arcthemonkey
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Introduction:
Once every bazillion or so years, a mod comes out that changes the way people play view modders. Counter-Strike, Multi-Theft Auto, Garry's Mod - the list goes on. None of these have had quite the impact on my free time as the sweet little genre called Tower Defense.
The primary place to find tower defense games is the internet. Today, several flash variants exist such as the following:
http://www.onemorelevel.com/games.php?game=415
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/
I'm not certain if the genre started with Warcraft III maps or with starcraft, but that's certainly the hot place to get them.
But not for long!
Tower Defense is coming to RMXP!
RPG Maker XP Tower Defense:
This project got started as a concept for a mini-game for Canadian Knights. I thought it would be fun, and told myself it would be simple and easy to insert into an existing game. Turns out, I was dead wrong, and RMXPTD grew into a monster that could no longer be contained by the Majestic Canadian Sewers. What was originally a simple stop-over in a demo for a game that may or may not ever come out (haha!) evolved into a stand-alone project of exhasperating proportions.
Story:
You play a fairy! What do you think of that? Also, the fairy's name is "Player." Pretty original. Player has been tasked, by me, the creator, to defend the countryside from the villains escaping from the nearby villain containing cave, or VCC. Player is afflicted with a congenital birth defect that lets her summon magical barrels, chimneys, and other mundane objects imbued with the power to mercilessly assault anything that comes within their range with a hail of also mundane projectiles! For every enemy that makes it through the trench maze Player so tireless dug, I, the creator, will take one of her lives. (Fairies have multiple lives, depending on the difficulty level they choose.) Run out of lives, and you die! That makes sense, right?
Tower Defense:
The game plays out in levels called waves. At the end of each wave, a timer counts down to the next wave. Every wave, 20 enemies, or "creeps" as I call them, spawn at one end of a maze, one after another, and begin walking to the other end. The player can build towers under her feet (for a price), assuming she's standing on buildable terrain. Each kind of tower has its own strengths and weaknesses, and are upgradable. As the creeps move into the range of the towers, they open fire and begin damaging them. When a creep's HP reach zero, they die and stop moving, but if you fail to kill all of them and they reach the end of the maze, you lose a life! For every creep you kill, you earn a certain amount of gold. If you clear a wave without losing any lives, you get a bonus! (This bonus is greater depending on your difficulty level, which is good considering that in the hardest setting you only have one life to lose!)
The Towers
There are various towers, each with their own attributes and unique traits. The player will be required to build and upgrade these towers in such a way that they are able to stop all the enemies!
Barrel Towers
Barrel towers are the cheapest tower to build and upgrade, but are also the weakest. Each upgrade doubles their attack power and increases attack speed and range, and upon reaching their highest upgrade they gain piercing damage which ignores creep's defense! Barrel towers are one of the only towers capable of attacking both flying enemies and land enemies.
Cannon Tower
Cannon towers do much more damage for a much higher price than Barrel Towers. Their rate of fire is very slow though - a fact made up for by the splash damage caused by their shots. That's right, shots fired by a cannon tower damage more than one enemy! Upgrading a cannon tower increases damage, range, and splash radius. Cannon towers can't hit flying enemies.
Ice Tower
Ice towers cost more than a cannon tower, don't fire much faster, and do damage somewhere between barrels and cannons! What gives? Ice towers are the only way early on to slow down approaching creeps! Each shot from an ice tower causes creeps to take their next step a bit slower, allowing you other towers to heap on the damage a bit longer! Upgrading ice towers increases their damage and range slightly, but also adds a splash to their shots. Higher level ice towers make creeps move slower than lower level ones. Ice towers can't hit flying enemies.
Anti-Air Tower
Anti-air towers do a rediculous amount of damage at a good rate of fire for their price, but there's a catch. Anti-air towers can only hit airborne enemies, and those only come along every once in a while. Whether you build these or not is up to you! Just make sure your defense doesn't revolve completely around ice and cannon towers!
Will there be more towers when the game is released? Of course! You just have to wait and see.
THE Screenshot (Yeah, just one!):
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/6007 ... kupyo4.png[/IMG]
Q&A:
Q: When will RMXPTD be finished?
A: Once the script controlling the towers is done, the game will likely be ready for testing. In other words, ask Trickster. Seriously, it could be next week or it could be next month.
Q: What about Canadian Knights?
A: Canadian Knights is still coming along, but is still delayed for various reasons. RMXPTD actually started out as a mini-game for the Canadian Knights demo, but outgrew its host.
