Tower Defense - Development Thread(PRE-ALPHA Release 3/16)

[ThievingSix]

Tower Defense Development Thread
Been REAL busy lately, haven't had much time for actual
development. Now, I do =). So I shall continue on my future
hopefuls.




Done:

• Main Menu
• Map Selection
• Map Base Structure
• Gameplay Drawing(Grid, path, enemies, tower placement)
• Pathing(Enemy movement to follow waypoints)
• Tower Types(Tech Tree)
• Enemy Structure(HP, speed, etc)
• Map Creator
• Wave/Round/Frame base

The game's map system is a simple sidelining(enemies
keep to a set path) type. There will be an in-game map
creator/editor.

Basically the code for a map is such:

MapTitle = "Out of the Way"; 
WaypointX = {12,12,213,213,288,288,62,62,212,212}
WaypointY = {0,87,87,12,12,138,138,188,188,240}
WaypointSize = # WaypointX;

The actual gameplay is endurance based. So your "score"
is the level you get to. This is the type I enjoy so it's
the format I'm using.

The graphics are all in-house; meaning no outside images.
All the enemies are ASCII based, "o O [:] <> x X", and the
towers are simple graphics made out of lines and circles.
Maps are grid like Vector TD. Surprisingly it runs smooth so
far.



The tower upgrading system in this game is something
like a tech tree. You always start with a basic tower
and upgrade it to the unit you want.

Useful information:
-AoE = Area Of Effect, eg Splash damage.
-DoT = Damage Over Time, eg Burning
-RoF = Rate Of Fire, the turret fireing speed.

In terms of making a certain tower more powerful, instead
of spending currency it's done by experience. The more
experience the tower has killing, and to a lesser extent
killing, the higher the towers level will be. Each level
will increase it's stats in a certain way and at the final
level will be something special.

[BASIC]
  -Building block of the towers.
  
  [HIGH SPEED]
    -Shoots faster than the basic tower.
    
    [HEAVY HIGH SPEED]
      -Upgraded version of the HIGH SPEED tower.
       Slightly faster, powerful, and larger range.
    
  [AOE]
    -Damages the targeted unit as well as a unit on
     each side. The damaged is halved to the surrounding
     units.
     
    [HEAVY AOE]
      -Upgraded version of the AOE tower.
       Now hits the targeted unit plus two units on both
       sides. Range and damage is also slightly upgraded.
    
    [SLOW]
      -Upgrades the AOE damage tower into an AOE slow tower.
      -Slows the targeted unit plus a unit on both sides.
       
    [DOT]
      -Upgrades the AOE damage tower into an AOE fire tower.
      -Does no bullet damage but every enemy in its radius
       gets burned until they pass.
       
  [AURA]
    -Inflicts no damage but every enemy in its radius takes
     more damage.
     
    [DAMAGE PLUS]
      -Upgrades the AURA tower into a passive aura that
       increases the damage of all towers in its radius.
      
    [RANGE PLUS]
      -Upgrades the AURA tower into a passive aura that
       increases the range of all towers in its radius.
       
    [ROF PLUS]
      -Upgrades the AURA tower into a passive aura that
       increases the RoF of all towers in its radius.
       
  [RANGE]
    -Has tremendous power and range but a slow RoF.
    
    [HEAVY RANGE]
      -Upgrades the RANGE tower even further. It can
       practically hit the entire map if placed right. The
       damage is also increased but the RoF is decreased
       even more.
       
  [SPECIALIZATION]
    -Has average damage, speed, range, but it has a small
     chance to instant kill its target.
     
    [TELEPORT]
      -Will teleport units back to the starting gates. A
       unit that has been teleported can't be teleported
       again.
       
    [LASER]
      -A long range tower that penetrates in a line.

Version 0.1

• Main Menu w/Animation
• Map Selection
• Map Creation
• 2 maps I made
• Plus technical details above
• No Actual Gameplay Yet!

Version 0.1.1

• GUI is much more smooth. There were way too many screen updates, you only need one in the end ;-P! No flicker on the Zen now.
• The Map Creator's "Test Draw" now can be turned on while you are creating waypoints. This way you can see how your map looks while your making it.
• The map preview on the Map Selection screen was not centered with the actual preview. This has been fixed up.

[keirien]

great when will it done. cant wait to play it.

[fzbm123]

cool! im sure this will be the best app ever for the zen x-fi 2

may i suggest tat u add some sound effects for the game if there isnt yet?

