Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 19 - Happy Holidays! HTD Pre-Alpha v0.001 Release!

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo WIP

Go here to read Day 18 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense v0.001!

First off, Happy Holidays everyone! We'll all be taking a short break while we enjoy the holidays but we might jump in every now and then to answers comments and such. I hope you all have a good time during the next several days and get lots of cool stuff!

Speaking of getting cool stuff, we here at Sam & Dan Games would like to give you guys a small gift of our own; the first release of HTD! Yay! Now you may have noticed the title "Pre-Alpha v0.001." This is pretty accurate. In other words this is like the very beginnings of HTD's physical form. For those of you who haven't been following the HTD's posts you might play this be wonder where the rest is. We've done a lot of stuff but as with most big projects the inital stage of development takes a lot of time in order to build the foundation and set things up for everything else to follow. You guys have been very helpful in that process with giving us feedback and we plan to continue asking for it every step of the way. This early release being one of those steps.

This version is basically just a demo survival map with some basic, core functions of the game. You have to protect the character with no armor (we don't have armor done for them yet :P) for as long as you can. Eventually you'll get overrun but it's a good testing ground for trying things out as we continue to add stuff. There are no profiles, leveling up, choosing skills, or manually triggering skills but they'll be coming soon.

While there isn't much there right now, this is our starting point, and from now on we'll be releasing updates for HTD as often as we can. There's a lot to come and we'll be asking the community for ideas and suggestions on a regular basis. Everything from quest ideas to weapon concepts to level designs. We have plenty of our own ideas but it's not like we can think of everything and having you guys help out is a great resource. Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD is one way you can voice your opinion on such things. He puts up art related polls and asks for feedback on stuff he's currently working on as well as answers questions you guys might have for him.

So play around with this early release, see what you think, and let us hear your feedback in the comments! Have fun and Happy Holidays!

-Dan

Hey guys! It's been a long time coming but we are finally at the release for Hero Tower Defense! I'm pretty much going to repeat most of what Dan said! The game is really early, but I hope you guys can see what is there and use your imagination to see where the game is going to go. Some small things that aren't mentioned is that you can use the arrow keys to move the map and the "-" and "+" to zoom in and out. I wanted to thank Kevin (our artist) for doing such a great job! Thanks pal! I also want to thank Dan for answering all the SnD Coin emails and for taking over the design of HTD! ;P My family and girlfriend (they probably won't read this) but I thank them for all the support, letting me spend all this time on the computer! Lastly I want to thank you guys for such a great year, I say this a lot but I always mean it that without you guys we wouldn't be here right now releasing this game. I hope you guys have a good Christmas and New Years. See you guys in 2012!
As always let us know what you think!
-Sam

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 18 - Native Skills

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo WIP

Go here to read Day 17 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Today I want to go over Native Skills (NS). I apologize in advance for all the abbreviations I'm about to use. :)

So what are NS? NS are skills that you start with and require no points. Each character will have one Native Elemental Skill (NES) and one Native Class Skill (NCS). There are 5 different NES, one for each elemental. The NES you end up with is determined by the character's native element. They are kind of like a racial traits but instead of being based on the character's race they are based on the character's native element instead. The NCS on the other hand is the same for every character. You'll see why in a moment.

All NES are ranged direct damage skills, there's no projectile and not based on your weapon, it just instantly hits. They all have a some sort of duration based effect (e.g. DoT, Buff, etc) and are stackable up to 5 times, each time increasing it's effects and renewing the duration. It's also worth noting that these skills can be used on allies as well. Also, NES are unique in that they are able to generate elemental charges around your character. These charges can be used various ways which I'll explain later.

