Sqdef, My Tower-defense Game

[prairiefire]

quick disclamer, i haven't played since alpha 2.5 or 3 so I'm not sure which of my comments have been corrected and which have not. I also managed in the excitement of the release of these games, to bring my SD card into work and in the excitement of going home, left it at work :rolleyes: and thus cannot play anything tonight. :angry:

this is since the first Alpha. The waves with round Creatures are harder because of the smaller distances between them, makes a huge difference. But it has an advantage: When winning a round with the circle creatures you can be sure to win the next round with Square creatures without building anything new.

I agree. When playing the alphas, I found that the fun variation was the distances between creeps. Especially with the AI that the turrets use. The multiple target turrets are better on the close-together creeps, whereas the far-apart creeps are more suited to a higher damage tower that has a single target.

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Alpha 3 really is a good improvement. But at some points I think the firing-algorythm of the towers act different to Alpha2. ^^""" Turrets tend to ignore the first Creature for to long sometimes.


I'm not sure if I'm sold on the current AI. I think it would prefer having the turrets/towers shooting at the lead creeps (in their range) first.

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Enemies just to strong relative to the Power of buildings and giving not enough money. Depot's are nearly useless with their 0.5% Bonus (or is it 5%? )


Alex. introduced this in the 3rd alpha, IIRC. The problem with 5% is that it's too large. All you need to do is have 20 of these factories (quite reasonable) and you can double your cash every wave... it easily multiplies
(at one point i had something like $231241241 or something silly like that!)

The .5% may not be the right answer, maybe 1% or 2% is more reasonable.

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Laser Towers should be cheaper, or more powerful.



I think the towers are stong enough. One laser tower is stonger than many turrets and once you can afford a laser tower, you'll sell all your turrets which kind of takes back from the playability. instead, maybe more expensive towers. also, the creeps shouldn't reach as high in hitpoints as they do.

All of this aside, it's a great game and I don't want to give off the wrong impression - i'm really happy with this game! it was a privaledge being an alpha tester and I think this game is the best homebrew i've played for the gp2x. Alex did a fantastic job on this one and I think with a few more tweaks it will be even better.

Edit: meant to say more expensive towers. also the reason for this is that I like how towers are more powerful than turrets, but would like to still have a good use for turrets (and one approach is not being able to afford a lot of towers )

 

[FarazParsa]

Agreed.

Cheers to a great and addicting game, Alex!

 

[A_SN]

I must say, of all the GP2X games in the compo that I deemed sufficiently appealing to be given a try, yours is the only one that I think decently could be considered better than my own game, Sponge Blob Tennis. So, congratulations, I hope you'll get the second prize and that I'll get the first one

 

[Alex.]

One laser tower is stonger than many turrets and once you can afford a laser tower, you'll sell all your turrets which kind of takes back from the playability. instead, maybe more expensive turrets. also, the creeps shouldn't reach as high in hitpoints as they do.

Since now turrets are upgradeable 5 times (and the total is cheaper than one laser), I think they still serve a purpose. Also, creature hitpoints no longer go through the roof as of alpha 3

I must say, of all the GP2X games in the compo that I deemed sufficiently appealing to be given a try, yours is the only one that I think decently could be considered better than my own game, Sponge Blob Tennis. So, congratulations, I hope you'll get the second prize and that I'll get the first one

Hehe, cheers to that

I'm glad you guys like it!

 

[reiboul]

A very good game indeed, probably my favourite with the impressive 3D game FleshChaser which has huge potential!
(Personally I'm always dreaming about a brand new engine for Nethack lol)

My problem is, for now the game is too difficult. A bit more gold could help
And maybe more upgrades, in the research menu?

Also, just for eye-candiness, could lasers be smoothened with some i-dont-know-how-this-could-be-done antialiasing? :rolleyes:

 

[Alex.]

Antialiasing is possible, but it would be too slow when a lot of lasers would be on-screen at the same time.

As for difficulty, from personal experience 10 waves are fair on every map, 24 can be a tad challenging on some maps, and 45 is meant to be hard of course It won't be as hard in the next version though, when you'll have damage-boosting towers at your disposal.

