Pandora Pandora Tower Defense In 3D

[fusion_power]

No, in my opinion you should actually go ahead and properly commit yourself to this game, it makes you more involved, more committed to actually produce anything and more emotional attached to the product than "just" giving suggestions, which will end in a maybe half-baked effort.
You made some nice models and if you think you cannot model organic creatures then it might be time to learn doing so or just go with what you have for now as ugly graphics are still better than no graphics.

I actualy don't want to make organic creatures, no inspiration to do this. We have talents that can do this much better, if everyone waits until a person has learned something, instead of finding someone who already can do it, no Project would happen. So, it is better to find some character artist, this is essential for creature design n stuff. I stay at "anorganic" things, as blocky as possible.
I really wanted to just gave some Ideas and suggestions for a TD game, that's what this section is for.

First time for everything! Ideas and 3D objects would be really good though; a tower defence game probably isn't going to be big enough to include really "hard stuff" =D. Just saw FoxBlock’s reply whilst writing this and that’s exactly how I feel: “Don't let that talent go to waste”! Should we get some IRC chat going?
I've been thinking about FoxBlock's tower suggestions, here are my thoughts: I like TD games where I only end up placing a few (<10 for example) towers throughout each level. This way, each tower placement has to be well thought out depending on the level and the enemy types at hand. Each tower also feels like it has a purpose, instead of say desktop tower defence where you have a thousand pea shooters. 6 is a decent number of towers, but I also like where I can upgrade existing towers into specialisations. It means I can put a weak tower in a strategic place at the start of the game, then upgrade it into something more apt later on, when the big enemies come out and I have the cash. Saying that, here’s my version of FoxBlock’s list:

Yes, less is more, I agree. More tactics, less "Tower Spamming", more planing instead of wild placing towers till the screen is full of it. This of course needs very good and balanced Towers, like Chess pieces. Unique features, everything has a meaning. Of course it still should be fun and no Rocket Science.
I'm against a maximum of towers but of course this can easily controlled be the size of the map or better the available space outside of the path. My Quad Fortress is powerful but needs alot of space, Maps could be designed so that only one or 2 spots are big enough for such a building.

I'm not a friend of any stressing time limits so I prefer the method of manualy starting waves or at least big gaps between each wave with the option to start the next wave earlier.

I volunteer for beta testing in the future. Wermy, creator of Super Geometry Dust, can vouch for the level of input that I give.

most important thing: I don't want this Tower Defense game as insane hard as Super Geometry Dust actualy is! I play to relax, not to get heart attacks. ^^"

By the way, here are the TD games I played alot in the past:
Flash Element - the classic! http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/flash-element-td/
Vector TD - also well known http://www.candystand.com/play/vector-td
Flash Circle -pretty good http://www.flasharcade.com/tower-defence-games/play/flash-circle-tower-defence.html

 

[Tobs]

Giving the player a lull is a tough choice; pros and cons but at the end of the day it depends on the player and what they want out of the game. I thought about a casual, normal and hardcode modes though; this would effect how much time the player gets between waves (casual get a "next wave" button, hardcore get almost no time at all), as well as modify mob strength/speed and the duration of waves (i.e. same number of mobs in half the time).
I wasn't thinking of 10 towers being a hard limit, rather the towers being designed to be powerful and expensive enough to require <10, but we can work that out through playtesting.
As for towers, how about by default white mage towers increase all attributes (damage, range, speed) a small but significant amount, then they can be upgraded to focus on one of them entirely? The black mage tower could then start out with the slow effect, and be upgraded to either a more potent slow effect or fire. Lots to play around with regarding range and stacking, but I think they're better decided through playtesting.
I really like the idea of summoning a creature to help out occasionally; I think putting the player there with his towers would show off the Pandora somewhat also. We'll keep that in mind, and once we've got the game most of the way there (but before balancing towers/enemies) we'll look into how we can keep the player active. Maybe they could play a giant eagle who can drop a boulder, so they have to fly as the eagle for a few moments... loads of ideas
I think I'm going to start by making the level designer, else it gets complicated trying to hand-write a level's datafile! I think you'll start with a plain grass field, then be able to add various models. Models include trees/rocks/village buildings to stop the player placing towers, as well as the enemy spawn and the enemy goal.
As for setting; how about we make the player control a race of dwarfs who mine so deep that they sometimes burst into the underworld, releasing horrible demons. This can be represented by the enemies coming out of a mine opening and it's a decent excuse for there to be lots of different types of enemies.
Fusion_power are you up for making some inorganic models?
Don't worry about long posts there's some great ideas and discussion in here!

