Reverse Tower Defense

Game Design Document: Reverse Tower Defense

http://transmedia.trinity.edu/~gbillock/Reverse%20Tower%20Defense/

1. Overall Vision
   1. Summary: Reverse Tower Defense is a game similar to Clash of Clans in the sense that the goal is to spawn units as they work their way towards the castle. The tower maze will be pre-set and will get harder as the player units get closer to the castle. Once the units reach the castle, they must knock it break it down by attacking it. Once the castle has been destroyed the player wins the game and is taken to the winner page.
      

      Figure 1. This is the intro splash page that shows you all the towers as well as all available units. It also informs you how to play the game.

   2. Genre: The genre of this game is considered a competitive single player tower defense type game.
   3. Target Audience: The target audience consists of anyone who has played tower defense games and particularly enjoyed them. The audience age ranges between 10 and up. The reasoning behind this is that “Clash of Clans” is a very popular game and generally speaking, people of all ages can and do play that game. The target audience will need a computer with a mouse to play this game.
2. Mechanics: rules of the game world
3. 

   Figure 2. Here is the layout of the game. It has all towers displayed. All units are shown on the left hand side and the UI is also shown on the top. 

   1. Character Goals:
      1. The players goal is to battle his way past the attacking towers as he and his units work their way towards the castle.
      2. The player must destroy the castle by spawning the appropriate units before the time expires.
      3. It is up to the player to decide which units to spawn and when to spawn them. Some towers attack ground units only and some towers attack air units only. The player must decide when it is appropriate to spawn these units based on tower location and which units are leading the way.
4. Abilities:
   1. The player has the ability to spawn a dragon (flying unit) that deals moderate damage and moves quicker than ground units.
   2. The player has the ability to spawn an elite dragon (flying unit) that deals more damage than the normal dragon and moves very fast.
   3. The player has the ability to spawn two types of ground units. The first unit is a normal warrior who has moderate speed and moderate attack. The next option is an elite warrior who does double the damage and moves faster as well
   4. Lastly, the player has the ability to spawn a battering ram (deals damage to castle only) and also a catapult (deals damage to castle only). Both these units deal massive damage to the castle but also move extremely slow so it is essential that the player has units already spawned in front of them.

1. Obstacles:
   1. The obstacles the player units will face are the towers as they work their way through the tower maze.
   2. Rocket Tower: This tower will be able to gun down any air unit the player has deployed. These towers shoot rockets and can only attack air units.
   3. Archer Tower (Red): This tower is the main tower used for attacking user deployed ground units only. The archer tower does the least amount of damage compared to all other towers.
   4. Cannon Tower (Black): This tower periodically shoots giant cannonballs in a random location. If any unit is hit within the cannonballs blast radius they are instantly destroyed. The cannon tower cannot hit air units.
   5. Electricity Tower(Purple): This is the most powerful tower of them all. This tower deals massive damage to both air and ground units. They are placed towards the end of the level protecting the castle.

1. Items:
   1. Speed Gem (green) – when the player unit walks over the green gem, he will receive a 5% speed boost with a scaling effect.
   2. Damage Gem (Gold) – When the player unit walks over the gold gem, the units damage will be increased by +5 with a scaling effect.
   3. Defense Gem (Silver) – When the player unit walks over the silver gem, the units defense will be increased by +10 with a scaling effect.
   4. Mana Gem (Purple) – When the player unit walks over the purple gem, mana will be instantly replenished by +10. Mana is used to spawn units.
   5. Health Gem (Red) – When the player unit walks over the red gem, he will gain back some of his unit’s health (+5).

1. Resources:
   1. Mana Points are used to spawn player units. Each unit has a particular mana cost. Furthermore, mana replenishes by +20 every 5 seconds.
   2. Unit Health – each unit has a set amount of health before they are destroyed by the towers. The more powerful the unit, the more health it has.
   3. Unit Attack Power – each unit has a specific attack set. The more powerful units deal more damage and collecting gems also increases weaker units damage.
   4. Unit Defense – each unit has a specific defense. The higher the units defense, the less damage it will take from the towers.

