Weekly Progress: New PTD Fan Film, New Race for HTD Approaches!

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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!

Okay lets talk about some new exciting stuff! First my brother just published episode 3 of the Pokemon Tower Defense Fan Film, this is probably my favorite one so far, click here to check it out now!

Also the artist for HTD have been hard at work on a new race for HTD and are planning to unveil it soon, check out the teaser shot on Kevin's blog, click here to check it out!

For PTD 2 I'm still working hard on getting it done, I've been trying to post more pictures and even movies about my progress so you guys can see what is coming.

Fixing bugs (50%)
Have Speed altering effects affect the pokemon's attack speed (100%) 

1v1 mode - level 1 (100%) - Intro level, pretty easy and short.

• Level Intro (100%)
• Level Layout (100%)
• Level Waves (100%)
• Level Ending (100%)

Level Ending Screen (Postponed) - A stat screen that will tell you how much money you earned on the level plus other things.
Pokemon Upgrade Screen (100%) - Adding the two suggestions that you guys requested, being able to change your pokemon in the screen and showing the pokemon's stats. Other additions are showing the nickname of the pokemon along with its name, showing the gender by symbol and background color. Also you can see that you can see your abilities and their description and also change them before the level. Finally I added a new pokedex button that will take you to the pokedex information of this pokemon. It will be more detailed than in ptd 1. You can see a work in progress shot below. (Note: I'm using pokemon with random moves in them for testing purposes, you can't learn these move on Onix without hacking)

Newer version, female onix, pokedex button, and ability window

Level User Interface (100%) - The Level UI will be changed to incorporate new mechanics and to not take up as much space as the previous one. Some new features you will notice in the screenshot below is being able to change a pokemon's move mid battle without having to go to the pokemon check menu, it will also help you keep track of the move's cooldown (not pictured below). Another thing you will notice is zoom, speed, and other info will be smaller and not take up as much room as before but still very visible. Where the pokeball used to be there is now a temporary box and an arrow. The box represents the current item you have selected. To change the item you click on the arrow to get a quick menu to pick your item. Items you can pick will be different pokeballs, medicine, berries, and battle items. The last thing you will notice is the 3 professor oaks on the side. For the story mode you will be able to use your traveling partners pokemon in battle! So you will be able to swap between the 3 trainers. One thing that is missing is the menu button, pause button, the special abilities button and some other small things.

Latest Version of the Pokemon Buttons

Party Selection Screen (100%)- Slightly refined, added new sorting options that you guys requested, plus additional settings to each sorting option as seen in the pictures below.

Showing new sorting options with sub menus

Any attacks that need to be modified for level 1 (100%) - Setting up the new stacking debuff mechanics. No longer will stat changing attack run out. They will also stack so you have to keep applying it to get the max effect. Watch the video below for a small preview. The graphic will get slightly bigger and stack as the debuff stacks. Also your pokemon will prioritize targets that have the lowest stack or no stack at all.
Attacks Completed:

•  Tackle, String Shot, Harden, Confusion, Poison Sting, Fury Attack, Tail Whip, Quick Attack, Focus Energy, Bite, Sand Attack, Gust, Peck, Growl, and Leer.

Level 1 Pokemon Abilities (100%) - Adding any missing abilities for the pokemon found in the first levels.

• Keen Eye, Tangled Feet, Big Pecks, Shield Dust, Run Away, Shed Skin, Compound eyes, Tinted Lens, Swarm, Sniper, Guts, and Hustle. 

Pokemon can now learn attacks before and after they evolve on a level up (100%) 
Creating the profile, profile_story, profile_1v1 classes (Programmer lingo) (100%)
Pokemon Buying Screen (100%)
Loading (100%)
Saving (100%) 
Item Buying Screen (Postponed) - Items will be postponed for near future update.

During the week I will keep adding more things and updating what I'm working on. This will give you a better look at where I am at with getting the release done.

thanks for all the support, I really want to get this out to you guys so please be patient! As always let me know what you think about the fan film, htd race teaser and ptd 2 progress! Thanks!