[RobertsAccount]

I vote for a beta version

[ThievingSix]

Originally Posted by fzbm123

cool! im sure this will be the best app ever for the zen x-fi 2

may i suggest tat u add some sound effects for the game if there isnt yet?

Sound, for me, will probably come last. Surprisingly it's the hardest thing for me =P.

[Kyuu91]

Really can't wait for this one
Gunna be AWESOME!!! I'll tell u that.

Plz hurry xD can't wait to test this

[Tetrajak]

Awesome work so far, ThievingSix. I look forward to the end result. I also hope you do a lot of testing and balance the damage dealt by the towers and the HP of the enemies, as well as the progression of level difficulty. A good balance is very important to the playability and replay value of a game.

[ThievingSix]

Yes, balancing will be one of the hardest parts. I have some excel sheets that I've been given from some developers over at towerdefence.net that are all about balancing. I'm sure they will come in handy.

[Tetrajak]

Originally Posted by ThievingSix

Yes, balancing will be one of the hardest parts. I have some excel sheets that I've been given from some developers over at towerdefence.net that are all about balancing. I'm sure they will come in handy.

That's awesome! I'm certain they'll come in handy. The best of luck to you, I can't wait for it to be finished!

[Zeniwan]

Can you upload what you might already have so far?

[ThievingSix]

I'll be finishing the map creator today. Then I'll release what I have thus far.

[saMfish]

Can't wait, man!

[ThievingSix]

There won't be any playability with tonight's release. Because the towers aren't coded yet. So don't get too excited.

[Tetrajak]

Will there be the ability later on to set the enemy waves for maps?

E.g:

waves = {
{enemytype, enemycount, sent out in groups of, delay between groups, delay until next wave},
{enemytype, enemycount, sent out in groups of, delay between groups, delay until next wave},
...etc...
}

[ThievingSix]

I haven't gotten that far, but ya that's about right.

Updated first post.

Also:

Originally Posted by Tetrajak

Will there be the ability later on to set the enemy waves for maps?

E.g:

waves = {
{enemytype, enemycount, sent out in groups of, delay between groups,  delay until next wave},
{enemytype, enemycount, sent out in groups of, delay between groups,  delay until next wave},
...etc...
}

The only way I could incorporate this into the "limitless" round system is if I cycle through all the waves then repeat. Keeping the HP increasing of course.

[Tetrajak]

Originally Posted by ThievingSix

The only way I could incorporate this into the "limitless" round system is if I cycle through all the waves then repeat. Keeping the HP increasing of course.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Would you be able to set whether the waves were infinite or finite in the map as well? That way people could create a series of maps that came one after another, if they felt so inclined.

I'm also curious about whether you'll set it up so that the path can cross itself and whether you'll later add to it so that maps can be bigger and scrollable.

[ThievingSix]

Originally Posted by Tetrajak

Sounds like a good plan to me. Would you be able to set whether the waves were infinite or finite in the map as well? That way people could create a series of maps that came one after another, if they felt so inclined.

I'm also curious about whether you'll set it up so that the path can cross itself and whether you'll later add to it so that maps can be bigger and scrollable.

I was going to make it infinite permanently, and that's probably how it's going to be with the beta release. Fortunately, the way I've set up the wave base, it would be really easy to allow finite waves.

The path already can cross itself. The way I've done the waypoints and the drawing of the path it looks clean as well. Try it in the map creator.

Scrolling maps: No, I've never thought of that. It would break a lot of the base code so I don't see it happening, sorry.

[RobertsAccount]

Lookin' good ThievingSix!! I love the Map Editor Function, it's excellent Keep up the good work...

[ThievingSix]

I had a little time before college today so I decided to do some minor fixes. The GUI has been cleaned up, no flicker on the Zen. The map creator now has the option to keep the "Test Map" feature on while you create the map.

See more details about the v0.1.1 release(As well as the release) in the first post. Hopefully I'll get a v0.2 release out tonight or tomorrow(See below).

Also I wanted to point out:
v0.0.0
The first number is the major release number. So when I move from alpha to beta it will go up.
The second number is the minor release number. When new features are added this will go up.
The last number is the fix release number. When any improvements happen to already present features this will go up.

This way you know whats being updated just by looking at the version number.

[Zeniwan]

Sorry for my bad English, I'm Dutch

Is there a way to remove custom maps?

Is there a way to remove a block?

Is there a way to load levels and editing again?