1. Dynamics: Interaction between player and game
   1. User Interaction:
      1. The player needs a computer to play this game preferably with a mouse.
      2. The player uses the mouse to click on the units to spawn them. All the player has to do is click over each unit to spawn them. The units will spawn and work their way through the maze.
      3. The player is informed of the game objectives at the start of the game on the splash page.
      4. To start the game, the player presses X on the keyboard and to restart the game the player presses R on the game over page.
      5. To pause the game, the player presses the esc button.

1. Proficiency:
   1. The player will need to know when to spawn the appropriate units for example, don’t spawn a battering ram as the first unit.
   2. The player will also have to manage his mana and choose the units to spawn.
   3. The player should be advised to spawn ground units first and then move onto spawning the more elite units once he has accrued more mana.
2. Gameplay Data:
   1. The player has 5 minutes to get to his/her units to the castle and destroy. If time runs out, the player is instantly taken to the game over page. The countdown is displayed at the top middle of the screen.
   2. The player can collect all items as described above for power-ups. When the power up is collected it will be destroyed.
   3. Mana is displayed on the top right of the screen.
   4. Mana cost of units is displayed directly to the right of them.
   5. Attack power, defense, and speed are not shown because the units are tiered and each units ap, defense, and speed is doubled.

1. Controlling the Game:
   1. The user starts the game by pressing X on the keyboard.
   2. The user pauses the game by pressing escape on the keyboard
   3. The user restarts the game by pressing R on the game over page.

   4. 

      Figure 3. This is the game over page which the player is lead to after he/she loses. Click R to restart.

2. Aesthetics
   1. Overall: The game feels a lot like any typical tower defense game in reverse mode. In other words, it has a “Clash of Clans” feel to it since you are spawning units rather than creating a tower maze.
   2. Game Art: the game uses an assortment of art collections. It uses mostly pixel art but also includes some isometric images. The colors are bright until you get to the losing page in which case everything goes dark because you LOST.
   3. Plot: The evil king is planning an attack on your fortress. In order to prevent this from happening, you make the first move and instead, attack the evil kings castle.
   4. Emotional State: This game tries to provoke a happy go lucky sort of feeling within the player. When the player wins he/she should feel satisfied that they conquered the evil king. When the player loses he/she should feel the need to play until they win.
   5. Fun: Some gratifications that come with this game would be spawning the correct units, collecting gems, overcoming the challenge of the tower maze, and destroying the castle.

   6. 

      Figure 4. When the player wins, he/she wins a chicken dinner. Just kidding, the player is directed to this page once the castle is destroyed. This is the moment where the player should feel extremely satisfied

3. Credits

Almost all of the tiles and environmental assets within my game were created by kenney.nl. I used their “Tower Defense” package. I also my unit images from Open Game Art.

6. Reflection

After working through construct 2 it is apparent that there were lots of frustrations. Setting up the layout of the game came easy to me but as always, the coding proved to be difficult. In fact, something did go very wrong with my coding and I could not figure it out for the life of me. All towers work except for the archer tower. The archer tower just randomly shoots fire arrows and they don’t hit anything like they are supposed to. Furthermore, the fire arrows are supposed to be destroyed but they never do get destroyed. I could not fix this problem but want to continue to master this game anyways.

Next, I want to continue to work on this game. I want to add a few more levels with different towers and new spawn able units. I also want to make my units look more appealing in the sense that they have some sort of animation when moving along the tower maze. My hope is that next semester I can continue to mess around on construct 2 and add to this game. Next, I want to tackle an asteroid type game. I believe we worked on it in a module but it would be fun to mess around with that. I still have many questions about construct 2. For example, why are my archer towers so messed up? I worked through the tower defense module in the book but still could not figure this out. All my other towers seemed to work effectively.

