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[mgrilec2]

Hi, a few friends and I have been working on a tower defense game as we're all fans of the genre (thank Warcraft 3). We're planning to release it to Android, iOS and web. We're currently in open beta only on Android and would love some feedback. If you don't own an Android, you can still check the trailer below.





We're currently in open beta and we would appreciate all the feedback we can get. If the game's too fuzzy for you, give it to your kids or wife. It has a lot of content, enough to keep them playing for a few hours.

It's very easy to join in on the beta, just click the link below and download the game through the Play store.

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.gamewerk.fuzzytd



We've been working hard on balancing, and we were surprised how much time that can swallow. The coding has been done from scratch, so if anyone has question about developing a TD, I'd be happy to answer. Also the tutorial is not done 100%, but you'll manage, especially if you're a seasoned TD'er.

Things that we're hoping to get feedback on are:

 * Is the trailer good? Does it show enough of the game?
 * Do you like the levels, story and progression?
 * Does the balancing feel right?
 * Are the levels too big?
 * Where did you quit the game and why?

The game's fuzzy and can be fun for a while. We're hoping to add a bunch more features, tower types, upgrades, traps, creeps and more.

[mgrilec2]

Update is live!

Yesterday we've published an update with complete tutorial, new spells and new building UI. We're going to have another minor update today, and I think that's it. We're going live sometimes next week.

Thanks to all who gave a try!

[GekidoRising]

Alright, so I decided I would give your game a whirl since the art seems very well done! After about 25 minutes on it, here's what I thought:

• I would say the trailer gave an adequate demonstration of the gameplay as well as the story! Unfortunately, I can't help but find it just a little strange that the trailer has absolutely no sound effects besides the music, but it definitely gave a good impression of the late-game gameplay!
• The tutorial did exactly what it was supposed to! I had a good idea by the end of it how the controls worked and I also had an okay understanding of which towers did which things. Basically, the tutorial is fine and explains everything as it should!
• After that, unfortunately, I can't really say the same for the actual levels. I'm gonna warn you that the only level I played extensively after I finished the tutorial was Raccoon Park. Just now I took a quick peak at... Bird Cliffs I believe it was called? But anyway, the rest of this review is wholly biased towards Raccoon Park
• Simply put, I can't beat it. I'm on normal mode and I've made about four or five attempts at beating it but I just can't kill Bee Bee. Before I get on that note, I'll start from the top. Before I go into detail, I'll mention that I used my stars from the tutorial to buy the raccoon tower and the owl tower since I thought diversity would be best.
• After some cute dialogue at the start of the level, the mission intel pops up with basically every optimal tower match up in the tone of "HEY, HERE'S ALL THIS, DON'T FORGET ANY OF IT, GO GO GO" at which point I'm launched into the level. Since there was a pop up for basically every new monsters right when the level started, I think I accidentally X'd out the descriptions for the owl and raccoon towers without getting to see them. My fault obviously, I probably should have just checked the library but I eventually figured out what the towers did. Still, as soon as I closed that mission intel, I basically immediately forgot the matchups and resorted to scrambling towers up as fast as I could.
• The reinforcements mechanic is slightly... odd? I know I saw it in the tutorial but when it happened in Raccoon Park, it startled me quite a bit actually because I thought they were enemies! I didn't have any towers up and suddenly these three characters just BLAST through the course out of nowhere. Seems like it might be more succinct to just give me the money and towers from the start?
• On that note, since you only get the money when the three characters arrive at the base on top of the fact that the first wave spawns as soon as they get there, that means you basically have no grace period for placing towers, it's just "wait for the fuzzies to reach your base and GOGOGO FAST FAST SLAM THOSE TOWERS DOWN". It might be nice to just have something like a 10-20 second period where you can plant towers before the enemies start rolling in.
• Anyway, finally moving onto the actual gameplay, I have to say, that first wave in Raccoon Park absolutely destroys me. The first wave is actually one of the hardest in the level! And the reason for that is because of the fact that, not only does it have flying enemies in it, but it has flying enemies at the end of the pack.
• So, at this point in the game, what towers do you have that can hit flying enemies? You've got bunnies, who can slow them and deal minor damage, and you've got raccoons that you can't upgrade. That's it, that's all you've got. And on top of that, they don't handle the beetles very well, so you can't just go all-in bunnies and raccoons. Additionally, all these towers will always aim for the first enemy that enters their sight range and because the flying enemies are the last ones to come out, all my bunny and raccoon towers just gun down the beatles (very ineffectively at that) while the bees just waltz on past.
• Eventually, I figured that I was going to restart the level until I finally successfully cleared the first wave. After I think about four attempts, I finally got a configuration that worked, two bunnies, a bear and a tiger! In all fairness, it does seem like splash towers can hit flying enemies with the splash damage, so it's unfair to say that there are only two towers that effect flying enemies. I'm not sure how the tiger was able to set the bees on fire though but whatever, it worked.
• Moving onto the rest of the level, now that I had my feet on the ground, I found it was basically most effective to just spam towers. I probably should have invested a little more time into upgrading towers but I never got a good sense of how powerful they were compared to just building new ones. This is especially the case because the process of looking up information on towers is unfortunately really tedious. It would have been really nice to have some sort of info display next to the Build Tower prompt that shows information on the tower you're about to build. It would be much better than whipping out the library and navigating a list to find the specific upgrade you're looking for. I realize that there is not much real estate on the screen to fit that but having the info there in SOME form would be way better than having to look it up.
• Anyway, after a while I finally manage to make it to the first boss of the level, Bee Bee. As I said before, I just cannot kill it. I don't know if there's a star upgrade that was way better than the raccoon and owl, but no matter what, I just can't kill it! It goes back to what I was saying above, except this time there's no fodder for the splash towers to aim for. All you've got for Bee Bee are your bunnies and un-upgradeable raccoons and so far they just cannot cut it.
• It's worth saying, I did take a peak at Bird Cliffs and it seems like the first wave in that level was a little more reasonable to beat, but that was all I played of it as I wanted to start writing this review, haha.
• As you could imagine, I quit playing after I couldn't beat the first level. Maybe it's implied that I was supposed to farm stars on the tutorial or just play one of the other levels, but I didn't.
• In terms of size, the first level seemed bigger than I was expecting but still reasonable. I was just surprised by how many towers it let you build right after the tutorial! From the peak I took at Bird Cliffs, that level seemed like a fun size too. The only thing that caught me off guard there though was the fact that the level has 41 waves! That seems like a ton of waves for just the second level!
• While I realize this doesn't fall under any of the categories you asked for, there are a few other things I wnated to mention, namely in the camera controls.
• Firstly, since selecting towers occurs on press rather than release, I had a lot of instances where I intended to move the camera but instead, I just clicked a tower by accident and had to close it first. Simply put, it might be better to have the select/build tower action on release (and also detect if the respective tower was pressed on in the first place) so that if players don't mean to select a tower, they can just drag their finger away from it.
• Secondly, I liked the fact that there was a zooming action for the game, it felt very intuitive! Only issue is that the while zoomed in, the dragging sensitivity isn't lowered meaning a tiny dragging movement causes a huge amount of camera movement. Might be nice to lower dragging sensitivity as the player zooms in!