Here's a list of the NES and how they are currently set up:

Fire: Sets your target on fire causing it to take continuous damage and increasing it's Fire Attunement

Water: Douses your target with water causing it to be continuously healed and increasing it's Water Attunement

Nature: Binds your target with nature causing it to be immobile for a moment then continuously healed as well as increasing it's Nature Attunement

Light: Empowers your target with light increasing it's Physical and Magical Power as well as increasing it's Light Attunement

Shadow: Inflicts your target with shadow decreasing it's Physical and Magical Defense as well as increasing it's Shadow Attunement

As a reminder, attunements are a unit's resistance and effectiveness with each elemental's skills.

Now for the charges. For every NES use that character will receive a charge of that elemental type. So since the NES is linked to your native element it means that characater can only produce that type of charge. Every character can hold up to 5 charges each charge increases the characters attunement corresponding to the type of charge. So if it's a fire charge, it'll increase your fire attunement, etc. The charges are consumed by Finisher skills (FS). These skills require at least one charge but will consume whatever charges you currently have stored. Each charge will increase the FS power to varying degrees depending on the type of the FS and the type of the charges consumed. So for example, if you have 5 fire charges and you use a fire FS it's power will be boosted a lot. If you have 5 water charges and you use a fire FS you won't get much of a boost at all because water counters fire.

There's one FS with the exception to this rule and that's the NCS all classes start out with that I mentioned earlier. The NCS is a FS that lets you transfer whatever charges you have available to another unit. So now you can have a character with one native element holding the charges of another element, it just requires some team work. This also means that you can have a mix of charge types on a character since you can hold up to 5 charges.

This brings up one other point. Say you do a charge transfer and the receiving target goes over the limit of charges they can hold, or perhaps they already are full and you transfer for to them, what happens? Well, first it will check to see if there's any charge spots available and fill those then whatever are left will do a type check against the other elemental charges and either replace them or get countered. Here's a couple simple examples:

1. You transfer 5 water charges to a character with 5 fire charges - all the fire charges get replaced by the water charges. So the target ends up with all water charges.

2. You transfer 5 water charges to a character with 2 fire charges and 2 shadow charges - one water charge gets added, the two fire charges are replaced by two water charges while the 2 shadow charges remain because shadow counters water. So the target ends up with 3 water charges and 2 shadow charges.

I sounds more complicated than it actually is but these NS are meant to be important and used strategically and not just as a "Click skill, do damage" type of move. At the very beginning you'll be using them constantly just because you won't have many other moves to choose from but their importance will remain high throughout the game. This also allows for some interesting stuff to do with strategies for general attacks, boss encounters, level objectives, etc so expect to see some fun things going on in the future.


Well that was a bit long but fun to write! On a side note we're all working hard to have as much ready for the upcoming release as possible. However, I've said it before and I'll say it again just to keep everyone on the same page. This release is basically a prototype of what we have physically developed so far. Design and concept is the majority of what we've been doing so far and so we've only just begun to start physically developing the game into something. But we promised to give you guys something as soon as possible and we want to hear your feedback every step of the way so we're showing you what's essentially a just-started, pre-alpha, v0.0001, right-out-of-the-gates release. So just keep that in mind please. :D

Kevin also has a new poll up on his blog, KXN @ HTD for choosing Male Hairstyles so head over there and be sure to cast your vote!

As always, let us hear what you have to say in the comments and thanks!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 17 - Community Request: Game Mechanic

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo WIP

Go here to read the Day 16 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

So for this post I'm going to take a small break from posting a game progress update in order to ask you guys a question.

We definitely have a lot of ideas for HTD and you guys have given us a lot of help with those ideas. You've also given us some great new ideas as well. This is all very helpful to us and even though the first version of the game will basically be at the prototype, pre-alpha, v0.01 stage in development we look forward to hearing your feedback on that as well. This will just help us a lot because you'll be able to get your hands on it and tell us what you like or dislike right from the beginning while the game is still wide open for changes.

