OK, so it turns out my Win7 machine can't run this (I know, I'm behind, don't judge) but I got to play the game a bit at Comic-Con Africa and again at rAge, so I'm just going to put down here the suggestions I made then, plus some extras.
As far as my review goes, this game is great so far – it’s been a long time since I’ve played an engaging tower defence, let alone one that looks so good. You had a functional build that didn’t seem to break at any point (always a good sign when your code decides to play nice while on display to the public).
As it stands, my only real qualm is the tutorial – there isn’t one. You have floating paragraphs spread across your map, which can be a bit of a mission to read when playing for the first time, as most players will be trying to get a handle on the camera controls first, so maybe take those informative paragraphs and turn them into actual popups (making them a little easier to get to). Maybe have the player place down a few lamps and turrets (explaining why they should put each one down as they go; as you’ve made light a mechanic, that will certainly require explaining). Pause the game with a popup or two while a wave is attacking, take the opportunity to further explain the mechanics and how things can be done. My final issue with the tutorial is that I felt it didn’t quite give enough information, I get that the game is still bare-bones and very early in development but as things inevitably get more complex (based on what we’ve discussed and what you’ve told me you’re planning on implementing), that tutorial will need to cover more information and may even need to be broken up into separate segments.
Now then, onto my feedback and ideas.
First up, it's great that the monsters have health bars, but other than knowing some of them take longer to die than others, I don't know how much damage I'm doing, so damage numbers would be great.
Secondly, the menagerie. You mentioned your models are highly detailed, so let us see them! But not just a menu with all the monsters, I don't know how far or in-depth you are going to go with regards to elemental resistances, buffs and debuffs, etc, but it would be great if the menagerie could include that information - but not right off the bat. A monster could be added when we discover/kill it, if it's weak to fire, that information could be added after we kill one with a fire weapon (along with just how weak to fire it is), include how much health they have, what their movement speed is, etc.
On that note, could the menagerie be accessible in between waves? This ties in with another idea I came up with: giving us the names of the monsters we can expect to see in the next wave (not all of them, just most of them); that way, if we've already 'discovered' that monster and it's weaknesses, we can plan ahead before hitting 'Spawn' - just to add some extra strategy.
Of course, a counter telling us how many of each monster we've killed would also be appreciated.
Finally, weapons and their upgrades.
What's its fire rate? Is it burst fire? If so, how many shots in a burst? How long between bursts? What it's average damage-per-second? What kind of elemental bonus damages does it deal? By what percentages? (we could discover those bonus percentages through using the weapon, same way we could discover a monster's weaknesses by killing them with a weapon that is useful against them). How long does fire burn for? What's its tick-damage-per-second? What’s it’s spread rate? (as in, how long do two monsters have to be in close proximity for fire to spread from one to another?).
Just small, quality-of-life numbers. I'm guessing you don't want to turn the game into a spreadsheet simulator but giving those numbers could add an extra layer of strategy and planning - remember, Borderlands has those same numbers on display for every weapon in the game and no one ever complains, it just depends on how you present that information to the player.
Now for upgrades.
During a game, I appreciate that we can upgrade individual weapons during and in between waves, but it would be great if there were more upgrades available. Hitting the 'Upgrade' button right now does little more than increase damage and fire rate, but what if there were a basic 'upgrade tree' that I could make use of on an individual-weapon-basis? I could make my turrets fire in bursts, with slightly longer times between bursts, but increased damage-per-shot. Maybe increase something's fire rate, decrease the time between bursts (if it has any) but decrease damage-per-shot? Maybe I could increase how long creatures will burn for once they've walked away from the flamethrower but decrease the tick-damage-per-second (thus allowing the fire a chance to spread to enemies)?
You’ve also shown me an overall Upgrade Tree that can be accessed in between games; which is fantastic because it will aid in creating a sense of progression as players go; but because your maps are (essentially) randomly generated (I imagine the same can be said for the enemy selection each wave), each game will provide different challenges, giving players more granular control (that individual-weapon-basis I mentioned in the previous paragraph) and allowing for more variance in chosen upgrades will keep smart players on their toes and prevent experienced players from just falling into a simple pattern each wave/game – as you mentioned in the discussion thread, this will help avoid a set meta.
At the end of the day, these are all just ideas, but tower defense games are strategy games - and so rarely do they give us the information we need to really be strategic.
Also: throw in some flavour text! This game needs some lore, doesn't have to be major, with thousands of years of written history like in Elder Scrolls or The Witcher - it could be minor stuff, like the flavour texts on Magic: The Gathering cards. It probably won't create a whole world of lore but it would be appreciated by those interested.
