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[aschearer]

I'm revisiting a game idea I prototyped a while ago. It's a tower defense type game or at least how I imagine those games should be. You can play the prototype here. So this time around I'd like to expand on some of the ideas and explore some new ones and I thought I'd try to keep a log of my journey and solicit as much feedback as possible from the community. To kick things off I've written a little introduction to the project with a list of ideas and open questions, check it out in full if you like:

Null Op Revisited

Mock-up


Some of the outstanding points I'd like your feedback on:

  1. What sort of weapons should I have?

Currently I'm planning on a mine, simple turret, laser beam, and big turret. The last one seems a little boring perhaps, what would be more fun and interesting?

  2. What sort of level design should I employ?

The prototype featured a single level which got progressively harder each wave. Is this sufficient or should I employ a level-based system? If the later then what determines moving between levels and what would make each level different and interesting?

  3. How should I reward the player? With a story and cutscenes?

Is it even worth trying to add these things for a tower defense game? Obviously this would require someone who could storyboard and animate meaning I'd need some help. If I don't do something like this what would be a good reward for the player upon completing the game?

Anyway, thanks for any ideas and feedback! Stay tuned, Alex

[Lynx]

 1. What sort of weapons should I have?

Currently I'm planning on a mine, simple turret, laser beam, and big turret. The last one seems a little boring perhaps, what would be more fun and interesting?

Have it throw bombs which explode and do splash damage?

 2. What sort of level design should I employ?

The prototype featured a single level which got progressively harder each wave. Is this sufficient or should I employ a level-based system? If the later then what determines moving between levels and what would make each level different and interesting?

Right now it sounds like a pretty boilerplate Tower Defense.  Think about how you want to make your game interesting and different from other people's Tower Defense games.

 3. How should I reward the player? With a story and cutscenes?

Is it even worth trying to add these things for a tower defense game?

To prevent Paul Eres from having to toot his own horn:

Immortal Defense deserves to be one of the indie gaming classics, in my opinion.  The story makes the Tower Defense genre and gameplay plausible and brings a level of immersion that you couldn't achieve through gameplay alone.

[aschearer]

Hey Lynx for the feedback. I'd like to respond to some of your points and see if you can't help clarify things for me. Let's see,

Right now it sounds like a pretty boilerplate Tower Defense.  Think about how you want to make your game interesting and different from other people's Tower Defense games.

So on the one hand I'm happy if I don't totally revolutionize the genre :-) On the other hand, I feel like Null Op offers something slightly different because it doesn't adopt the rail system for the enemies. Watching the video for Immortal Defense (looked pretty cool!) and other TD games it seems like they usually involve some maze which the enemies have to traverse. The player can then decide to place weapons alongside the pathways in the maze in order to defeat enemies as they move through the maze.

In Null Op you won't have any such structure. Instead I'd like the enemies to have the freedom to find their own path through space (via A*, some steering algorithm, or a combination of these things). In this sense it is maybe more like a RTS than a TD. As you lay down weapons the enemies should respond by trying to find a better path to the destination. If you play the prototype linked above you can get a sense for how this works. Now, it's totally possible I'm simply ignorant of the TD games which are similar, if that's the case can you point to a few of them?

Immortal Defense deserves to be one of the indie gaming classics, in my opinion.  The story makes the Tower Defense genre and gameplay plausible and brings a level of immersion that you couldn't achieve through gameplay alone.

Yea, Immortal Defense did seem well done, and I think after watching the trailer and thinking about it some story is probably the right way to go. Paul, if you get this how did you work the story into Immortal Defense? Is it a direct cut scene after each (or some number) of levels? Did people find that approach satisfactory or did people just skip past the story (for instance like I did in Braid)?

[Lynx]

Trying to run the prototype gave me a java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException caused by an UnsatisfiedLinkError on org.lwjgl.openal.AL10.nalGetBufferi(II)

This on my work Linux machine.

Anyway, that's a good differentiation point, as are the 'infected squares' that you mention in the link.  You might allow players to build walls, and the enemies to attack and destroy walls, since you want to make the maze less of a one-dimensional path for the enemies, allowing both enemies and players to shape the maze might work for you.

You could add utility towers - towers that create a fog that enemies can't see through, reducing them to one square of perception, towers that throw oil slicks, or otherwise slow the enemies.  Ultraviolet rays-emitting light towers that prevent infected squares, and which are necessary to push back the infection, but only weaken infected enemies?

You could also add support facilities.  Nominally, towers are there to protect something, right?  You could show some of the area being protected and have it contribute, i.e. power plants, farms, living quarters.  You'd have to split your limited resources (money, manpower, available space to build) between towers and support facilities.

Immortal Defense prefaced each game level with a picture and a short section of text - typically no more than 200 words.  This was quite skippable.  Levels were short, usually a few minutes.

[aschearer]

Hey Lynx, thanks for taking the time to reply. I'll have to look into that exception... haven't tried the webstart in a while perhaps it's degraded.

As for your ideas about different building types I think you bring up a few exciting ideas. Initially I was thinking there would be only four building types to pick from, but I'll have to explore some additional types -- such as the "sandbag" type to block a path. I also like the idea of supporting towers. For instance you could have towers which purposefully attract viruses to them, which repel them, etc.

My only concern now is that we're leaving a simple TD model and getting more complex, but I suppose that half the fun will be balancing the complexity with intuitiveness.

[aschearer]

Update time, I've been pretty busy with normal things like work and relaxing but I've found some time to do a few things for Null Op. First off I moved the physics library I used for Fluster into a separate project and cleaned it up for general use. You can read more about that and download the source here Crash for Flash, or play with the demo/test I created:

http://anotherearlymorning.com/flash/crash.swf

Next up I've started working on steering behaviors for the viruses. I'd like them to do some neat things like follow leader viruses, avoid obstacles intelligently, and flock. So far I've just got the basic behavior down which you can read more about here. There's also a video showing off the different stages of development for the arrival behavior, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/v/EWN6GqFb-OI&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=0

Anyway, I'm going to continue adding the more sophisticated steering behaviors and evolve that library. When that's finished I should be pretty close to having a prototype which takes things to the next level!

P.S. Are the flash tags not supported?