Hero Tower Defense: Scheduling

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Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alright, time for a update on some HTD related stuff. First off as you may have noticed from the title and date of this post is that I will no longer be sticking to a new HTD post every Thursday. Reason being is that sometimes there just isn't much to report since we are taking our time with the new releases even though we are continuously working on it. So it would seem to make more sense to just make a post only when there is something worth posting about rather than trying to fill a weekly requirement. Plus it uses some valuable time that I could be using to work on the game instead. With that said I'll still be posting about HTD fairly often just not as consistently as before.

Now onto business. Sam and I put on our business hats and decided that the best thing for us would be to let Sam focus on getting PTD2 going and put the programming for the new HTD graphics setup on hold. The reason is a pretty clear one, more people want to see PTD2 than HTD and we're all about giving you guys what you want. However, don't mistake this to mean HTD progress is stopping. That's not true at all, all that's on hold for now is the programming part, the graphics are still being worked on. If you've been following Kevin's blow you probably already know this (linke at the bottom of this post). In fact, once Sam gets a playable version of PTD2 out he will be dedicating some extra time to HTD in order to get everything moving again. Another thing to keep in mind is that since the graphics are still being worked on in the meantime that the next release of HTD will contain even more reworked content than we originally planned for.

For those of you that have been looking forward to the next HTD release (like me) and have been patiently waiting, I apologize for the temporary delay but it's ultimately a better route for the company to take. It shouldn't be too much of a delay though really. And for those of you who want to point out Ninja-ja I'll assure you this is a different case because there is more than just one person (me) working on HTD. Plus, a new version of Ninja-ja WILL come out eventually. I just need to find time for it which is scarce these days.

Thanks for all the continued support guys!


In the Works:

Design

• Commander/Player Skills (25%)
• Stat Progression (5%)
• Pet System (50%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Animations (90%)
• Unit: Race #2 - Concepts (20%)
• Unit: Race #3 - Concepts (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Concepts (80%)
• Unit: Creature #3 - Concepts (20%)
• Unit: Creature #4 - Concepts (10%)
• Weapons: Batch #2 - Assets (20%)
• Armor: Batch #1 - Assets (10%)

Programming

• Interface: Setup (75%)
• Unit: Setup (10%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Be sure to leave any ideas, suggestions, or other feedback you might have in the comments! Thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 42 - Creatures Vs Races

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 41 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Progress on the new art and graphics system is still underway and is going well. We're doing our best to get a new release out to you guys ASAP but we aren't looking to rush it out just so we can have something. I never liked seeing that happen in other games and then having to deal with all sorts of annoying bugs. Granted we're a small group and can only find so much but we do what we can. :)

Now, on to the topic at hand. Creatures Vs Races! In HTD when we say Creatures we are typically referring to enemy units and when we say Races we are referring to playable heroes. However, there will be units that are both playable races and creatures that you fight. The HTD world isn't one with race wars going on with one versus another but rather just a world full of all sorts of races and creatures that have various factions within different groups. Some are good, some are bad. This allows us to be a bit more versatile when it comes to designating enemies for maps because we can mix various kinds of units together and still have it make sense.

You might be wondering why aren't all units just creatures and playable races. Well, because it would be difficult to make something like a slug into a playable unit. The playable races require far more animations and set up in order to work with the system we've established. The main reason is because they are dynamic and allow for weapon and armor swapping which requires a lot more assets and work. However, we can always use creatures as companion pets/combat pets since they are a more limited version of a playable unit. So some might end up being available in that respect.

Another good thing about having creatures as pets and races as enemies is that we can reuse assets that we already have. It's a huge time saver and provides some additional diversity, especially the races. For example, we can use the human race as an enemy and have all the armor and weapons available to outfit them however we like and even give them variations among themselves. We can also use their animations to do different things with. All of this essentially for free since we already have them available for the playable human race.