This is all to say that your comments, suggestions, ideas, and feedback in general is very useful to us. In a past post I asked what game references you guys might like to see in the game and I found those suggestions to be quite helpful and ended up with a large list of good suggestions. So I wanted to call upon our fans again and ask you guys to think of some game mechanics that either you've thought of yourself or you've seen elsewhere and then pick one that you'd really like to see in HTD. For example, something like siege weapons that you can build and place like towers or maybe housing for your characters, etc. Just try to limit it to one suggestion though because I know a lot of you have a bunch of ideas but give me the one game mechanic you want the most. Also try to think about how it'll work in HTD's TD/RPG gameplay. It's ok if it's already been mentioned before because nothing is 100% at this point and things can always change. Plus, if lots of people want the same thing then this will let us know.

So let us hear your suggestion/idea for your most wanted game mechanic in the comments. I look forward to reading your responses! Also, Kevin has a new poll up on his blog, KXN @ HTD for choosing Male Hairstyles so head over there and cast your vote!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 16 - Weapons

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo WIP

Go here to read the Day 15 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Alright, in this weeks post I want go into weapons and how they may differ from eachother.

In HTD we plan to have many different types of weapons that players can choose from to fit their style. These, of course, won't all be available right at the first release but we'll be releasing more and more as we continue with development. The term "weapons" in this case also includes things like shields and trinkets that you can hold. There will be one-hand and two-hand versions of all nearly all the different types of weapons. I say "nearly all" because there are some exceptions like shields which are usually only one-handed and polearms which are typically only two-handed.

The weapons will be broken up into a few general categories and than branch from there. Here's a list of what we're thinking for some of those categories with their type of weapons:

Light Melee: lighter and faster, close-range weapons

- Daggers, Shortswords, Small Axes and Maces, etc

Heavy Melee: heavier and slower, close-range weapons

- Polearms, Longswords, Large Axes and Maces, etc

Light Ranged: lighter and faster, long-range weapons

- Bows, Small Guns and Throwing Weapons, etc

Heavy Ranged: heavier and slower, long-range weapons

- Crossbows, Large Guns and Throwing Weapons, etc

Fist: Varying sizes and speeds, close-range weapons

- Knuckledusters, Bos (Sam: What's a bos?), etc

(Bos - It's a super secret weapon! :) No, actually I guess the plural version is actually just Bo, aka Bō. Like a Bo Staff and other stick weapons.)

Magical: Varying sizes and speeds, long-range weapons

- Wands, Staves, etc

Light Shields: Smaller and lighter, off-hand weapons

- Bucklers, Heater Shields, etc

Heavy Shields: Larger and heavier, off-hand weapons

- Kite Shields, Tower Shields, etc

Trinkets: Various sized, off-hand weapons

- Scrolls, Books, Magical Globes, etc

The weapons in each of these categories is affected by certain character stats differently. For example, Heavy Melee Weapons will benefit from high Strength and some Dexterity whereas Magical Weapons will rely mostly on Intelligence and only a little on Dexterity.

Another thing is we'll probably have equipment slots for 1H/2H Close-range Weapons, 1H/2H Long-range Weapons and your character may swap between them automatically depending on the distance of the closest enemy. So if there's an enemy unit coming towards your warrior character he won't just be sitting there waiting for the unit to come within melee range. Instead he'll auto-switch to his ranged weapon and use that till it gets closer or another enemy gets closer. This also helps prevent your warrior character from just getting out-ranged by an enemy unit that is attacking him constantly from a distance.

We're also thinking about having weapons be a bit customizable in some way so you can gear it more towards your character's style. Things like tradeskills will certainly provide some other possibilities as well. Either way, we'll have tons of weapons eventually and any suggestions you guys make will be helpful as always. Even some of your own designs could certianly make it into the game and would help Kevin out greatly.

Speaking of Kevin, check out his blog, KXN @ HTD to see some additional HTD art and be sure to participate in any polls he has going because that helps us know what you guys want first. Also here's a fitting image of some weapons:

HTD Weapons

Be sure to leave use any feedback and suggestions you guys might have, it's greatly appreciated and very helpful to us, thanks!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 15 - HTD Thursday's, Progress Update, and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo WIP

Go here to read the Day 14 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Today is just a small update since it's Thanksgiving. I just wanted to give a brief rundown of our progress and some changes.