Q: Is there a limit to how many towers I can build?
A: Yes, there is a hard limit of 10 for each tower type right now. This may be increased before the game is released, or after. It really depends on if there's a need to have more! (Note, when I say tower type, I'm referring also to upgrade level. If you have 10 basic barrel towers and upgrade one, you can build a new barrel tower.
Q: How many towers will there be in total?
A: I couldn't say, honestly. Right now I have 7 tower types in my head, and I imagine I could come up with more. The trick is to make sure the towers are unique and useful enough to warrent putting in. I'm also exploring the idea of having the upgrading of towers be more of a customization than a straight upgrade, with branching upgrade trees and such.
Q: How many game types will there be?
A: Right now I'm just thinking about the one.
Q: So what, no mazing? (Thanks, Prexus)
A: Maybe someday!
Q: What does difficulty affect?
A: Your lives and starting gold, right now. I'm looking into having it affect the enemy's HP as well.
Q: Will there be a maximum level... er, wave?
A: Yes.
Q: And, what would that be?
A: There will be as many as I can stand to put in there.
Q: So like, 5?
A: I'm shooting for 100.
Q: Will you add more in -
A: If you can even get to level 100, you're a freak. This game is more about high score than "beating" it.
Q: Hehe, you said "beating it."
A: Go to hell, me!
Q: What if people don't like games that you can't beat?
A: I may have a cure for that later.
Q: That screenshot looks pretty playable right now. Can we have a demo?
A: The screenshot is... simulated. The towers don't actually work yet! Trickster is on it though, and I have faith he will come through. So no, you can't actually play the game yet. I mean, you can start a wave and you can build towers, but you can't kill the enemies yet so you get game-over. Not very fun.
Q: I don't want to be a fairy! Can I select my character?
A: Possibly.
Q: I also hate the color green - will there be other maps?
A: Of course!
Q: Can we make suggestions or try to sell you our ideas?
A: Sure, but the best thing you can do it implement you suggestions yourselves! I'd also like to work on Canadian Knights sometimes.
Q: So, you're saying the game won't be encrypted?!
A: That's exactly what I'm saying! Furthermore, everything will be heavily commented to make it easier to edit!
So there you have it!
RMXPTD!
Once every bazillion or so years, a mod comes out that changes the way people play view modders. Counter-Strike, Multi-Theft Auto, Garry's Mod - the list goes on. None of these have had quite the impact on my free time as the sweet little genre called Tower Defense.
The primary place to find tower defense games is the internet. Today, several flash variants exist such as the following:
http://www.onemorelevel.com/games.php?game=415
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/
I'm not certain if the genre started with Warcraft III maps or with starcraft, but that's certainly the hot place to get them.
But not for long!
Tower Defense is coming to RMXP!
RPG Maker XP Tower Defense:
This project got started as a concept for a mini-game for Canadian Knights. I thought it would be fun, and told myself it would be simple and easy to insert into an existing game. Turns out, I was dead wrong, and RMXPTD grew into a monster that could no longer be contained by the Majestic Canadian Sewers. What was originally a simple stop-over in a demo for a game that may or may not ever come out (haha!) evolved into a stand-alone project of exhasperating proportions.
Story:
You play a fairy! What do you think of that? Also, the fairy's name is "Player." Pretty original. Player has been tasked, by me, the creator, to defend the countryside from the villains escaping from the nearby villain containing cave, or VCC. Player is afflicted with a congenital birth defect that lets her summon magical barrels, chimneys, and other mundane objects imbued with the power to mercilessly assault anything that comes within their range with a hail of also mundane projectiles! For every enemy that makes it through the trench maze Player so tireless dug, I, the creator, will take one of her lives. (Fairies have multiple lives, depending on the difficulty level they choose.) Run out of lives, and you die! That makes sense, right?
Tower Defense:
The game plays out in levels called waves. At the end of each wave, a timer counts down to the next wave. Every wave, 20 enemies, or "creeps" as I call them, spawn at one end of a maze, one after another, and begin walking to the other end. The player can build towers under her feet (for a price), assuming she's standing on buildable terrain. Each kind of tower has its own strengths and weaknesses, and are upgradable. As the creeps move into the range of the towers, they open fire and begin damaging them. When a creep's HP reach zero, they die and stop moving, but if you fail to kill all of them and they reach the end of the maze, you lose a life! For every creep you kill, you earn a certain amount of gold. If you clear a wave without losing any lives, you get a bonus! (This bonus is greater depending on your difficulty level, which is good considering that in the hardest setting you only have one life to lose!)
