[Game]Defend Your Bunnies inspired from Glitch Garden

Hi!

There is a link, where You can download and play a game called Defend Your Bunnies for free. I have uploaded it in Google Play. It works only on Android devices.

Glitch Garden was a very great inspiration for creating Defend Your Bunnies. I have added a lot of new features and have changed the game logic, design etc.

I hope You will like it.

Thanks to Ben Tristem and Udemy :slight_smile:

Sorry for my bad english :smiley:

4 Likes

Hello Guntars,

Well done on getting your game all the way from development through to the app store, and - on to my phone! :slight_smile:

I have just had a really good laugh when I didnā€™t survive a level, hehe.

There are lots of good things in your game and Iā€™ve also spotted a couple of things which you may/may not be aware of that you could improve on. Would you like any feedback?

Whilst I wait for your answer, Iā€™m off for another go! :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hello Rob,

I am glad that you have tried my game and it seemed well done to you. I
would also love to hear your feedback and things I could improve to make it
better. This is my first published game, so your suggestions will be very
helpful.

Did you manage to get through all the levels? :slight_smile:

Hi Guntars,

I did manage to complete all of the levels, eventually, took me a couple of attempts though :slight_smile:

Sorry it has taken a little while to come back to your with feedback, it has been a bit of a busy week!


Feed back as requested;

Loading Screen / Main Menu;

  • Really like the background image
  • The faded black modal that then appears doesnā€™t really match the theme of the background image
  • The font used for the options differs from the title, might be nice to have them the same?

Options;

  • Play nice to have the level selection option there for replaying completed levelsHow would this look if you had say 20 levels? Would you scroll vertically? Swipe sideways? Click buttons that say ā€œLevels 1 - 8, 9 - 16ā€ etc? Again Iā€™m not completely sold on the faded modal.
  • Time Trial is a really nice idea, although Iā€™m not certain about the title, time trial to me suggests I have to try and complete something faster, where-as your optional game mode is really about seeing how long you can survive through increasing difficulty - Iā€™d suggest that game mode is more like Survival
  • High Scores a really nice addition, from what I can tell this is only relevant to the current time trial game mode though, as opposed to the main game?
  • Tutorial fantastic idea and works really nicely
  • Options music volume option persists well through the game

Game Play;

  • The brief story to explain what the player is supposed to be doing is a nice addition
  • The flashing level start indicator is a nice feature
  • Random spawning stars is very good
  • Tapping to collect the stars rather than automatically getting this is a nice feature
  • Enemy count indicator is a nice feature
  • Restart and exit options are nice and the icons feel consistent
  • The animated bunny is a cool and I like how he/she come and goes from the house
  • Balancing of the levels seems about right, it isnā€™t too easy but provides a challenge which you can overcome.
  • I find the tool selection a little odd, as you have a floating item which you can then place, Iā€™ve found this a bit challenging since my first game, as often it may remain floating/in the way if you donā€™t place an item
  • The star generators are sitting slightly lower on their vertical alignment than other defenders (cactus etc)
  • The star generator animation works really nicely, but then the star seems to ā€œflickā€ to the center of the square, thought that was a bit odd.
  • Some of the layers are a little out, if I lose, the blood from the house sprays behind star generators for example
  • It took me a while to realise I could remove placed items. I did see the little icon on the tools (cactus for example), but I assumed it was a little syringe that would allow me to some how heal my defenders rather than remove it using the red button the cross on it.
  • Red button with the cross on it doesnā€™t really feel like itā€™s a ā€œremoveā€ icon, feels more like a ā€œcancelā€ icon. Small difference perhaps but just didnā€™t feel intuitive.
  • When you lose the text that appears in the middle of the screen is not the top layer, thus other sprites can appear on top of it.
  • The hawk sound is a useful clue in the game, but in your time trial mode it starts to get played a lot and very quickly. I think in Plants vs Zombies they show the trees rustling or something like that. I wonder whether you could perhaps combine both in some way, for example, play the hawk sound at the beginning when the enemy first starts to arrive. But then after that, have some other indicator on the left, a visual indicator instead of repeating the hawk?
  • In the course game the ā€œcore gameā€ background was only supposed to be temporary, despite most people leaving it in when theyā€™ve finished their game, your grass may look nicer without it.
  • The images for the trees on the right hand side of the game space donā€™t really suit the style of the house on the left, they are a little inconsistent.
  • The gnomes axes move really fast but they are quite small, so itā€™s hard to tell they are throwing axes.
  • The zuccinis rotate a little slowly and could perhaps be sped up a little bit, not their ā€œmovingā€ just their ā€œrotationā€
  • Uncollected stars on a star generator accumulate. e.g. you can have more than one building up on the same spot. Might be nice to prevent this so that if they are not collected, another is generated, this could add some additional challenge.

