It’s Alive!

After finally hunkering down and putting some good work, this game seems to finally be taking some shape.  Currently, there is only one default tower and enemy, so rate of fire, damage, etc. are all uniform and each enemy takes the exact same number of shots to kill.  There is no physical representation of whatever is being fired from the tower, so to show that a tower has fired, it turns black and fades back into color as it recharges.  The enemies on the other hand start out white and fade to red as they lose health.  Because these effects are achieved through pygame surfaces, I’m not sure if these effects will survive once actual sprites are introduced into the game.  For the moment though, it looks pretty cool.

In terms of gameplay, its still relatively limited.  The interface works by always having a current tile of the map selected.  This can be achieved by simply mousing over the tile or by using the keyboard arrow keys to move to the desired tile.  As discussed earlier, the fact that this game is centered around typing makes it pretty important that the game can be controlled completely through the keyboard (unlike most tower defense games), thought the mouse also cannot be ignored completely.  Taking a cue from GemCraft, selecting a tower tile will display the important information on the side panel as well as drawing the actual firing radius of the tower on the map view.  The towers record their total damage done so that the user can see in real time which towers are being the most effective.  Towers can only do one-target, direct damage but splash damage and damage over time will be implemented in the future.  Resources are also simply implemented.  Resources count up at a rate of 1 per second and any enemy killed gives resources equal to the initial HP of the enemy.  Towers cost 200 resources and can be placed on any grass space.

Heres a good shot that shows most of the current version, with towers and enemies changing color along with a tower highlighted to show the radius and information panel.

Map Maker Update

In order to work with my actual implementation, the map had to be build of better road tiles.  These specifically know which direction to find the next piece of the path, using the compass directions.  The enemy base tile also got updated to determine the starting tile and what direction enemies travel.

New map source example:

A bigger update is coming.

Map Maker (of sorts)

Now that I have the basic tiles created, I implemented a fairly basic way to create simple maps in a text file (which I label with a .map extension) and have the map object read it into an actual map.  This will allow anyone to design the map without going through the pain of changing the actual code.  The basic design of the .map file consists of 20 lines with 20 letters separated by spaces.  The legend can be found at the bottom of my screen shot but it is relatively straightforward.

Heres a pic of the .map file:

which will produce:

So, if you have any good ideas for a map design, feel free to hack away.

Give me an A! A for art!

Well it’s debatable if what I’m making is in fact art, but here’s some more pictures of what I’ve been working on.

I’ll be next expanding my talents to really start coming up with solid towers, after all, that’s what will really be important in the game. I’m thinking that obelisks might be used as towers at some point, but I’m not positive. I also like the idea of having certain hieroglyphs be associated with power upgrades like ankh which means eternal life. Any other types of suggestions?

Game Design Update

After heavy discussion and brainstorming with the rest of the group, here is a brief primer on the game’s mechanics and systems:

Game Objective:

Protect your town/castle/temple/whatever from increasingly more powerful/faster monsters by building and upgrading towers; killing the invading monsters provides you with more resources to build more towers and upgrade them further. Finishing levels and completing level bonuses, such as finishing a level without any monsters getting through, gets you Skill Points to use in boosting overall player capabilities and attributes.

Towers & Upgrades:

Unlike other tower defense games, there are not twenty towers to choose from in T=T. There’s only one tower that can be placed down but there are a multitude of upgrades to deeply customize each and every tower placed down on the field.

The upgrade process works like this:

1) Each upgrade increases a certain tower statistic such as tower attack range by a Potential Multiplier Amount (PMA)

2) The maximum potential multiplier amount can only be reached by typing a phrase out as quickly and accurately as possible (this is called a typing quest or TQ)

3) Mistakes and slow completition of the phrasal typing task leads to a reduced multiplier upgrade

4) Because it costs gold/rupees/generic resources to carry out an upgrade, the user can opt to skip the typing task and get only a minimum percentage of the PMA; if they catastrophically fail the typing test, the same consequence happens

Boosters are a special kind of upgrade which cost quite a lot more in terms of resources (and also have the most difficult TQs), but they essentially upgrade a certain statistic for all towers on the field and those which are not built yet. Basically, they permanently increase the PMA for the rest of the level being played. Skill points, as mentioned earlier, can be spent on Global Boosters, which carry out the same thing as Boosters, but for all levels played thereafter.

Beyond modifying a tower’s basic statistics with upgrades and globally upgrading all towers with boosters, one can also specialize the functionality of a tower with Artifacts. Artifacts are expensive and have very difficult TQs, but they provide new features for a tower such as a time dialation field emitter (slows down enemies that are inside the field), poisoned bullets, multiple target tracking and attacking, etc etc. While the player can have multiple kinds of artifacts in one tower, the prices and difficulty of the TQs increase exponentially and force the player to make decisions on the specialization and functionality of their towers.

More coming soon!

Blobs of pixels!

I’m working on drawing the map layout on-screen.  As Amit, Brandon and I discussed (and Amit will give better better details soon), the current design is 800 x 600 with the actual game map taking a 600×600 chunk.  The main game calls the field module which consists of a 20 x 20 grid of tiles (each 30×30 pixels).  Currently, I have just a few tiles worked in for this screen shot.  Grass tiles literally do nothing by themselves but will serve as the areas to place towers.  Enemy and home base tiles will serve as the start and finish points for the enemy walking paths.  Road tiles each carry next pointers to the next road to facilitate the pathfinding for the enemies but that might not actually be the end result for our enemy pathfinding.  Tower tiles are probably the least applicable going forward as currently there is only one generic module for them.

Anyway, heres a crude screenshot of what I have so far:

Legend:

• Green = Grass
• Red = Enemy base
• Blue = Home Base
• Grey = Road
• Brown = Tower

Graphics Galores!

So hey, Alena here. I’ve been working on the graphics–trying to get some basics set up as well as start establishing how the game will work. I’m not too savvy with creating the polished look as seen in a lot of video games, but I have been experimenting with a couple types of illustration.

Currently, I’m really liking the Wacom tablet at the DMC. I created this awesome mummy set. It’s kind of pretty much sweet.

And he rises !

some more!

walking

So uhh hypothetically, they would appear on a path that looks something like this:

can't you visualize it?

Another enemy that I like is the scarab beetle:

scarabs are scary

I really liked the idea of the typed text turning into the language that fits with the theme. For example, the text turning into the corresponding hieroglyphs. Here’s a sampling of the brushes that I’m using for hieroglyphs.

hieroglyphs

And….that’s it for tonight. : D

Basic Map Prototype

Hey I’ve started to work on a basic map which I showed to everyone in our meeting today.

Here’s a quick picture:

Feedback is highly encouraged!

I’ll also be working on city/town concept this week as well as some more larger design oriented things. What other things would people like to see me working on? What is everyone else working currently?

On another note: I really liked the Audiosurf game that we saw in our meeting today : D

Also, hopefully we’ll hear back about a meeting time by tonight….

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