We're all looking forward to the next release and hope to share it with you guys soon. Thanks for the continued support!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (100%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (100%)
• Unit: Human Male - Animations (25%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (75%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Be sure to leave any ideas, suggestions, or other feedback you might have in the comments!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 41 - Show and Tell

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 40 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Unfortunately the new release won't make it out this week because we were originally thinking we could set up the new interface menus using a mix of the old graphics process with the new graphics process. It seems now that we can't actually do that or it wouldn't be worth it because we'd have to redo it anyway. So we're taking the more efficient route by continuing to work on the new graphics process and then once we have that set up we'll be able to throw together the new interface and it'll be set for good. However, I wanted to give you guys a little bit of a preview in the meantime.

Hero Customization Screen

This is the Hero Customization screen where you'll be able to change things like your Race, Hair Style, Colors, etc. You might notice that there's no character roster at the bottom. This is because this screen won't always be available, it's more of a triggered screen that will become available when you are presented with the option to change some of those features. For example it'll appear when you start a new game in order to make your main hero and when you get new customizable heroes or items/quests that allow you change race or hair color. For testing purposes we'll be allowing easy access to this screen from the Party Management screen till we are at a more finalized version of the game.

Party Management Screen

Next is the Party Management screen where you'll be able to set up the group you'll take into battle, enter battle, and for now, access the Hero Customization screen. On this screen you can see the character roster, navigation buttons, and a preview of the currently selected hero. The preview will also show you the hero's name, native element (behind the character), and their currently active skills. The Enter Battle text and icon will light up when there's at least one character in your active party.

Inventory Screen

And lastly we have the Inventory screen. Your currently selected hero's equipment is on the left and the shared inventory (all characters use the same one) on the right. The check marks on the Helm and Cloak slots are toggles for turning those items visually on and off. In order to see the details of any items/skills you would just hover the cursor over it and details for it will pop up in a window.

That's all I'm going to show for now, don't want the post to get too large. There are still some placeholders at work here but as you can see it's mostly an overhaul. Hopefully we can get a new release out for you guys soon so you can try it and provide us with some feedback. As you can see we're hard at work though and things are coming together nicely, the current content just takes some time to put together.


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (90%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (90%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (75%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Suggestions and ideas are always welcome in the comments, thanks guys!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 40 - Revised Graphics and Interface Progress!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 39 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Hope you all had a good holiday weekend! We were all a bit busy visiting with family and such so no game update this week. However, we have been making good progress with all the revising we have going on. The graphics are moving along and the revised interface is just about finished so we should be able to release a new update next week. There's still some tweaking to do but overall it should be a big improvement over what we currently have which is mostly a bunch of placeholders.

Some of you have commented on how it felt clunky and a bit confusing and that's definitely one of things we've addressed. This new set up should make all the menu screens much easier to navigate and more intuitive. One of the main features is that you can change characters from any screen and the navigation buttons that let you go to other screens are always available. We'll also be making use of tooltips for further instruction as well as displaying things like skill and item details.

With the interface out of the way I'll be able to help Evan with some of the 3D assets which should also help speed things up. Evan is working on the animations for the Human Male character which requires rigging the model in order to make it easier to animate. I'm getting a render scene set up which will be used for importing any assets and then rendering out frames for all three angles, lighting, and position. Once we have those frames Sam can take and implement them into the new system which will allow him to proceed faster and easier since he'll have some reference graphics.

So things are moving along slowly but surely. As I mentioned before we hope to have a new version available for you guys next week which should include all the new interface menu screens. We hope you guys will like it and we'll definitely be looking forward to everyone's feedback!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (85%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (85%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (65%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Suggestions and ideas are always welcome in the comments, thanks guys!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 39 - Community Request: Playable Races!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 38 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Just a short post this week while we continue to chug away at the next release which should be coming soon. Another benefit of the new graphics system is that it will allow us to more easily add additional playable races. Before it meant an exponential amount of more work when adding armor because of all the additional frames required for the new race. Now, since it's in 3D, it's just a little extra work fitting it to the model of the new race and then rendering out all the necessary frames accordingly.

So, what this means is we have a lot more flexibility with what sort of playable races we can put into the game since the workload is far less significant. This works out because we weren't going to have much focus on race wars and factions but rather on good and evil. In other words it'll be a common occurrence to see a mix of races working together on everything from daily tasks to fighting a common enemy.

