Alchemist

[Yokubo]

Please check out my new game (still in development):

http://www.belanet.ujmappa.hu/Alchemist/

This is a tower defense game similar to the other gem tower defense games, but I changed and improved a few things.

Any suggestions/ideas/comments are welcome!
I am not a native English speaker, so please forgive me for any grammar/spelling errors.

[CommanderKeith]

It loaded ok but then nothing happened, no enemies came out 

[Alan_W]

It loads and prompts you to choose difficulty level, but I can't find out how to choose.

Pressing Cancel gives null pointer exception.

[Yokubo]

It loaded ok but then nothing happened, no enemies came out 

I am not sure why there were no enemies coming for you. Maybe you have a slow PC, and didn't wait enough for the first enemy to appear.  Or maybe you forgot to click the "Next Wave" button?

[Yokubo]

It loads and prompts you to choose difficulty level, but I can't find out how to choose.

Pressing Cancel gives null pointer exception.

The status message line is wrong there, it should say "Choose map" not difficulty.
First you have to:
Select if enable/disable sounds -> Select map -> Select difficulty -> next wave

I will fix the status message, thanks for the comment!

[Yokubo]

I forgot to mention that the game runs much-much faster on Google Chrome!
I strongly recommend playing with Chrome.

[h3ckboy]

I forgot to mention that the game runs much-much faster on Google Chrome!
I strongly recommend playing with Chrome.

thats cause everything is faster on chrome

[Yokubo]

I fixed the cancel button bug, and the status messages at game initialization.

[fruitmaze]

It looks interesting, but I think some kind of tutorial or help page would be nice to have. I thought it was difficult to understand what to do.

Btw what lib did you use for sound?

[Yokubo]

It looks interesting, but I think some kind of tutorial or help page would be nice to have. I thought it was difficult to understand what to do.

Btw what lib did you use for sound?

I think I will try to make an in-game tutorial later. I have a few things to add like music, some minor changes to GUI, a few more gems, and some security things. But I add tutorial to my to do list.
I use java.io for sound, the Clip and the AudioInputStream classes. It's very simple, the whole thing is about one page. But to play music, mp3 or ogg files, I will need some other kind of library. I am thinking about the java SPI.

[Yokubo]

The tutorial is up and running. It is not finished, but much better than nothing

[Gudradain]

The tutorial help a lot to understand the game. It had no idea how to start the game before it.

[Gedden]

Comments:
Very fun, creative take on tower defense. I really enjoyed this game and I played it several times.

Issues:
- You have a few user flow issues, as in UI issues preventing the user from getting into your game, it took me several reloads.
- Combine stopped working for me after the first attempt (working as intended?)

Suggestions:
- Perhaps have the monster path-auto-update every time you place a piece?
- find an artist friend and have them create a look for you
  - some items are ISO (zombies are perspective)
  - some items are front facing (buildings, your 'mage', some monsters)

[Yokubo]

Comments:
Very fun, creative take on tower defense. I really enjoyed this game and I played it several times.

Thanks

Issues:
- You have a few user flow issues, as in UI issues preventing the user from getting into your game, it took me several reloads.

I will try to make starting the game more easy and user-friendly.
There is one serious thing right now, that if you start the tutorial, there is no way to stop or quit it I will have to fix that somehow, maybe adding some quit button.
But as far as I know all UI controls should work fine. (No known bugs.)

- Combine stopped working for me after the first attempt (working as intended?)

If you select the right gems in the right order, it should work (the button goes lighter and enabled).
But to reuse combine sometimes you have to clear selection with the Cancel button.
You can use Combine indefinite times per game.

Suggestions:
- Perhaps have the monster path-auto-update every time you place a piece?

My path calculation is too slow for that right now. I would have to optimize first, but I agree that auto-update would be more convenient.

- find an artist friend and have them create a look for you

I tried but nobody wants to work for free
My brother is currently doing modelling, he created the zombie model. I had to animate and render it but that's not too hard.
I plan to have similar graphics for all other creeps and the mage.
The background was created by a guy who is an artist, but after that he was too busy to continue. So the buttons were done by me.

  - some items are ISO (zombies are perspective)
  - some items are front facing (buildings, your 'mage', some monsters)

I hope that in the end everything will be perspective. Maybe we will have to make a model for the gate as well. Or I will simply replace it with a 2D summoning circle

Thanks for your comments!