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Wave Warden's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #14 | 3.810 | 3.810 |
| Overall | #22 | 3.810 | 3.810 |
| Graphics | #70 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Theme interpretation | #72 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Innovation | #104 | 3.286 | 3.286 |
| Audio | #183 | 2.905 | 2.905 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/8-Bit-Nick/2025Game-Off/commits?author=8-Bit-Nick
Game description
Point the light. Save the boats. Survive the tide.
Theme interpretation
The waves of the Sea bring waves of Creatures. Using a Light (also made of waves) You defend your Boats as long as possible!
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Comments
Thank you to everyone that played and voted! I'm really blown away by the feedback. I've only been making games for about 8 months, and I hadn't really completed anything original to this point. I spent almost all my time learning little systems, like movement, inventory, upgrades, etc. While I do have some art and animation experience as a hobbyist, I've always been a little reserved about showing people my work. Not that I think anyone will come back and read this, but again THANK YOU. I was merely hoping to get top 500..
This is very encouraging, but also humbling. I played 60ish games and so many were SO GOOD.
Keep making cool shit!
I absolutely loved the Q ability! It feels really satisfying to use. I managed to get a score of 12,000. Great job!
Really great game. Loved the graphics, my only suggestion is that it felt like a missed opportunity to not use light on top of the pixel art for extra effect. Super fun. Great gameplay. I could see this in an arcade with a joystick.
I totally wanted to try and do more with the light and I probably still will. I will totally admit, I am not too good with shaders and lighting and stuff yet, as I've only been learning for about a year. Thank you for playing the game and the feedback!
Very nice game! Had lots of fun but had to call it myself at the end since it got pretty repetitive. I really liked the abilities, and the fact (which i later discovered) that they can stack onto eachother was really cool, i utilized it to effectively stun the ENTIRE screen then the explosions took care of the rest.
I think the octopus shouldnt always be firing their projectiles, since it makes unpreventable damage when theres more than one. It is balanced with that they dont always hit, especially when you only have a few boats. I ended up with just one boat at the end. Additionally the upgrades were a bit limited since it was the only few (my game also suffers from the same issue lol) but i also liked the rarity system, more unique upgrades like the explosion would be very cool.
Overall very nice!! (got a score of over a billion at 25 minutes with 250% intensity and level 84, itch wont let me attach the end screen for some reason)
This is a fun mini power-fantasy defense game!
I love the low-key graphics and audio - good sense of style there. Simple gameplay loop, very direct type of control. You can probably make some money off this as a mobile game. Steady supply of upgrades provide steady progression, and I thought the upgrade rarities were very cool, though maybe they also have a drawback in that they end up being the only choice in that upgrade cycle since they are probably optimal.
What I think detracted from the game a bit was the incredibly repetitive music. I think the effects of Q and E keys could also be telegraphed to the player a bit more clearly.
Overall a very good game, well done!
love it!!!
Got a score of 1717988700469.00
Great little game. Loved the satisfying chain reaction style upgrade. I made it to the 20 minute mark before being fairly certain i’d managed to outpace the rate of challenge and could survive indefinitely.
Well done, continue to grow and challenge yourself!
This was a fun game to play, with a cool theme. The pixel art is excellent with the monsters in particularly looking really awesome. Killing enemies is satisfying with great visual and sound effects. Once I saw one of the powerups was increased exp I knew I just had to risk-reward roll it every time I see it and level up faster, and I had a lot of fun before my light got big enough to trivialize the game.
At first the game seemed really hard, but after getting the explosion powerup it becomes much more manageable. It feels like the explosion upgrade may be required to get past only a couple minutes. I found a little bit of a bug, when your light becomes large enough you cannot aim it anymore, it's set at a fixed direction. When it's this large there is a blind spot on the side of the screen where you can't hit enemies. You can start seeing this surprisingly early with the Q power.
Awesome job!
Thank you, for not only playing the game, but playing a full round and trying to break it! I honestly love that, I have 1 friend and my 11yr old Son that try to break every build of every project i make. That's truly invaluable, and your feedback was great. The Radius upgrade is certainly a little broken if stacked too high. I think my current build has some of that worked out.