This is where you guys come in. What are some races you would like to be able to chose from? Are you a fan of the tried and true trifecta of Human, Orc, and Elf? Are you more interested in an obscure race that you don't see so often such as Golems (like Kevin!)? Tell us what sort of races you'd like to be able to play as in the comments!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (75%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (50%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

And of course, leave any suggestions, ideas, or other feedback you might have in the comments!Thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 38 - New Weapons! Revised Player Controls! MOAR Artists!

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 37 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alright well we're back up and running after some technical difficulties. Hopefully that doesn't happen again but you never know. You tend to run into some speed bumps no matter how much you plan ahead. Speaking of speed bumps, the transition to the new graphics system is going well. Evan just finished up a nice 3D model for the Human Male and will now start implementing the animations. We have to take things one step at a time since this is our first go at setting things up this way but once we have a system in place things will speed up. I'll also be helping with some of the 3D assets once I finish re-arranging the Interface and some other design and management tasks.

Kevin and Bill have been working on some new Creature concepts and we've also picked up Josh, another enthusiastic artist who is excited to work on some concepts for us. We've also picked up some assistance from Sam's brother, Joel. He'll also be helping with some art concepts and assets.

So you've probably noticed by this point that we've only been picking up additional artists, and lots of them. There are a few reasons for this. Primarily it's because art tends to take more time than everything else because of the sheer amount of art work required for video games. They have to create concepts with multiple views, then they have to be modeled in 3D, textured, rigged for animation, animated, and then rendered. And all throughout that process thing have to be tweaked, changed, and approved. In other words, it's time consuming. It's also better for the art to be done before programming so that when the programmer (Sam in this case) codes in something new he has the art assets to go with it. As you've probably seen we currently have a lot of placeholders scattered around HTD. That's because programming is ahead of the art right now. Granted we have to redo a bunch of art now with the new system but that is something that's pretty unavoidable and necessary, but it's a logical move in the right direction and we all agree it's worth the extra time and effort.

Now then, on to more fun topics. We put a new version up with some new weapons! These were some of the last assets done with the old graphics system so we decided we'd just throw them in. And yes, some are massive, but who doesn't like swinging around huge weapons? The Boomerang is a melee weapon for now, but don't worry it won't stay like that, it's just a temporary arrangement. We also couldn't add the Ranged weapons we had made because we don't have a ranged animation yet and it'd look pretty silly trying to make it work with one of the current animations. So we're leaving those out for now.

Lastly, we're going to change the way the player interacts with the game a bit and make you more of a commander and less of a 5 person entity. Right now you have access to 5 characters and all of their active skills which you can use manually at will. We've come to the conclusion that this is too micro-intensive for what we want to do so we'll be removing that aspect of interactivity. They skills and everything will still be there to setup your characters with but they'll just do them automatically in combat and will be affected by the behaviors once we have those in. All we're really doing is removing the manual override you can do during combat. We will, however, be adding some new skills that only you, the player, can do. These skills will be along the lines of the Class Native Skill (the same for all heroes, it lets you transfer charges to another Hero), a skill that lets you temporarily power up a character, perhaps a skill that absorbs all charges your heroes have and then unleashing a powerful attack, and probably combination attacks where you'll select multiple heroes to perform a powerful attack that differs depending on the Native Elements of those heroes. I'll elaborate more on this later but we think it'll free up up the player to focus on more fun tasks like strategy and power moves instead of trying to micromanage every hero.

So, as we continue to catch up again on the new art and graphics process have fun with the new weapons and let us know what you think about the idea for the new player skills. Thanks guys!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (50%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Attack Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (25%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Be sure to leave any suggestions or ideas you might have in the comments!