 

[fusion_power]

I worry about long posts because Walls'o foreign text makes me nervous. :lol:

I think I'm going to start by making the level designer, else it gets complicated trying to hand-write a level's datafile! I think you'll start with a plain grass field, then be able to add various models. Models include trees/rocks/village buildings to stop the player placing towers, as well as the enemy spawn and the enemy goal.

As more flexible it is, as better the game can be developed and improved I guess. And I'm always for graphical level Editors, I can't stand text based stuff or scripts, scary. h34r:
My Blender Scenario already is designed to have large planes with a repeating grass Texture. One Plane for the ground, there you can place the path and the towers and some planes for around the Hill sides that raise the outer area of the Playfield (and allow The Tunnels where the Mobs spawn)

The Size of the Playfield is quite flexible, as long as it is rectangle it can have any size, it just need to fit in the grid. And it only has one big grass Plane instead of many small tiles connected like I had it before.

I'm not sure about white/black magic towers, however I already have a black one. ^^ Blue and red also could be some kind of "magic", I imagine that Magic replaces "Laser" like shooting effects to fit in the middle Age - fantasy setting.

 

[Tobs]

I'm not sure about white/black magic towers, however I already have a black one. ^^ Blue and red also could be some kind of "magic", I imagine that Magic replaces "Laser" like shooting effects to fit in the middle Age - fantasy setting.

We'll use your current models for now; I'm sure that once we've finalised the tower list, we can just make some visual tweaks. Not sure what'll happen with magic for pretty effect, but we'll work that out when we get to it!
Do we have any thoughts on what the enemies' path should be? Fusion_power's raised little wall looks quite nice, but would it be better if we also had some dirt paths for them to go along? I'm just trying to think what would fit in best.
Text based level editors are a pain! Far too hard to see what you're working on... Ideally I'd like this to be included in the game, so I'm trying to make it as user-friendly as possible.

 

[fusion_power]

I put alot of work in the Texture of this Path, so it would be nice if this path could be used. The "wall" is to keep the mobs on track and separates the path from the Tower area, at least this was my Idea.

 

[kuru]

I'd like to see interaction while the wave is going on. Please excuse my lack of knowledge considering what's already been done in TD games!

How about mobs that leave behind items like coins or spells to pick up by a special player character - as opposed to be automatically rewarded for kills - with a certain risk of loosing the character, which could mean loosing the round. The coins could be used for tower upgrades or repairs. The spells could be meta-weapons for the player to use at his leisure like the meteor blast mentioned abobe. The player character could be able to either hide in or control the towers. That could enable the player to e.g. manually aim the ballista - to maybe go for special enemy types, see below - or evade enemy troops.


Apart from that, me not having played many different TD games, are there any games with special enemies, who could require a change of focus in mid-wave interaction? The enemy could have an ice mage for example slowing player turrets or sneaky ninja cloakers who have to be spotted first or they will go straight to your base. Special enemies would be on top of the kill prority - driving the player to manually aim weapons or have some good old melee - and maybe even special resistances.

Whatcha guys think?

 

[Tobs]

I put alot of work in the Texture of this Path, so it would be nice if this path could be used. The "wall" is to keep the mobs on track and separates the path from the Tower area, at least this was my Idea.

