[Defense / Survival] Ham's Hero Defense

[Ulfsire]

Ham's Hero Defense is a Hero defense where you defend the Obelisk against waves of enemies. Improve your hero with Piety by constructing Shrines, Altars and Temples with the Priest (Builder) of your God. Choose a blessing. Pick spells as you level up. Spend gold on various items. Use your Invocation for difficult waves, at the cost of Piety.

Find the newest version on makemehost.com by typing "HHDV"

Features:
-supports up to 4 players, best enjoyed with 2+ players
-pick a Hero, worship a God
-4 Gods, 36 total buildings, each building gives an effect to your Hero and costs Piety (Lumber)
-3 Blessings per Priest, each gives an effect to your Hero
-14 Heroes, each with a unique active ability and passive, with randomized names
-As you level up, pick an Art, a Pact, and an Aspect, all of which give an active and passive ability
-use the Invocation ability, which has a powerful custom effect based on your buildings, but decreases Piety (Lumber) received at end of round
-Various enemies that gain random passives and spells, and that scale based on round # and # of players
-Dangerous Bosses every 5th wave
-custom attack/defense types
-5 Item shops to discover
-receive gold every round, no fighting over last hits
-may type -restart if defeated
-may type -z1, -z2, -z3, -z4 for camera zoom

Defeat Marduk on wave 36. Good luck!

 

[pick-a-chew]

You should add some more information in your post so you attract testers.

The map itself is certainly unique in concept, you have a hero that is augmented by the buildings (shrines) you make. Since this is your key feature, you should elaborate on it, e.g. give players their own plot of land so they can plan properly, make the tool-tips more informative and succinct and increase the amount of shrines.

The Tauren Chieftain i played was pretty basic and had no exciting abilities and the waves were pretty straightforward but their randomized properties are pretty cool.

I would suggest you make shrines more expensive but more powerful, because if you have lots of lumber it may end up being tedious building/upgrading all the time. Your map is a hero defense after all so its game play should revolve around defending with your hero, unless of course it's your intention to have an AFK-grindy kind of thing where the shrines do the work.

 

[Ulfsire]

Thanks for playing!

Current version is very unfinished and lacks abilities / buildings / heroes / enemy types / items / bosses.

The goal is to have a hero with 1 ability that gets five random abilities over the game. You also get 1 random builder, or perhaps 2, limited to an element of shrines / altars / temples (the ones I have so far are all in one builder, just for testing).

The strategy is to choose buildings that compliment your hero and the abilities they get, as everything should have scaling. Find combos.

The "skill" is reacting correctly to different kinds of waves once the scaling becomes exponential. Use Invocation only when necessary, and not when it's too late.

I'll put more detail into the description, but it was mostly posted in its current state just to have a copy to access if my laptop breaks (again).

Your point about the shrines is taken. It may come to that, but I want to finish the system and see how it plays first. My theory is that the buildings can essentially represent "spending" stat points, with the added consideration of positioning and potentially combining with other players.

Question: did you get very far, die quickly, or quit out of boredom? Putting computer players in the other slots can show how crazy it gets with 4 different randomized waves.

I really appreciate you taking the time to test. Thanks!

 

[pick-a-chew]

I always admire randomness, and i love it myself because to me it equals replayability, though from experience you find that too much randomness is a valid complaint that people might make. Honestly i think your randomized waves is spot on for that purpose, beyond that having hero abilities and builders involuntarily randomized might frustrate some players. You should consider making it optional with some kind of random reward (extra lumber per round).

On the topic of Invocation it did feel bad to "not use" it during a round, perhaps it should fire off automatically if you haven't used it when you clear a round, because otherwise it's simply a chore in situations where you are thrashing the game. (there's nothing skillful or fun about having to press a button once per round).

I did not get too far, at least before i turned on whosyourdaddy to just check things out, i "lost" on a wave with ghouls that had mimicry and some other modifier. I had no area of effect damage and basically they overwhelmed me and i lost pretty quickly. I played solo so did not check the craziness that comes with 4 players.

 

[Ulfsire]

Again, thanks for the feedback.

The point I'm going for with the invocation skill is that if you don't use it, you get bonus lumber at end of round. I need to balance that enough so it's a meaningful choice.

A "initially complete" version is almost ready with bosses and more buildings / heroes / items. I'll hold off on ranting until I actually finished it.

Really appreciate you putting time + effort in.

 

[Ulfsire]

Updated.

Still needed: more items, more builders, more enemies, more abilities.

Perhaps a final boss.

The basics should be in place.

 

[Ulfsire]

Big Update:
+4 new Heroes
+1 New God
-Abilities and artifacts reworked, become available as you level-up.
-All abilities you can pick now have a passive effect.
+2 new bosses, final boss added, game can actually end.

Game is tentatively "finished," needs: balance testing.

Could use: more abilities, items, and enemy types, more "types" of threat, more opportunities to create combinations.