In my DIY, I learned how to make bread. Something I never thought I would be able to do. I never thought I’d be able to code in construct so I guess the DIY assignment showed me that anything is possible. My animation project was perhaps the worst out of all. I am terrible with animate and just overall thought it was horrible. There really is no link I have with animate to this final game since I didn’t use it. The platform game taught me the basics of coding in construct 2 and prepared me for the final game assignment. Without the platform game assignment, I would be lost completely. For my final game, I chose to do a tower defense type game because I have always enjoyed playing those games for fun. I would almost consider this final project a DIY project because I basically created everything except for the images. Lastly, the working through the modules helped me out a lot when learning how to use construct 2.

The wifi put my turkey in too much pain.

Project #1 WiFi enhancer dishes. For my first project I tried to enhance our puny wifi signal in my house using aluminum foil, cardboard, and a lot of math. This project was a foreshadowing of this class, with me thinking I’d found a relatively simple idea, being proven EXTREMELY wrong and sticking with it anyway.

Project #2 The Duel. For my second project I created a short animation of a duel between two characters. Again something I thought would be simple but wasn’t. The only simple part was the night sky which I figured out how to switch from evening to night in a previous animation. Read more here.

The Minnesota Vikings enemies.

Project #3 This is Thanksgiving right? My first completed game in this class was a platformer with two levels. The goal is to get the turkey pardon from TV’s President Bartlett without being accosted by the Minnesota Vikings, a tacky Macy’s parade float, Charlie brown, or a fat Uncle. I thought it would give my game a uniqueness to it if I had several different kinds of enemies with different attacks. It was incredibly complicated but it worked in the end. Read more here.

Project #4 Too Much Pain. The final game of this class for me was an isometric roguelike that featured music by my favorite Japanese 80’s punk band. The goal was to tap into the emotions the music evokes to defeat the monsters, and beat the game. Another example of something I thought would be simple biting me in the end, as it took several days just to get the fundamentals working. Read more here.

 

Way too much pain

1. Overall Vision
   1. Summary. Too Much Pain is a top down isometric game, where the goal is to defeat the final boss before the player’s harshness meter becomes too full, dumping them at the game over screen. The player avoids or defeats the diverse enemies in each dungeon to get the necessary weapons to defeat the boss.
   2. Genre. This game is a dungeon crawler roguelike.
   3. Target Audience. The audience for this game is anyone who enjoys the genre, and music choice, background is nearly irrelevant. The only specific equipment requirement is a keyboard with a number pad, because without it the player cannot be moved.

The first dungeon entered, featuring a tutorial, and two enemies lurking uncomfortably close to the power up…

1. Mechanics
   1. Character Goals. The player is someone trying to make it through a day without succumbing to the Harshness of the world by using emotional powers granted by listening to the music of 80’s-90’s Japanese punk rock group, the Blue Hearts.
   2. Obstacles. The character must make it through 3 dungeons and an over world all full of varying enemies and randomly spawned giant blocks in order to get the powers they need to finish off the final boss. Fire enemies project a hitbox to increase harsh level, Gone enemies disappear and cannot be detected, Wrong enemies swarm the player quickly if not destroyed.
   3. Items. The character must collect the powers, Blue Hearts album covers, in each dungeon in order to defeat the monster or the battle will be impossible. These powers. These include the ability emit flame hitboxes of “passion”, temporarily become invincible in their “self-respect”, and randomly teleport with their “existence”.
   4. Resources. The player has a finite amount of harshness they can take before there is simply too much pain and they are dumped back at the beginning of the game.
2. Dynamics
   1. User Interaction. User Interaction. The only hardware required is a computer, desktop/screen, and a keyboard with a number pad. The arrow keys are used to move the layout window independently of the player in order to scan rooms to strategize an attack. The number pad on the keyboard is used to move the player in nine respective directions. After gaining certain powers the space, v, and b keys are used to activate passion, self-respect, and existence respectively.
   2. Proficiency. The player must have an analytical mind to recognize which dungeons should be completed in which order. Some contain enemies that cannot be evaded and can only be defeated with powers. A hidden exploit to the game is entering and immediately leaving dungeons resetting the player’s harshness meter.
   3. Gameplay Data. The only gameplay data displayed to the player is the harshness meter, which is done through an expanding bar in the upper left hand corner of the player window. The bar stays there in order to be completely visible to a top down player.
   4. Controlling the game. The game is started with pressing the x key when prompted, other than that no pause button or reset button exists.
3. Aesthetics
   1. Overall. Too Much Pain has a spartan, grimy aesthetic.
      