Yep of course! I was just looking for ideas if we wanted to include several different types of track to keep some variation... dirt roads and that sort of thing.
Are you up for making some 3D models, Fusion power? Would I be okay making a list of some things? All I can think of at the moment are little village houses and halls to scatter around the map. Could you send what you've got already for me to put in? I'll probably export to .ply from Blender since that's dead simple to play with.

How about mobs that leave behind items like coins or spells to pick up by a special player character - as opposed to be automatically rewarded for kills - with a certain risk of loosing the character, which could mean loosing the round. The coins could be used for tower upgrades or repairs. The spells could be meta-weapons for the player to use at his leisure like the meteor blast mentioned abobe. The player character could be able to either hide in or control the towers. That could enable the player to e.g. manually aim the ballista - to maybe go for special enemy types, see below - or evade enemy troops.

Yeah I really like the idea of having a player character and controlling the world from a third person perspective, but I think that'll be a bit much for my first Pandora game. Also, it's a load like Tim Schafer's latest game, so he would probably hunt me down or something... I've heard he does that.
Special enemies are definitely something to think about, I'd like to hear everyone's ideas on how to cope with these. We could have a few strong enemies that are weakened significantly by player spells.

Just about to start programming this now. Think I've got a decent idea of what to do, at least technically. I'll shout again in a few days if I've made any progress! In the meantime, ideas!

 

[kuru]

Yeah I really like the idea of having a player character and controlling the world from a third person perspective, but I think that'll be a bit much for my first Pandora game.

I am thinking about a top-down view, controlling the character like in e.g. Zelda, so you can't loose track of what's going on at the playfield, zooming in a bit so you don't feel like steering an ant. I'd do it in fixed perspective anyway, 3D or not. Having said that, pickups like spells etc. would be special weapons for the Zelda-like part that require you to get close to the enemy to use them.

Tim Schafer

Who's that? I read up a bit and you seem to be talking about Trenched. Damnit all to heck I say. I keep getting those ideas while someone is already making them to cash, eff this.

 

[fusion_power]

I'd like to see interaction while the wave is going on. Please excuse my lack of knowledge considering what's already been done in TD games!

How about mobs that leave behind items like coins or spells to pick up by a special player character - as opposed to be automatically rewarded for kills - with a certain risk of loosing the character, which could mean loosing the round. The coins could be used for tower upgrades or repairs. The spells could be meta-weapons for the player to use at his leisure like the meteor blast mentioned abobe. The player character could be able to either hide in or control the towers. That could enable the player to e.g. manually aim the ballista - to maybe go for special enemy types, see below - or evade enemy troops.


Apart from that, me not having played many different TD games, are there any games with special enemies, who could require a change of focus in mid-wave interaction? The enemy could have an ice mage for example slowing player turrets or sneaky ninja cloakers who have to be spotted first or they will go straight to your base. Special enemies would be on top of the kill prority - driving the player to manually aim weapons or have some good old melee - and maybe even special resistances.

Whatcha guys think?

I'm for "keep it simple".
At first, the basic game has to be stable and balanced. Worst thing you can do is loading a game full of stuff before the game is even developed, this already was the death of many promising homebrew games. I'm for a game that can extend from a basic "core" to more complex stuff. But first it should be simple and working.

Yep of course! I was just looking for ideas if we wanted to include several different types of track to keep some variation... dirt roads and that sort of thing.
Are you up for making some 3D models, Fusion power? Would I be okay making a list of some things? All I can think of at the moment are little village houses and halls to scatter around the map. Could you send what you've got already for me to put in? I'll probably export to .ply from Blender since that's dead simple to play with.

Village Houses? I'm for a clean map, only towers and path, everything else just confuses IMHO. We really should start simple. First the basics have to work, decoration can come later.
I don't know this .ply format but Blender can export to it, I've testet. But somehow this format doesn't contain any texture paths so I guess you have to map the textures per hand again. UV-coordinates are still in the model so no problem. But I guess I just send you a Blend File from where you can grab and convert what you need. Is this OK? ^^

 

[Blue Protoman]

Can we have decent camera controls using the nubs? Pretty please? I'd offer more suggestions, but I haven't played too many tower defense games. If you want anything more, I'd love to beta test in a few months.