The Towers
There are various towers, each with their own attributes and unique traits. The player will be required to build and upgrade these towers in such a way that they are able to stop all the enemies!
Barrel Towers
Barrel towers are the cheapest tower to build and upgrade, but are also the weakest. Each upgrade doubles their attack power and increases attack speed and range, and upon reaching their highest upgrade they gain piercing damage which ignores creep's defense! Barrel towers are one of the only towers capable of attacking both flying enemies and land enemies.
Cannon Tower
Cannon towers do much more damage for a much higher price than Barrel Towers. Their rate of fire is very slow though - a fact made up for by the splash damage caused by their shots. That's right, shots fired by a cannon tower damage more than one enemy! Upgrading a cannon tower increases damage, range, and splash radius. Cannon towers can't hit flying enemies.
Ice Tower
Ice towers cost more than a cannon tower, don't fire much faster, and do damage somewhere between barrels and cannons! What gives? Ice towers are the only way early on to slow down approaching creeps! Each shot from an ice tower causes creeps to take their next step a bit slower, allowing you other towers to heap on the damage a bit longer! Upgrading ice towers increases their damage and range slightly, but also adds a splash to their shots. Higher level ice towers make creeps move slower than lower level ones. Ice towers can't hit flying enemies.
Anti-Air Tower
Anti-air towers do a rediculous amount of damage at a good rate of fire for their price, but there's a catch. Anti-air towers can only hit airborne enemies, and those only come along every once in a while. Whether you build these or not is up to you! Just make sure your defense doesn't revolve completely around ice and cannon towers!
Will there be more towers when the game is released? Of course! You just have to wait and see.
THE Screenshot (Yeah, just one!):
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/6007 ... kupyo4.png[/IMG]
Q&A:
Q: When will RMXPTD be finished?
A: Once the script controlling the towers is done, the game will likely be ready for testing. In other words, ask Trickster. Seriously, it could be next week or it could be next month.
Q: What about Canadian Knights?
A: Canadian Knights is still coming along, but is still delayed for various reasons. RMXPTD actually started out as a mini-game for the Canadian Knights demo, but outgrew its host.
Q: Is there a limit to how many towers I can build?
A: Yes, there is a hard limit of 10 for each tower type right now. This may be increased before the game is released, or after. It really depends on if there's a need to have more! (Note, when I say tower type, I'm referring also to upgrade level. If you have 10 basic barrel towers and upgrade one, you can build a new barrel tower.
Q: How many towers will there be in total?
A: I couldn't say, honestly. Right now I have 7 tower types in my head, and I imagine I could come up with more. The trick is to make sure the towers are unique and useful enough to warrent putting in. I'm also exploring the idea of having the upgrading of towers be more of a customization than a straight upgrade, with branching upgrade trees and such.
Q: How many game types will there be?
A: Right now I'm just thinking about the one.
Q: So what, no mazing? (Thanks, Prexus)
A: Maybe someday!
Q: What does difficulty affect?
A: Your lives and starting gold, right now. I'm looking into having it affect the enemy's HP as well.
Q: Will there be a maximum level... er, wave?
A: Yes.
Q: And, what would that be?
A: There will be as many as I can stand to put in there.
Q: So like, 5?
A: I'm shooting for 100.
Q: Will you add more in -
A: If you can even get to level 100, you're a freak. This game is more about high score than "beating" it.
Q: Hehe, you said "beating it."
A: Go to hell, me!
Q: What if people don't like games that you can't beat?
A: I may have a cure for that later.
Q: That screenshot looks pretty playable right now. Can we have a demo?
A: The screenshot is... simulated. The towers don't actually work yet! Trickster is on it though, and I have faith he will come through. So no, you can't actually play the game yet. I mean, you can start a wave and you can build towers, but you can't kill the enemies yet so you get game-over. Not very fun.
Q: I don't want to be a fairy! Can I select my character?
A: Possibly.
Q: I also hate the color green - will there be other maps?
A: Of course!
Q: Can we make suggestions or try to sell you our ideas?
A: Sure, but the best thing you can do it implement you suggestions yourselves! I'd also like to work on Canadian Knights sometimes.
Q: So, you're saying the game won't be encrypted?!
A: That's exactly what I'm saying! Furthermore, everything will be heavily commented to make it easier to edit!
So there you have it!
RMXPTD!