I do realize that I've been pretty hard on the game, as in all truth, it is still rather fun! Chances are, with the way the second level started out, it might be totally fine compared to what I was dealing with on Raccoon Park and I may have just picked a bad level to start on. That or there's something I completely missed in the tutorial that would have helped me out, but still, you guys definitely have something with potential here. From the trailer, some of the late game situations looked like a lot of fun!

[mgrilec2]

First of all I have to give a big thank you, you rock for the most helpful thing we've yet received from the beta!

I was laughing all the way through your post - mostly because of our incompetence. The thing is, testing is really hard for a small team like ours, and your feedback means the world to us.

We've been busy and released a few updates since you played this. Mostly minor stuff, but one major thing we added is that you can buy towers for stars ingame. The raccoon you couldn't upgrade (because you haven't bought it before playing), can now be upgraded mid level.

About the level size, we're having a hard time creating small levels (don't know why). Seems easier to make a large level than a small one, but the next batch of levels will certainly be tiny compared to these whooping 41 wave levels. One of the requirements we got for the game is to make a lot of content, so we made these 3 giant levels (without a save mechanism  ). The game designer is really trying to balance the whole thing out, but he's a pro player with like 600 APM  , and gets carried away buying and selling towers like a pro.

I'm glad you liked the tutorial, but that's one of the first things to revamp in the coming updates. I've seen people just hitting the OK buttons and not reading anything, but I guess that's the world we're living in today. So thanks for taking the time to read it all and proving that it works. A new tower building flow is also a must, with the ability to see range, damage and so on.

I want to thank you again , we're releasing tommorow and some of your feedback will get in the first version, with others following in the coming weeks.

[mgrilec2]

Fuzzy Tower Defense is live!

Download now on Google Play

We've added a new smaller level for anyone that decides to try. You can cast spells, build cute towers and explore the game. I encourage you to try the late game, it's much better later. Thanks to everyone for testing and being fuzzy! You rock!

The beta is still open via the link in the first post, and if anyone wants to chat with us you can post here or on Facebook or on Google+. We also have a SlideDB page. As I've said, we're going to be working on the game and releasing weekly updates. So stay tuned for more fuzziness!

[bornander]

I've only given this a brief try but here's my points so far:

First level is too hard and too big.

Panning needs to take zoom level into account.

Consider waiting a bit longer before pushing the ads.

Graphics are cool and look very polished.

The towers are a bit confusing, it wasn't clear what I needed to use and why. This might be because I skipped the tutorial  ut honestly, most players would expect to figure out a TD game without a tutorial.

Overall; it looks very professional, graphics and UI are consistent and fits together well.