All in all this is an excellent and really well rounded version of the course game with lots of nice features and touches. I think you have room for a little extra polish too which will only make it even better. All of the comments above are obviously intended to be helpful and are provided in a positive context. I really like your game, well done :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Hi Rob,

Thank You very much for feedback. I could not dare to expect such detailed feedback and ideas to improve the game. :slight_smile:

I will go through all the suggestions and try to fulfill them. Most of them are really precise and need to be done in order to make this game better. Changing the title ā€œTime Trialā€ to ā€œSurvivalā€ is the way to go and all the layer problems need to be resolved.

High Scores section is only for ā€œTime Trialā€, I thought the main game does not need it, because it has levels, which are unlockables.

You are absolutely right about tool selection. It is tricky. At first I thought it would be a nice feature, if player could place multiple defenders on game space with few taps on screen. e.g. if player has 20 stars, he could place 2 star generators with 2 taps on screen, otherwise he needs to tap again on the tool selection and take it again. And in order to cancel the selection, player has to tap again on relevant tool. e.g. if player has selected a cactus, in order to cancel it, player needs to tap again on cactus at tool selection. But it seems that it was not a good idea :slight_smile:

I am really glad that You like my game! Thank You :slight_smile:

Hey,

Youā€™re more than welcome, again itā€™s only feedback, so you can happily choose to ignore any, or, all of it :slight_smile:

Regarding the tools selection - there were times where I did actually do exactly what you had designed it to do, e.g. place more than one of the same defender (I keep calling them tools, sorry!)ā€¦

It only got a bit sticky when, for example, if I hesitated to see what enemy was coming next, and from where, with my finger removed from my phone there would be the sprite for the selected defender effectively floating - somewhere - on the level. Not always, but on occasion that would leave me to then wonder whether I had placed it (if it was over a square) or not, leading to double tapping and confusion.

Now, this is only feedback from me, so thereā€™s nothing to say that the idea is wrong at all. What it may suggest however is that some more feedback could be required from additional people, before you consider a change to the feature, but maybe asking them specifically for feedback on that feature in question.

An alternative would be to go ahead a try a different tool mechanic, and offer more than one build so that players could try a couple of differences, e.g. keep everything else the same, just change the tool selection mechanic and then see what people say when they respond. Often the feedback from just one person could be deemed to be their personal preference rather than necessarily something that really needs to be changed.

Personally, I like the idea of being able to place the same defender more than once with out reselecting it. I donā€™t like the little floaty sprite. A happy middle ground for example could be that once you select a defender at the top, it remains selected until the player changes it to something else. Perhaps you default it to a star generator, as these are affordable at the beginning on each level anyway.

The one issue I think this would introduce at the moment, is that currently you light-up defenders that can be purchased, e.g. they have enough stars. Thatā€™s a really nice feature, and one you wouldnā€™t necessarily want to lose. So, is there a way to still light-up affordable defenders and indicate which one of the defenders is currently selected on the toolbar?

Again, this is just one personā€™s feedback. I try to offer as much detail as I can, as I find people are usually very receptive to it on the forum, I think in part because they are pleased that someone has played their game after the work and effort they have put in to it. It will be a pleasure to try any updated version of your game, your current version remains on my phone and my son has also enjoyed playing it :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Hey Rob,

You just gave me an idea how to resolve the problem with tool selection. At the beginning, this game was made for pc, so it was nice to have feature, while dragging the mouse, I can see the selected tool near the cursor, but for mobile it is not necessary. So, I am going to remove that and will make the selected tool highlighted at tool selection.

I think that in few days or day, there will be a new release for the game :slight_smile:

It makes me really happy that even Your son is playing this game :sunny:

1 Like

Hi,

Yeah he was really enjoying it, heā€™d only seen the standard course version before.

Sounds like a plan with the highlighting, I will look forward to seeing the update and play it again, if you are happy to share of course. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hey, Rob.

I have just rolled out an update for the game in Google Play! In few hours there will be a new version available :slight_smile:

I hope that it will be better and more easier to play :slight_smile:

1 Like

Ooohā€¦ I will go and checkā€¦ :slight_smile:


Updated Wed Aug 02 2017 23:34

The selection works nicely and the ā€œsurvivalā€ game mode definitely makes more sense :slight_smile:

One minor thing for you backlog :slight_smile: I notices that the tool selection is persisted between levels. It dosappears when you camt afford the item so maybe should disappear on a new level load also.

1 Like

Hey, Rob.

