Hey! Nice to see you again! Like all Mondays it's time for the weekly progress blog here at Sam and Dan Games. If you haven't read last week's blog I suggest you read it. I talked about the ending of PTD 1 and the last update to come to the game among other things.
So keep track of my progress as I finish the game I will be posting updates here on this blog post.
- Viridian Ending (Movie Scene only level, sets up the last chapter of the game, Lickitung NPC trade will happen on this level) (0%)
- Intro (0%)
- Adding the crucial Lickitung NPC trade to the new level (0%)
- Add Hyper Potion (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Power Plant (Zapdos, Electabuzz (Red Only), Magnemite) (0%)
- Intro (0%)
- Layout (0%)
- Waves (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Seafoam Island (Articuno, Seel) (0%)
- Intro (0%)
- Layout (0%)
- Waves (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Victory Road (Moltres) (0%)
- Intro (0%)
- Layout (0%)
- Waves (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Elite 4 (Fight the elite 4 using the same team but team is completely healed between fights)
- Intro (0%)
- Layout (0%)
- Waves (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Champion Fight (Champion and Mewthree)
- Intro (0%)
- Layout (0%)
- Waves (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Unknown Dungeon (Mewtwo) (0%)
- Intro (0%)
- Layout (0%)
- Waves (0%)
- Ending (0%)
- Add new moves to Pokemon Center's Move List (100%)
- Add Missing HMs (40%)
- Fly (40%)
- Strength (40%)
- Surf (90%)
- Graphics/Programming (100%)
- Adding to Pokemon's HM list (0%)
- Add Level Select Graphics (100%)
- New Moves (100%)
- Psystrike (100%) - Mewtwo
- Adding new pokemon (87.5%) - Mewtwo, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Electabuzz
- Graphics (100%)
- Shiny Graphics (100%)
- Shadow Graphics (100%)
- Add Stats to game (100%)
- Relearn Moves (100%)
- TM/HM List (100%)
- Add to Save Code (0%)
- Add to Pokemon Center (100%)
Just like Hero Tower Defense every week I will talk about PTD 2 and Creature Universe (ANPO) leading up to the eventual pre-pre-pre alphas. Then just like PTD 1 and HTD we will keep updating the games until they are finished. This is just our way of keeping you, the player, involved in the process of game creation as much as possible. So instead of waiting a year and a half to see PTD 2 and longer for ANPO we will talk about them and show you our progress along the way. PTD 1 took a year and a half to make, imagine if PTD 1 just released today?! The game would be totally different I would think, a lot of your feedback was incorporated. Also without you guys I wouldn't have pushed myself so far to get it done as fast. So I really think this method will work for us here, what do you think?
Pokemon Tower Defense 2
So last week I talked about a few new mechanics that I thought would help add some new freshness to the game. Most of you really liked the ideas so I'm very happy with that and will make plans on how to add those in. This week I want to talk about something that some of my favorite Tower Defense games have that PTD 1 didn't have. This "thing" that I'm talking about is Talents!
Introduction "Trainer Specializations"!
I also love talents systems in games, and I think it will make a great addition to PTD 2. So let me talk a little bit (for those who care lol) about how this idea came to be and my different thoughts on getting to where I am with the talents now. So while looking at some other games and their talent trees I thought it would be amazing to have some sort of talent tree in the game. My first thought was "okay every pokemon will have a talent tree!" Then I was like.... "NO WAY!" having a talent tree on every pokemon, while interesting, would take forever and could prove to have many issues attached to it, including: overwhelming players, making the database even bigger and take longer to save and load! So then I thought how about if the trainer can specialize in a certain type of pokemon, almost like a gym leader! That sounded really cool to me.
So the way it works is that you will have a trainer level. You level it up by playing levels in the game. At the end of each level you will get experience points for your trainer. The higher and more difficult the level the more experience points you get. When you level up you will get talent points that you can assign on any of the specialization trees available. There will be a tree for each type of pokemon in the game. Each tree will give you bonuses not only for a particular type of pokemon but for all your pokemon. For example a fire talent might be like "Increase all your towers' damage by 5% if you have a fire pokemon in your party.". Talents will also unlock Special Abilities (I talked about these on the last blog) only accessible from talents.
So now that you read about Trainer Specializations, tell me what you think! Now onto Creature Universe!
Creature Universe (Project ANPO)
Last week I talked about the creatures feeling alive and dynamic. This is something that I want to show up in every facet of the game. This week I will start introducing the battle system. Note that this game is in a very early stage. You are pretty much getting the notes that I'm writing down as I come up with them. Something like a battle system is really hard to explain but I will try my best here to paint the picture in your head. Okay so for a long time I thought it would be very interested to make a game that when you told your "avatar" to do something he wouldn't do it automatically. Essentially your "avatar" would think about it first before doing it. Imagine you have a warrior character but his "courage" stat is low. So if you tell him to attack a dragon, he isn't going to run in there! While this is a good idea in theory... it probably isn't that much fun. Once you character has enough "courage" he might just do everything you tell him to. So what's the point?! It wasn't until I started thinking more about ANPO that I realized "Hey! I might bring this idea back!" but while I can bring part of it back, it needed some heavy tweaking.
Essentially you will control your avatar (your human trainer) and he will issue commands to your creature. Then your creature will try its best to perform your command. So what does it mean to "try its best to perform"? To me this means that creatures have limits! In pokemon a creature has some limits in the form of Attack, Defense, Speed, and PP. These are fairly straight forward, but I want to add some new stats into this game. What if your creature had a "Reaction Time" stat? I want the battles in this game to be in real-time instead of turn-based. So reaction time would be how long it takes from your command going out to the creature performing it. So lets say your creature is going to tackle the enemy but the enemy is about to throw a hyper beam kind of attack straight at you, and you the trainer select the dodge + left command! Depending on your creature and the timing of your command your creature will dodge or get hit by the enemy's attack.
Also a big change from pokemon would be the attacks! The moves in ANPO will be done by chaining a series of commands. The example I used above "dodge + left" is an example of this chaining. While just saying dodge (maybe to save time) will make a creature dodge in a direction that the creature chooses (probably random or based on something else) you can be specific and say "doge+left" or "dodge+front" etc. Each creature will have a set of commands that are standard for all creatures. Things like "dodge", "run", "attack", "jump" are examples of a few of the standard commands. But then bird like creatures will have "fly", "flap wings", "peck". Using a combination of these will result in different attacks! You will also be able to save custom combinations so you don't have to keep selecting them over and over.
So I hope this gives you a small view into what I'm aiming for. You don't have direct control over your creatures but you will be issuing them commands. As you get to know your creature more and more you will learn the timing for when to issue commands to be able to battle effectively. You will also be able to train your creature to increase its speed and reaction time.
I hope you guys have a good week, and as always let me know what you think on the comments below!
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