-Dan

Technical Difficulties

Want to get the Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

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

UPDATE 5/15/2012 2:46AM EST
The game and the pokemon center should now be up and running! I'm still transferring some pokemon from inactive accounts over but that will be good to go in a couple of days. It's good to be back!
-Sam


As many of you might have noticed, if you are an avid Sam and Dan Games fan, the Pokemon Center and the game will not load or save. This is due to our current host GoDaddy. We pretty much have outgrown their shared hosting plan so in order to not cause problems they added a filter that will block very active users from the sndgames.com server. The solution to this is to move to a more capable hosting service. This process is not an easy one and it takes a large amount of time to complete due to the vast amount of data that needs to be transferred . I ask for your patience in the matter. We will still be working on our games HTD, PTD 2, and ANPO while this is happening so it doesn't mean all progress has come to a halt. We will keep you updated on Twitter and here on the blog on the progress for getting PTD back on its feet and ready to go. Even if we had a 100 people this process would take a couple of weeks. We will get it working asap. Thanks for the support.

P.S. You will not lose any data that was saved.
P.S.S. We can't process any orders for the SnD Coins as well since that involves accessing the site which we are both currently blocked from. We'll respond with an email accordingly to any orders that come in and will process the orders as soon as we can.

HTD: Since the latest 3 posts are all rather significant I'm just going to post a small HTD update here in order to keep them all on the front page. As noted above we're having some issues that we need take care of ASAP. Since Sam has heavy involvement in that process we are pushing off the next HTD release till we get this server issue resolved. The next HTD release will contain a bunch of stuff that we've be working on (Not including reworked graphics) and we'll be continuing to work on everything in the meantime. Sorry about the delay guys!
-Dan

UPDATE 5/11/2012 7:17PM EST
Good progress has been made, I'm in the process of moving the databases to a new server. I moved the user database which has over 2 million entries on it today. Along with the small HTD database that only has 60 thousand entries. There are 8 different pokemon databases, the biggest one has 11 million entries in it. Smallest one has over 1 million. Sadly I can't automate this process since I don't have direct access to the server. I have to slowly take chunks of the database (about 200k entries) and import them on the new server. So we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but we still have to dig for quite a few days and then test everything to make sure it works. In the meantime since I moved the user database and the HTD database (which was tiny and took a few minutes) HTD is now playable again!
-Sam

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 37 - Decisions, Decisions

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 36 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week we have some good news and some bad regarding the current state of HTD. As some of you may have noticed the game has started to run rather slow as we've been adding more and more to it. This was a worrying sign as we knew it would only get worse as we continued to develop the game. We also want to release HTD on other platforms, particularly the phone markets. The phones run far slower than the PC so we knew we were in trouble and needed to start looking into a solution.

After some research we did find a solution and did a few tests which were giving us some positive results. However, in order to take advantage of this solution it requires the graphics to be processed a different way than how we've been doing it. There are a lot of little details involved in this that affects how the graphics are drawn and animated but essentially we have to revise the majority of the graphics. So with that in mind we started discussing our options and other concerns that we might be able to fix since we have to adjust the graphics. This led to the concern of the armor requiring a lot of work, which we were already aware of but if we could somehow make it easier it would save a lot of time. We didn't want to reduce the amount of character customization that the players would be able to adjust using equipment and other items because we know a lot of people enjoy that aspect of the game. Plus, it was something we really wanted to have as developers.

We spent some time thinking about it and discussing it and decided that perhaps the easiest path to take would be to make all the graphics in 3D instead of 2D. It would still have a similar cartoony/anime style to what we have now because the 3D graphics would be rendered out using a cell shading method. The reason for going to 3D is because it removes a lot of tedious work after the upfront work is finished. Here's a few numbers to give you an idea of what we're talking about here. On average we have around 3 frames per animation and estimate to have about 8 animations for the characters. So right there we have 24 frames, now that's only one angle. HTD has 3 angles (Front, Back, and Side which mirrors) so now we have 72 frames to draw, per item. So take a helm for example, that requires 72 frames ot be drawn. A full suit of armor (6 parts) is 432 frames that have to be drawn and that's just for one character, one race, one gender. The female would require a different set of 432 frames for the same suit of armor. A different race would require another 864 frames for both genders, etc. As we add more more races the amount of work required for adding a single piece of armor increases by a lot.

