Defend the Night
Defend The Night is a Kiwjam 2017 entry. I worked on this project solo over 48 hours. I did the design, programming, and art.
Defend the Night was voted 'Best Overall Game' at Kiwijam 2017.
The itch.io entry page for Defend The Night.
Defend the Night is an action-strategy game for 1-4 players.
The theme for Kiwijam 2017 was 'Into the Night', so I had the idea of night approaching and trying to survive the night. However, in this game, night sets very quickly and lasts forever - there's no way to survive the night.
In a way it's my answer to Missile Command, but with mechanics to make it more of a strategy game than an action game. The player can, and in fact must, leave the turrets due to an energy system. Enemies drop energy, energy powers the shields.
The mechanics change a little when playing solo versus playing in a group. While solo, the turrets can be automated with energy, but for every human controlled player that is added, the automation is removed from turrets so that cooperation is required.
I realised late into the jam that my game was too complicated to quickly pick up without an explanation, so I spent a few hours making a full tutorial sequence explaining all the mechanics. The tutorial is even playable multiplayer - but I can't guarantee everyone will pick up on all the mechanics running the tutorial with a lot of players at once as it's a bit chaotic!
Eventually the aliens will overwhelm the player. I added a short cutscene showing the death of the planet and the extent of the invasion as a game over sequence.
Technically it supports up to 13 players - 4 XInput controllers, 8 Direct Input controllers and the keyboard.
Credits:
Sean Flannigan - Designer, Coder