      An example of Too Much Pain’s aesthetic

   2. Game Art. The game uses isometric sprites and floor tiles that are not meant to be realistic, in the vein of the older fallout games.
   3. Sound. The only game sounds are the music, which are all, with the exception of the final boss’ music, performed by the Blue Hearts.
   4. Plot. A metaphor for moving through the day in a world with so much harshness. A comparison may be drawn between experiencing the harshness and too much pain of the protagonist and that of someone with anxiety.
   5. Emotional State. The game is intended to relate the emotions music can bring on as weapons against the world’s harshness, by literally making the player listen to music extolling passion, to focus a person on something they care about, self-respect, to make a person believe they deserve positivity, and existence, roundaboutly to make a person feel their intrinsic worth.
   6. Fun. Defeating zombie like creatures with powers is always fun, and the Blue Hearts songs chosen are some of their best, and very fun to listen to.
4. Credits
   1. All music provided by the Blue Hearts, except for the final boss music provided by Komiku. Game Over, and game opening screen provided by Matt’s Weather Spot. The cloud and lightning sprites came from Vector clouds and Palm Tree Post respectively. The Game Won screen provided by tradebit. All enemy and player sprites come from OpenGameArt.org, as well as the visible floor tiles. Invisible to the player are floor tiles created by kenney sprites, as are the block obstacles and door. The album cover power ups provided by the Meldac record company, found on wikipedia.
5. Reflection
   1. Hundreds of problems with hundreds of solutions, each causing a hundred different problems every time I implemented them. I followed a very well detailed instruction tutorial from scirra.com to the letter and it still took weeks before anything even began to work right. Then it was a mad scramble to get everything else implemented at all much less working right. I think I could have had a great product given more time, though the fact it doesn’t crash when booted is already a miracle.

The Game over screen

Final Blog, A look back

This is one of the classes that gave me the most development in the field. Before the class I nearly have no idea how to make a game, nor do I know how to create graphics. But now I learned how to do most things. Through some readings I even learned how to use C# in Unity 3D, although I do think Unity 3D require more time coding compare to Construct, while they achieve similar results.

Follow this to the DIY project

The first project I did is the DIY project, which is cross dressing. I am not willing

to put a picture here because I checked with some of my friends they really showed homophobic notion to me. After the DIY project, I get a lot more understanding about the difference between male and female regarding their faces. This, helped me draw a lot better.

My Animation

Figure 1, Original Character Design

The second project is the Animation project. Animation project tells a fairy tale. A dragon descended into a small down and opened a shop. The young dragon later falls in love with a man and went after him to the war. By doing the animation project, I learned a lot more about how scenes and programs work. This later helped me creating my first game in this class.

 

 

 

 

 

Game1

Figure 2, Character in Game

My first game is called “Hammer Grenade and Splash”. This game is created with Contract2, a powerful HTML5 editor. The idea of the game came from my animation project. This game helped me know about Construct 2 as well as getting my confidence in game creation.

 

 

Game2

Figure 3, Cat Girl Illustration in the game “CEST”

My second game is called “CEST the episode 1”. This game is a top-down shooter with a story. It’s more painful than I thought to create something like that. People in this top-down game has more freedom, which makes it possible that player messes up the game flow. However, it ends up to be alright. I also learned more about the UI design.

 

Overall this semester is a success. Wonderful year.