First, a reminder about the HTD day change. Sam was posting the PTD post later in the week at first but recently has been posting it on Monday because it works out better with his current scheduling of the weekly PTD update. Having the PTD post on Monday then immediately having the HTD post on Tuesday squishes things together. To remedy the problem we're going to change things a bit and have the PTD post on Monday and the HTD post on Thursday to have a better spread on the blog.

Next up I just want to say we're making pretty good progress on HTD and should make the late December release date as planned. We have some additional maps (the cave is multi-level) in the works by Kevin, Sam is adding more mechanics and features, and I'm working on the design of various things including the Tier 1 elemental and class moves and audio. So things are moving along nicely!

You can find more behind-the-scenes HTD art work on Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD, check it out!

And last but not least (although it's a little late) Happy Thanksgiving!

All feedback is welcome and encouraged! You guys are a lot of help so be sure to let us know of any suggestions or ideas you have in the comments and thanks for all your help thus far!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Tuesday: Day 14 - HTD Release Date! Armor & New HTD Day Too!

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Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Tuesday!

HTD Logo WIP

Go here to read the Day 13 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Today I'd like to officially announce HTD's release date, which some of you may already know about. Then I'll discuss some thoughts on the armor in the game and HTD's day change.

First, I would like to announce that we've decided to shoot for a HTD release date of late December. Keep in mind this will be like version 0.1. In other words, it'll just have some of the core mechanics and other things for you to play around with. We like to release the games when they are very early in development in order to give you guys as many chances as possible to participate in helping us make the game. This also helps us to gather feedback every step of the way. So I hope everyone is looking forward to it as much as we are!

Now onto the armor. I just want to clarify that I'll be talking about armor specifically, not accessories like rings or trinkets or weapons. We'll definitely have those as well but that'll be a different post.

Armor will certainly play a large role in HTD. After all, everyone likes gearing up their characters with new armor, acquiring new loot, and sometimes even just collecting sets. We intend to have a lot of armor in the game of all types. It won't all be available right from the start of course but we'll be trying to add some every update.

As I mentioned before there will be various types of armor but they'll generally fall into light, medium, and heavy categories. However, everyone will be able to wear them, it's just a matter of what stats you end up getting from the armor. Generally the defense values of these armors will correlate to their type, i.e. lighter armors have lower defense and heavier armors have higher defense.

There will certainly be more stats than just defense on armors. Since everyone is able to wear the armors, and your class being dynamic to how you spend your skill points, it means you can have classes like a monk who might wear cloth and a battlemage who might wear plate. So not all cloth will be geared towards casters and not all plate will be geared towards warriors.

Here's a list what we have in mind for the armor pieces the characters will have:

• Helm
• Shoulders
• Chest/Arms
• Gloves
• Legs
• Boots

Most (if not all) of these pieces will change cosmetically on your character as well. We know some people like having the option of disabling the helm graphic but still having it equipped so we'll have that for sure.

Here's a cool sketch from Kevin showing his concept of the Human Male in Cloth Armor:

Human Male in Cloth Armor Concept

You can find more behind-the-scenes HTD art work on Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD, check it out!

Now about the HTD day change. Sam was posting the PTD post later in the week at first but recently has been posting it on Monday because it works out better with his current scheduling of the weekly PTD update. Having the PTD post on Monday then immediately having the HTD post on Tuesday squishes things together. To remedy the problem we're going to change things a bit and have the PTD post on Monday and the HTD post on Thursday to have a better spread on the blog. We already have this HTD post for this week so the next one will be on Thursday of next week.

So on that note I give you, HTD Thursdays! :P

All feedback is welcome and encouraged! You guys are a lot of help so be sure to let us know of any suggestions or ideas you have in the comments and thanks for all your help thus far!

-Dan