You are right. In the next version I am going to disable the tool selection while loading another level and also the random stars spawning system :slight_smile:

Sounds like a great plan.

You could always default the selection to the Star, as itā€™s the one affordable item on every level, but probably makes more sense to only do it if they have the number of stars required at the beginning, which I believe they do at the moment.

Had another thought regarding the random star generation too, if you only generated them for the empty squares, yoiā€™d perhaps need to build in the number of available squares into the random respawn algorithm, but this would also provide a increased level of difficulty, e.g. the more squares a player fills with defenders, the better they are doing, the less random stars they need? Only a thoughtā€¦ :slight_smile:

1 Like

That`s a really good idea! To spawn random stars only on available slots. When I was building the random stars spawning system, I already had a thought about it, but decided not to build itā€¦but now it will be much easier :slight_smile:

But for players it will be a lot harder :smiley:

Itā€™s just a thought, it would change the current balance of the game so you may want to test it a bit. You could always reduce the frequency based on the number of free squares but give a slight increase in frequency based on the level number, otherwise they may never complete the game. Lots of play testing needed :slight_smile:


Updated Thu Aug 03 2017 15:43

Out of interest Guntars, how much more do you intend to do on the game? There were a few other tweaks I listed above which I think would really add to your game, any more planned or are you going to move on to the next section?

1 Like

Hey Rob.

For this game I am going to fix:

  • disable tool selection when loading a next level;

  • spawn random stars on empty slots only and don`t spawn while loading a next level.

I have just started to upgrade another course game Laser Defender. So, I think for Defend Your Bunnies it will be enough :slight_smile:

Thank You a lot Rob for feedback and great ideas :slight_smile:

1 Like

Great stuff, please do let us know when you release the next update, I will look forward to playing it, and your version of Laser Defender :slight_smile: Well done on taking all of these further!

1 Like

Hey, hey Rob.

I have just rolled out the next version. There are those few things fixed and game feels better and better.
I hope that in few weeks there will be a new version of Laser Defender and would be really nice to have a feedback again from You. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Great! I have just played all of the levelsā€¦

Noticed three things for your bugs backlog;

  • Rain Clouds - Donā€™t harm gnomes - may be intentional

  • Rain Clouds - Donā€™t harm stones - may be intentional

  • Defender placement issue

    I was tapping furiously as a fox had beaten my cactus and then sunflower. I tried to get another cactus on the far left square in the playable zone and it spawned to the left of the fox outside of the playable zone.


Feedback for your next game is no problem at all, feel free to tag me in a post using @Rob :slight_smile:

1 Like

Congrats Rob, for playing all the levels! :slight_smile:

I have made that rain clouds don`t harm gnomes and gravestones intentionally. I just wanted that only ā€œplantsā€ like cactus and stars generator are affected by rain clouds. But maybe that was not a good idea, maybe they could harm every defender, but gnomes and stones less?

The third point is a real bug. Not sure how it happened, I have to test it more. Maybe because of scaling issues, it somehow influence the coordinate system. I must check it out :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hi,

Yeah, it was more challenging to complete all levels this time, I had to restart level 5 several times.

Question : Are the enemies randomly spawning or have you configured where they will come from each time?

Regarding the clouds, yeah I wondered if you may have done that deliberately, it was one of those ā€œthat kinda makes senseā€ thoughts.

I like your idea of causing less damage though, and that got me thinkingā€¦ I think at the moment when the cloud appears the defender that is in the effected square just disappears (I may be wrong)ā€¦

What you could do is use the same damage mechanic that yoy have in place for the enemies for the cloud, effectively making the cloud another enemy type.

I am guessing the defenders have different health values, so, if your cloud caused say 5 health damage per second, and remained for a few seconds, it may be enough to destroy a cactus, but only cause damage to a gnome or stone. The benefit of using the same mechanic would be the affected defender doesnā€™t just disappear and damage could be displayed on the defenderā€™s health bars.

As an exnhancement to this you could, later, introduce different types of clouds. This one rains but maybe a light grey one rumbles thunder, and dark grey one fires lightning. Thunder could make stones collapse instantlyā€¦ lightning could affect neighbouring squares to the main one but cause slightly less damageā€¦

To balance the game you would need to consider the frequency of the clouds occurring and perhaps the likelihood of more dangerous ones. You could also provide another defender type, something that could blow away the clouds to protect you defendersā€¦

As a final thought, as the clouds appear to affect random squares and not always defenders, maybe they could harm attackers too. Maybe rain slows them down? Thunder scares foxes who turn and run nack the other way (and later respawn), and lightning could cause damage to themā€¦ something like thatā€¦

All just ideas :slight_smile:

1 Like

Privacy & Terms