 

[reiboul]

Antialiasing is possible, but it would be too slow when a lot of lasers would be on-screen at the same time.

As for difficulty, from personal experience 10 waves are fair on every map, 24 can be a tad challenging on some maps, and 45 is meant to be hard of course It won't be as hard in the next version though, when you'll have damage-boosting towers at your disposal.

Instead of proposing a certain number of waves, why not simply give endless gameplay? the better you are, the higher you go

The most difficult in my opinion are bosses. Monsters are sometime challenging but not as difficult as I could have made you feel Actually even if I beat every monster pretty fast, bosses tend to take 2/3 runs to be defeated! Slow and frustrating...

I personally could prefer slightly more powerful monsters, with more money, and no bosses, but I don't know how it would balance the game

 

[fusion_power]

Alex. introduced this in the 3rd alpha, IIRC. The problem with 5% is that it's too large. All you need to do is have 20 of these factories (quite reasonable) and you can double your cash every wave... it easily multiplies
(at one point i had something like $231241241 or something silly like that!)

The .5% may not be the right answer, maybe 1% or 2% is more reasonable.

Yes I had Zillions of $ to in early Alphas :lol:, that's why I had the Idea to only have ONE Money % Tower with 20 or 25% or so. It could be a bonus a boss "drop" or so, this way this kind of Factory could be ingame to the right time. The Depot could be builded only once for example.

Another Idea is to restrict the ammount of Depots just with their Size. A 2x2 Size Depot (5%) takes much space on the map and later you need this space for Towers, depending on the Map design. Should be tested I think

I think the towers are stong enough. One laser tower is stonger than many turrets and once you can afford a laser tower, you'll sell all your turrets which kind of takes back from the playability. instead, maybe more expensive turrets. also, the creeps shouldn't reach as high in hitpoints as they do.

Hehe, belive me, Laser Towers are not so good as you may think For their costs, their Range isn't that great and for the 800$ you can easily build 2 full upgrated Fire Turrets and their Range beats everything!
Here, I have survived Wave 40 with only 4 Laser Towers so far. On easy Maps with enough U-Turns Fireturrets are the best! (If you want a easy Map, as more U-Turns as better is it! ) Ok, I needed the Super Towers to and I had to sell them on on location and building them on another during the Boss Wave to have enough firepower to beat the creature (it works! ) Its incredible helpful that we can sell them for 100%, otherwise you have no chance to survive with that little money in later waves.

So, for later Versions, I still request some features (before Alex forget it ^^ )

-infinite Cursor: Cursor vanishes on a screen Side and appears on the opposite side so we can quickly be everywhere on the map in stressful situations
-Cursor could have only on moving-step above a path. (he is centered in the 32x32 path tile when reaching it) accelerates cursor to and it's a good base for a (maybe) future version with selecting Creatures-features
-Percent Display at the range circles how many % are covered with path. Can help to locate the maximum area, a Turret can fire Display could just be a small Number at on side of the circle(s) -depends on the location of the cirle
-optional small permanent onscreen Status Displays...somehow

So, I'm sure I forgort many things, whatever. I still don't like the Idea of Skins for this game, maybe alternative colour shemes or so.
In the Future, the Ingame Menus could be some degree of transparent, If this don't cost CPU Power.

Antialiasing is possible, but it would be too slow when a lot of lasers would be on-screen at the same time.

As for difficulty, from personal experience 10 waves are fair on every map, 24 can be a tad challenging on some maps, and 45 is meant to be hard of course It won't be as hard in the next version though, when you'll have damage-boosting towers at your disposal.

Hehe, that's true. If you reach wave 45 on maps like the "Multiple Paths" or this L-Shaped map of you, please send me a pic :lol:

 

[Alex.]

Damn, a 250000+ hp boss! I never got that far :lol:

I'll keep note of all these ideas and try my best to include them in the next version.

 

[fusion_power]

Damn, a 250000+ hp boss! I never got that far :lol:

I'll keep note of all these ideas and try my best to include them in the next version.