 

[foxblock]

Tim Schafer

Who's that?

Only one of the most funny and greatest devs of all time - I love that guy
I doubt he would hunt anyone down, he just looks dangerous

I am with fusion_power on this one, keep it simple for the start.
Still mid-wave lull is something which should be addressed.
I think a manual targeting system with special enemies kuru talked about is something which could partially counter that and is not too complex for a player or programmer to get lost.
Basically you can just "mark" a single enemy for your towers as a high-priority target, which they will shoot before anything else if it's in range.
Marking could be done by simply selecting it on the touchscreen.
This could be used to dispatch special enemies (like a wave being lead by a strong hero with some buffs, or the mentioned ninjas), but also target almost dead enemies in case multiple get through (so you kill at least some of them).
The mechanic would also make sniper towers more useful, as you can let them target only enemies with high-health to not waste shots.

On the other hand, the game should be perfectly playable without this mechanic (in lower levels), no it can be ignored by new players until they are more advanced.

Oh and I still like the idea of having spells (either globally or as active abilities of some towers).

 

[fusion_power]

Can we have decent camera controls using the nubs? Pretty please? I'd offer more suggestions, but I haven't played too many tower defense games. If you want anything more, I'd love to beta test in a few months.

I hope we don't have to care about camera controls. I want to spend my time with the Towers and not with the Camera. 3D doesn't mean free camera automaticly, more like a fixed side of view like in Paper Wars for example and some other perspectives maybe. As less camera movement is required as better it is.

@foxblock: Keep it Simple! Nobody needs direct combat in a TD game, maybe one special Tower or Building could offer a limited direct controlled Shooting (Sniper View from Tower perspective maybe) but this should be limited.
I don't want an TD RPG Game. If you want this, I recommend "Dungeon Defenders":
http://store.steampowered.com/app/65800/

 

[foxblock]

@foxblock: Keep it Simple! Nobody needs direct combat in a TD game, maybe one special Tower or Building could offer a limited direct controlled Shooting (Sniper View from Tower perspective maybe) but this should be limited.
I don't want an TD RPG Game. If you want this, I recommend "Dungeon Defenders":
http://store.steampo....com/app/65800/

Well, I dunno, I agree that one should concentrate on the core gameplay, but lulls during waves is the number one problem with TD games, it's why the become boring or tedious after some time.
Adding one element does not make the game or the making overly complex all of a sudden.

I am not talking about direct combat, it won't be anything more than selecting a unit which all towers will target. This is done in the normal view (no first person perspective or fancy camera movement or anything), the default gameplay is not interrupted by this (partly because you don't have anything to do during the wave anyway). This is also a key concept in Starcraft or Warcraft 3 (where the TD games originated), have you played those?
Adding a special tower with limited direct control actually is much more complex, confusing and interrupting at least it seems to me.
Also as I said, this should be an optional feature, which new players don't need to use. If you don't like it for whatever reason you don't have to use it - but later waves might be more problematic (there always needs to be some kind of learning curve).
Last but not least, my proposal is not even remotely similar to a TD RPG game, I think maybe you have misunderstood me there...

 

[fusion_power]

However, I guess I model a little Middle Age Timber Frame House just in case. Could be used as a "Booster Building" or something like this. So we don't need that much Tower updates later in the Game.

 

[4LPH4 W0LF]

about having a tower amount cap, why dont you have it in stages sort of. like for the first X # of waves you can only have Y # of towers, but after that you can add Z # more or something like that.
or you could have a points system seperate from upgrade points, where after you kill X number of enemies, you can add a tower (different enemies worth different points possibly) and have a cap depending on how far in the game you are, as stated above.
or you could have it that certain enemies drop tower pickups, and you can only build more towers when you have a tower pickup
idk, just ideas
sorry for bad grammar

 

