of game on PC - look at Kingdom and Life is Hard, for example. I found your game easier to get into than Life is Hard, which is a good sign.

As you said before, there's around an hour and a half or so's worth of gaming so where will you take it?
 
New boss looks excellent. I like the animation, how his giant arms move slowly before striking. And that smoke when he falls to the ground is great.

Unfortunately I can't run the game because of a wierd virus warning I've never had before. Chrome wouldn't even let me download the file (download failed).
Thanks a lot =) Some of my friends have had this issue as well. I tried to add my name and contact info to the meta-data of the file, to see if that would help, but I suppose it didn't quite do the trick. Any ideas on how to fix this? I've tried googling it a bit and look at this forum, but I haven't found anything yet. How do you make your .exe file trust worthy, so to speak?

The boss looks great. Love the animation. The onl;y thing I would suggest is more contrast between the light and dark colours perhaps?
Thanks again =) And yes, I agree, it noticed that for some reason I tend to be to sparse on the contrast when I animate, so this is definitley something I will keep in mind!

Nice work, I enjoyed the game a lot. I don't think there's a problem having this type of game on PC - look at Kingdom and Life is Hard, for example. I found your game easier to get into than Life is Hard, which is a good sign.

As you said before, there's around an hour and a half or so's worth of gaming so where will you take it?
Many thanks! Those words are very much welcome =)
My current plan is this: there are supposed to be more then one map/level, when you complete the first one (by destroying a enemy base and some boss at the opposite edge of the map) you gain access to a new building options, something like "Expansion Wagon" which you can add your five (or maybe more) best units and move them onwards to a new, more challenging level with slightly different enemies and terrain and obstacles. Perhaps some level has a lake on which you most builds rafts to get across and fight some water-demon or such. Also currently, I think there should be 3 upgrade levels to the tavern, each one allowing more buildings and new units, like Village level 1 - Archer, Village level 2 - Crossbow men (Arbalists?), Village level 3 - Muskeeters.

I'm not sure if all three levels should be avaliable at the first map, or it should progress along side your map progress, if that makes any sense. So you get access to the 3rd teir of units only once you reach the 3rd map.

Once again: many thanks for all the positive feedback, comments, likes and thoughts!

Oh yeah, one last thing: I will also add items you can find, potions or relics or something like that, which allows permanent bonuses to some unit you select, so that you can have truly legendary units which you really want to keep alive and hopefully really mourn if they die =)
 
Now I've uploaded the latest version, which includes the boss, whom will arrive at fourth night. And to zoom, just press Z! =) The link at the first post is updated.

PS: I belive it will be a while before I upload a new version. I want to fix the tool tip function so it really has content, and can really guide you through the game, and I also want to add
more content, new units, buildings, and so on. And it also might be a bit annoying if I upload a new version with every small fix I make, so next time I upload a new demo, it will hopefully have alot more to offer!
 
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Okay, I said I wouldn't spam with new versions of the game, but I just noticed the game crashes, fatal-error, on the first night. So I had to fix this and therefor uploaded a fixed version =)
 
C

Cybiont Technologies

Guest
Ohh that's a very interesting game. A tower defense game morphed with underground building survival thingy. But the game needs more detail than those pixels can push..... I mean those units and actions just beg for higher resolution and stuff....
 
I have come a really long way with this game, it's actually 99% complete and I will try to get it on Steam this week, but I Think it wll take about one month for the process. Thanks alot to the ones who tried the demo and all the feedback you guys gave =)

So, here's a trailer for the game, I really recommend that you view it in 720, or even better 1080:

 
M

Morne

Guest
Hi saw your game on a youtube lets play, then saw it here. Purchased it last night on Steam to support you! You have a great start here, just need some balance after 3rd wave. But your price is too cheap, or good and you should keep improving game!

Fantastic animations and sprites, maybe add some more visual effects. 1 more easy enemy at start for variety. hunter and animals.

If you keep improving it I will support you, there is a good market for this game. I recommend you send it to all YouTube players whom demo played Kingfall and Dont Starve, etc.

I recommend to all readers of this post to support this game!!
Fun game!

Your different spin to your game is really, the underground gameplay...so you should definately encourage players to explore this more or faster. Maybe reduce amount of ores you get per node so it makes us dig more.

The exploding enemy should come waaay later, to powerful and disruptive to starting player.
 
Thanks for the kind comments, the support and the input =) I really hope that if you buy my game you will find it worthwhile!

Morne: Good ideas! I problary should add more starting tips! If you have 3 Archers the bloaters (exploding enemy) won't be a problem, but people problary shouldn't have to replay just to figure out the first night.

Congrats on the release! I just purchased it on steam
Thanks a lot and thank you the help you provided while I was developing this game :)
 
C

Challenge Yourself Gaming

Guest
Good job on the trailer! Looks very interesting, might give it a go when I have the time.
 
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