So with that in mind let's go back to 3D. I work 8 hours a day doing 3D for my full-time job and Evan has been working in 3D for awhile and taking some classes in it as well. Kevin and Bill are more specialized in 2D but their talents aren't lost because we need lots of concept art for both designs and animations, and both of them are very good at it. So how does 3D help us solve our problem? Let's take the helm as an example again. First, we'll have to model it based on concepts. Then we set it up on the character. That character would be animated to match the concepts. Once he is set up with the animations we never need to deal with them again. Since it's 3D we can just attach the helm object to it's proper location on the character and it'll position itself for all the animations automatically. Sometimes we might have to manually adjust it for certain frames but it's still a one-time set up. After that we have cameras and lights set up for each angle all we have to do is hit the render button and it'll give us all 72 frames or 432 frames for a full suit within minutes. Adjusting it to work on another gender or race is also far easier, just some slight adjustments and it'll be all set. Also making different colors and such will also be much easier and faster.

While 3D does require a bit more upfront work, in our case it's very much worth it and we'll be able to keep all our customization that we wanted to have available to you guys. Now, this isn't like we're redoing the whole game, it's just the graphics really. Sam has to implement the new method of processing the graphics in order to speed up the game, which he's working on now, but once that's done we'll be right back to developing the rest of the game using placeholders and whatnot. We'll be leaving all the current graphics in as is for now. We may or may not add them as we go or just wait till we have a bunch done and do it all at once, we'll see.

So that's where we're at. It's a speed bump but worth working through. This is just part of the developing process, it's nearly impossible for a small team to prepare for every obstacle and plan everything out perfectly. Plus the way we are doing it with giving you guys updates as often as possible through the whole process can complicate that a bit as well but it's more fun for us. We should be able to catch up graphically in a reasonable amount of time since all the concepts and animations are already done for the assets we have now. There won't be an update this week and maybe not next week but we'll still be posting about our progress as we go. We're certain this is the way to go so bare with us while we make this transition, it'll be worth it!

In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (25%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Attack Concept (25%)
• Unit: Skeleton - Concept (50%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (10%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

As always any feedback is welcome, let us hear what you have to say in the comments! Thanks!


-Dan

Pokemon Tower Defense's Final Release! A postmortem, and looking forward to the future!

Want to get the Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

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

It has been a long time coming but the end of Pokemon Tower Defense is here! From start to finish it has been a year and a half. Blood, sweat and tears! But the outcome has been more than worth it. We have leveled up, and evolved so much from the beginning. We went from hobbyist to full time game developers. From no fans to thousands of fans. This is only the beginning of our long journey and we want you to come with us!

As you move forward in any stage of your life it's important to look at your successes and your mistakes. There is a lot of valuable information in these things, especially your mistakes. In our case we will examine what I think went right in PTD and what went wrong. These things will help me with the development of PTD 2.

What Went Right

1. Crossing Pokemon with Tower Defense - This was the most critical element to the success of the whole game. Fortunately we got it right. I knew just the name Pokemon Tower Defense would catch many people's attention but the combination of elements will make them stay. From catching pokemon and using them as your towers, to having your towers stay leveled up and evolved between levels. This is something that I plan to continue and expand for the sequel. Adding breeding and pokemon holding items among other things will help the game move to the next level.

2. Community Involvement - Adding the feedback button and asking for help to improve the game, especially in the early stages of the game really helped to build the community. This is something that we will continue to do with all our games. Your feedback from comments, emails, votes on polls heavily influences the direction that our games take. Votes usually affect the games directly.

3. Weekly Updates - Waiting for the game to be completed was something that I couldn't afford to do. Releasing a game is similar to rolling a dice. The odds are mostly against you. The longer you take to roll the dice (release a game) the more risk you take on. Working on a game for some months and releasing it as an Alpha helps me to see if people are into a game and see if its worth spending more time on. Once the game was a success people just wanted more and more. I thought it would be great to have a new release each week almost like a TV series. Fans would be looking forward to the release each week, keeping the interest in the game going while being able to expose the fans to new ideas that I have for future games.