[fusion_power]

about having a tower amount cap, why dont you have it in stages sort of. like for the first X # of waves you can only have Y # of towers, but after that you can add Z # more or something like that.
or you could have a points system seperate from upgrade points, where after you kill X number of enemies, you can add a tower (different enemies worth different points possibly) and have a cap depending on how far in the game you are, as stated above.
or you could have it that certain enemies drop tower pickups, and you can only build more towers when you have a tower pickup
idk, just ideas
sorry for bad grammar

Again: keep it simple
connecting the placing of towers on to many factors kills the "gameflow". It is more "fluid" and easy to handle, if you just control the ammount of towers through the Size of the Map and the Cash you have, which needs accurate balancing of course. It is also more easy to lock up the bigger Towers until you have researched them. So at the beginning, only small/weaker Towers are available, later (with more money) you can research better Towers, this only needs one click or so.

 

[4LPH4 W0LF]

Again: keep it simple
connecting the placing of towers on to many factors kills the "gameflow". It is more "fluid" and easy to handle, if you just control the ammount of towers through the Size of the Map and the Cash you have, which needs accurate balancing of course. It is also more easy to lock up the bigger Towers until you have researched them. So at the beginning, only small/weaker Towers are available, later (with more money) you can research better Towers, this only needs one click or so.
[/quote]
ok, maybe add a game mechanic where towers loose strength or dont work when theyre too close to another tower that is similar or too many are in proximity, and getting rid of the cap? i dont like having the idea of a cap, cause i could get late in the game and need to add a certain tower and not be able too cause i have too many, and cant afford to loose one of the towers i already have. also with a cap, later in the game after youve reached the cap you just sit thre, waiting for the game too end (assuming you have max upgrades, etc.). all your doing then is waiting for the end, repairing towers as they are damaged.

 

[fusion_power]

ok, maybe add a game mechanic where towers loose strength or dont work when theyre too close to another tower that is similar or too many are in proximity, and getting rid of the cap? i dont like having the idea of a cap, cause i could get late in the game and need to add a certain tower and not be able too cause i have too many, and cant afford to loose one of the towers i already have. also with a cap, later in the game after youve reached the cap you just sit thre, waiting for the game too end (assuming you have max upgrades, etc.). all your doing then is waiting for the end, repairing towers as they are damaged.

I never sayed that I'm for a maximum tower cap. At the end it all depends of how much the engine can display on the screen without slowdowns. This sets the rules of a cap. But first, there has to be a engine.^^

 

[Tobs]

Hey guys, progress report time!
Mostly I spent the last two days getting the difficult bits of the engine and level editor sorted. Most of the none-debugging OpenGL code I used should be OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible, so I'm 90% sure it'll run on the Pandora with minimum changes. Only thing I'm not sure about is GLEW; not sure that's on the Pandora, but hopefully it won't be too difficult to replace the few functions I do use (just shader stuff I think). Feature-wise, you can create paths for enemies to follow, and select what tiles the player can place his towers. Doesn't sound much, but I think it's a good start.
Some screenshots, which shows the path mode. The stanford bunnies are waypoints, and the lines denote where the enemies will travel. Camera's also pretty cool; left nub moves the cursor, right nub either rotates camera or zooms in/out. Feels quite nice and my girlfriend picked it up and was able to follow paths with the camera without me telling her controls, so I guess it feels natural? This is on a PS3 controller btw, which is basically the same layout as a Pandora...
Next, I'll start working on the actual game, get the tower creation working, then onto loading level files.
Fusion_Power: Yep, just sending Blend files of your stuff would be great! I'll get them into the right size and format and we'll see how they look Who made your grass texture, is that free for us to use as well?

 

[fusion_power]

I made this grass texture. I actualy used a existing photo of grass as base but I'm sure that nobody will sue me for this, the texture don't has anything in common anymore with the source material. ^^
You have a PM too, blend file comes tomorrow. It contains everything, including the textures. However you have to build the level with some additional surfaces like ground and surrounding ground beneth the hills. You don't have to use hundreds of grass tiles for example to fill it up, I designed the path so, that you even can drop the path tiles ontop of a big grass surface without the grass shines through the path.