You haven't seen the end of your own game?
besides this boss, the more interesting thing is, what comes in the next wave! :lol: 12x the dark red ones with 127922HP each. No Chance!
They bring only 12$ each, maybe you could overwork the money, each wave gives. 25$ or more each for Wave 41 sounds good in my ears.

I really want to know my total Firepower of all Turrets/towers, would be funny :lol: Maybe when mark a square Area on the screen (like you select a couple of icons on your PC Desktop) Shows the complete firepower in this area.

 

[reiboul]

Maybe we could automatically gain a small price at each end of round, depending on how difficult it is

 

[ruckage]

Well done Alex - have to admit that this type of game isn't really my thing but It's obvious the ammount of work you've put into it, very polished. Will be taking this one to show my brother who is mad on Tower Defence games, I'm sure he'll love it.

 

[Moparx]

I absolutely love this game. It was well worth the wait

 

[Alex.]

Maybe we could automatically gain a small price at each end of round, depending on how difficult it is

Build Colonies and you will

Well done Alex - have to admit that this type of game isn't really my thing but It's obvious the ammount of work you've put into it, very polished. Will be taking this one to show my brother who is mad on Tower Defence games, I'm sure he'll love it.

Great!

I absolutely love this game. It was well worth the wait

Thanks Moparx!

I'll make sure the money gave out by creatures grows faster after wave 25 come the next version. The next version will be quite a big update

 

[Imerion]

I have to join in on the praise as well! Because this is my favorite GP2X game of all I have played this far. Can't stop playing it.

I have one suggestion for an addition also. I hope it has not been mentioned before. How about adding some small medals to the level-select screen, which shows which levels that has been completed? A bronze medal means a 10-wave has been completed on that level. A silver medal means a 24-wave has been completed and so on. It would be nice to keep track of what has been accomplished.

 

[fusion_power]

I'm sure, awards and so on will come with the score system. I would include a bonus system where you get a score bonus for each life, you left over after each round. So the motivation is high, to repeat a level and try to not loosing a life.

My buddy gave me a link to a good TD Flashgame:

http://www.vectortd.com/play/

I Wasn't able to test it (a little bit big for my 56k modem) but the game seems to have some good Ideas he sayed. Good Interest System, Maps with Bridges (hey, this was MY Idea! XD ) 3 different Fire modes for Towers (hey, this was Alex' Idea! XD ) and other features.

Oh, and in the future, besides the 3 Skills we have, Alex could add a simple "survivor mode" for each map: How far you come? Would include infinite waves - could be fun when enemies suddenly have 1million HP at wave 100 or so... :lol:

 

[Alex.]

Imerion: That's a cool idea, with medals for each game length Will do!

fusion_power: infinite mode would get insane, fast! There could be a top-3 hiscore for each of the 3 game lengths for each map, in addition to medals.

Cheers

 

[b._.o._.b]

Imerion: That's a cool idea, with medals for each game length Will do!

fusion_power: infinite mode would get insane, fast! There could be a top-3 hiscore for each of the 3 game lengths for each map, in addition to medals.

Cheers

Love all the new ideas!
It's already nice to play but scoring system and medal system would be great! Maybe an unlocking system so unlock 24 when you did the 10 etc. You could also do the infinite version after 45 so unlock the 45 and you can do the infinite wave.
So many possibilities and only one dev

 

[semyaza]

This is so addictive it's crazy. I think I need a strategy guide though. I cant get past 8 waves yet. Always run out of money

Only extra thing I think to add is a speed up option. Maybe it's because I'm so bad at it but watching the enemy go through where I havnt got any turrets is slow to watch.

 

[Alex.]

This is so addictive it's crazy. I think I need a strategy guide though. I cant get past 8 waves yet. Always run out of money

Only extra thing I think to add is a speed up option. Maybe it's because I'm so bad at it but watching the enemy go through where I havnt got any turrets is slow to watch.

I could put a starter strategy guide up if you want

The speed-up button is a good idea, unfortunately that would mean doing 5 or whatever times as many calculations in the same amount of time, and this slows things down when you have lots of towers/creatures on-screen in the later levels.