4. Pokemon Center - The Pokemon Center, most specifically the Trading Center was a great success even though it is very basic right now. It gave a chance for you fans to trade each other. I was also be able to add other options like the game corner to add other things to do in the game. The Pokemon Center will get improvements for the sequel that will make transferring and trading a whole lot easier. The ads on the Pokemon Center also help to fund the development of the game.

5. SnD Coins and Adoption - Snd Coins and Adoption really help fund our future games and also gave you the fans a chance to support us more directly while getting something in return. This system will be used for all our future games including PTD 2. In the near future we will add more ways to get the coins.

6. Game Story - Adding the story to the game (most Tower Defense don't have a story) really helped to make the game more compelling and gave a lot of chances to add cameos for characters from the anime and game. Also it added the opportunity to add references to other media that I enjoy. PTD 2 will have a new story that is loosely related to the first game.
 

What Went Wrong

1. Weekly Updates - Yes, I know I put this on the what went right section but it also went wrong in a lot of ways. I really think the quality of the game suffered due to the quick update schedule. While I'm proud of how the game turned out as a whole I know that if I had more time the quality would have risen drastically. Many times I found myself with a lot of interesting ideas but not having the time to implement them in time. The story suffered a lot also do to quick updates. Epic fight scenes were turned into just something mentioned in the dialog instead of me being able to show it. For PTD 2 we plan to take more time to make sure everything is like we want it while still trying to maintain a good schedule. More on that later.

2. The Grind - I felt that while some grinding was acceptable it was impossible to continue playing without having high level pokemon. This resulted in many people using the hacked version or having to grind out their characters while doing something else. I don't think this is fun and I want to reduce the need to grind in the sequel as I don't think it adds anything to the game. Shiny hunting will remain relatively the same but that is something that is optional.

3. Multiplayer - I had many grand ideas for multiplayer but I never got the time to fully realize those ideas. Also the way I set up the attacks in the game didn't lend themselves for multiplayer which affected how synched the levels are (not very). For the sequel I want to rebuild the attacks to work for a multiplayer setup. Also focus more on the multiplayer as it adds re-playability to the game.

4. Updating the game - Another big part that went wrong getting the update to the players. A lot of sites probably have older versions of the game that don't even work. For the sequel I want the game to check for the latest version and update itself so that everybody can get updates instantly as I put them up and I also won't have to be sending out updates to 5 different sites.

What else do you think went right and what else do you think went wrong? Let me know.

Now for the future!

My main focus now will be working on Hero Tower Defense, but that game will not be moving at the same fast pace as PTD so that will allow me some time to work on PTD 2 and our Creature Universe game (Project ANPO). I know some of you just want me to work on PTD 2 but the reality is that I also need to focus on original games that can take Sam and Dan games farther than a pokemon game can. Since we don't own the rights to pokemon I can't put the game on the different app stores and sites like Kongregate. Also PTD can get shut down at any point and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it so putting all my eggs in that basket is not a good idea.

I'm sure Dan will mention on this week's Hero Tower Defense blog but HTD is going to be getting some significant changes in the graphic department that will help speed up the development.

For Project ANPO Dan and I got to talk a lot about how the game will work and we made good progress on that. What I hope to do this month is work on a prototype so that I can start testing out the different mechanics that we have in mind and so that you guys can check it out and give us your feedback.

For PTD 2 the question I get asked the most is "When is it coming out!?" Well to be honest I don't even know when it's coming out. I will keep you guys posted. I did have an idea which is to make a special mode that has a lot of re-playability that will use the generation 1 pokemon (since I have all their stats and graphics already created) and release that first which will give you guys something to do while the game is in development. But even this mode will take a while to build so I don't have any specific dates to give out. Just follow me on Twitter and follow the blog for weekly updates to the game.

Alright guys, I really appreciate all the support for this past year and a half. I hope you enjoyed the game and if you want some more then I will be working hard to keep it coming. Thanks for everything you do!

As always let me know what you think!