The explosion was actually added to the game about 4 days before the jam ended, because the game just felt like it was missing something to give it more juice? and fun. IDK
Spent almost every spare minute of the last 3 days tuning the game around the explosion and people actually taking the explosion early in their run.
Post Jam i have added 6 new upgrades in all 3 tiers, a new enemy type that completely changes the dynamics of the game when its active, and a pause menu tracker that tracks your current upgrade bonus' .
The game looks really nice and it was fun to play! After 3 minutes I started to get a little repetitive, but I think it was fun. The octopus is really strong haha I had a hard time with them.
Here was my run:
Only game of this genre in this jam where I actually got around to enjoying the upgrade system!
Thank you so much for trying my game out! I had a lot of fun making this project. So much so that I continued working on it the first 3 weeks of December. (Then the Holidays and kids home from school made everything impossible this last week)
So far I have added 6 new upgrade cards in 3 tiers, and a new enemy type. Id like to add some between round progression to help players push their high score up.
Weird game about a lighthouse blowing up enemies. The enemies could have different behavior. Right now it is a bit too repetitive. The music is nice but also very repetitive. Anyway, the game is well made and with some more variation it could be great. Besides, the game is quite dark, so you might consider brighter colours.
Very cool game, had fun playing it! The only minor feedback I have is that it feels like you get too many power ups too quickly (especially towards the start), and sort of breaks the flow a bit. Super fun though, great submission!
I appreciate you playing and rating my game! I definitely agree it feels a little too fast to level up early in the game. That particular part of the game ties into the overall balancing, which admittedly was the hardest part of the game. It was a constant push and pull, if the player levels up slower, the upgrades needed to be stronger to keep up with the enemies. Then the multiplicative nature of the upgrades snowballed higher with higher values and made the game too easy...etc
I'm getting PTSD just thinking about all the time i spent trying to balance the game haha
Again thank you for playing and the feedback!
Thanks you for trying my game! I had A LOT of fun making this game, actually so much fun I would often forget to properly sleep for my 9-5. Its been very encouraging to get such good feedback from people online. I'm glad you had fun, and I do plan to do some updates over the coming months, there's just more things I'd like to try, to push myself.
HTML Web Version is working!
That game was sick. I dig the concept of light based damage. But yea the enemy explosion waves really carried me as more enemies just meant more explosions. I stopped a bit before 10 minutes. I'd recommend ramping the difficulty a bit faster and maybe some kind of indicator of total boons. It was hard to read how far along my boosts were. But the aesthetic rocks and the game play is super innovative. Really loved the art style too. Really fun.
Thanks alot for not only playing my game, but taking the time to comment with feedback! The game is unintentionally lasting a little too long. But atleast its fun haha. I was really having quite the time balancing the pace and difficulty of the game. The earlier iterations had you basically unable to continue around 5mins, but it just felt hard, and not fun. I'm definitely planning on doing some updates to the scaling after the voting period ends and update it a few times with some new cards and possibly effects.
Very fun, I played for 36 mins haha. It felt like I was doing great for a bit in the middle and then it really ramped up around lvl 75+
I am 99.9% sure Game Maker broke my game when it was exported as HTML. I spent 5 hours trying to fix it today with no luck.
It was fun! I can't deny (I played till level 50), but I stopped because I felt that at that point I just couldnt lose anymore. Damage was getting ++high and the boat heals were too frequent. The explosion on death is 100% carrying tho! When there was a large group, it would trigger a chain effect and the group was no more haha! Good game and good job :)
Ps : the sfx of ennemy dying was a bit distorded when 20+ ennemies were dying in an explosion hahaha
Thank you for playing! As well as the feedback.
Wondering what intensity you quit at? 0-200 is kind of the base game (13mins) with a smaller ramp. Then after the first 200% each extra 100% you survive adds ALOT of stats. I did have the game alot harder and you lost by default early in the game. Had like 3 or 4 friends playtesting that love survivor-likes and said i should scale the game to last 10-20mins. I will apply all feedback for possible future updates!