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 36 - Current Progress! Community Request: Crafting!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 35 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

There won't be a release this week because Sam had some finals to study for but everyone has been working on things that'll be in the next update. Now that we have several artists helping us out we should be able to start adding more content each release. Loot drops, equipment/inventory saving, and character progression are soon to come along with some other things. We've also been researching more ways to improve performance and prepare for other platforms.

Some other changes we may be making is increasing the available unit placements for the heroes. Most unavailable spaces would just be blocked by some sort of environmental obstacle or away from the edges to prevent some other issues. However, there will also be another layer of placements to accommodate non-grounded units like flying pets or a hero with a levitation effect on them. This will allow for more variation and strategy which is always nice.

Another topic of discussion lately has been crafting/trade skills/professions (whatever you want to call them) and how they could work. We plan to have a lot of flexibility when it comes to changing the customization of your heroes. For example, you'll be able to change their hair color and hairstyle by doing something simple such as going to a nearby town. You'll also be able to alter the look and stats of your weapons through blacksmithing (either in town or perhaps through one of your characters). So say you have a sword with good stats and then you find a cooler looking sword later on that you like but it doesn't have very good stats, or vice versa. You could use a blacksmith to change your current sword to look like the other sword. So now you have a sword with the same stats but it has the new look. There may be some limitation to this in that it has to be the same type, e.g. a sword to a sword, not a sword to mace. The same could be used for customizing the way your armor looks.

Of course, you'll also be able to gather materials and create weapons from scratch. This would probably work like your typical RPG and allow you to break down other items to gain materials. Also, you'll likely acquire rare materials from bosses and quests that could lead to more powerful items.

we're throwing around some other ideas for crafting but I'm curious to hear from you guys about what you'd like to see or any ideas you might have. So leave us some of your suggestions in the comments and we'll be sure to check them out, thanks!

In the Works:

Design

• Story: Intro - Scene 1 (10%)
• Pet System (50%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen (0%)
• Skill Selection Screen (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Movement (100%)
• Weapon: Edged Boomerang (100%)
• Weapon: Tall Axe (100%)
• Weapon: Boomerang (100%)
• Weapon: Spiked Club (100%)
• Weapon: Claw Knife (100%)
• Weapon: Basic Crossbow (100%)
• Weapon: Flintlock (100%)

Programming

• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Let us hear any of your crafting ideas or other suggestions in the comments, all feedback is welcome!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 35 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.015 Release! Nature Skills!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 34 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week we bring you the Native and Tier 1 Nature Skills! We now have skills for each Element! The graphics for Light and Nature are placeholders for now but we'll be filling them in with something nicer soon.

Nature Skills have a bit more focus on utility rather than damage or defense. It will still have those things but you'll see they are more strategic in nature, no pun intended. For example, the Nature Native Skill heals a little but also immobilizes (roots) the target for 3 seconds. Useful for catching enemies that could be running off or going after certain characters at the expense of healing them slightly. On the other hand you could be using it as stackable heal for a hero that is mostly stationary.

You might wonder why you would use the Native Skill to heal instead of the Water Nature which heals for more and that can be answered with two reasons. One being Nature has additional utility in that it can also be used on an enemy to root them as mentioned before. And two, is that if an enemy is using a Nature Skill of their own that counters the Water Native then it'll wipe out the Water heal while the Nature heal would be safe.

As I've said before this will all make more sense as more skills and such get added. Same goes for why you can target your own heroes with direct damage skills that typically one-shot them. There's a reason for this that hasn't been implemented yet and the damage/health ratios are skewed a bit right now so it's imbalanced. We'll be addressing this in due time though.

One of the next things I'll be figuring out is how pets will work. I talked about pets awhile back in this post and got a bunch of good ideas from you guys so I'll certainly be taking those into consideration. Of course, feel free to offer some in comments for this post as well if you like. We always enjoy hearing ideas and suggestions from our fans!


What's New:

-Added Nature Skills (Using placeholder graphics for now)


In the Works:

Design

• Story: Intro - Scene 1 (10%)
• Pet System (10%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen (0%)
• Skill Selection Screen (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Movement (20%)

Programming

• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Feel free to leave any feedback you might have in the comments, thanks!


-Dan