TD Update in Off Topic

ID:111392
 
Mar 30 2011, 3:23 pm (Edited on Mar 30 2011, 3:35 pm)
So I've been working on a tower defense style game the past week, even without establishing a guaranteed theme, and things are coming along very nicely, sort of.

I've run into a roadblock and lack of motivation due to artwork. I have to be in a certain mood to work on pixel art, and, I'm just not in that mood now. Not to mention the amount of time required in order for things to look good.

I've established that I want the game to have a hint of RPG elements. Right now the game is themed around medieval fantasy. You place siege type vehicle units down (ballistas, catapults, cannons, so on) and the invading creatures are your typical skeletons, ghouls, slimes, dragons, and whatever.

Taking on RPG elements, there are boss waves that require certain strategies and defensive units to take down. On top of that, every defensive unit has special abilities and micromanagement. Players will have to be interactive with their defense units to use the required abilities and even manually select invading creatures to take priority in what the unit should attack. Placing "towers" and watching what happens wont really be plausible (for harder modes anyway).

After making a ballista icon, which didn't look half bad, I came to a conclusion that the medieval fantasy theme might require too much artwork for myself. So, I've decided to look into a space theme. Ships aren't too hard to make and you really only have to make one icon and flip it. Basically the map would be an asteroid field of some sort and "towers", most likely turrets and rockets and what not, would be placed on top of the asteroids to fire at the invading ships.

The only problems with the space theme is it's hard to make it make sense and it would basically mean only one type of map theme (space).

Aside from gameplay, I did do a lot of work on the game's interface and other basic elements which could easily be used for any type of game (and probably will be). The window is 100% custom with beautiful looking elements (that actually looks sort of space themed, which might give the space theme another plus).

The game has been designed from the ground up to work (theoretically) with BYOND's upcoming Flash client. And most of the basics are finished, just needs to be filled with content.

With all that said, I'm basically making this post to maybe find motivation and give a little more information about the project to anybody who might be curious about it.

I might try to find a pixel artist here soon, but they seem to be few and far between around here unless you're a millionaire. $1 per frame? Anybody want to lend me $100,000?
#1 Mar 30 2011, 3:48 pm
This sounds great! BYOND is perfectly suited for this and could absolutely kill in the tower defense market, so I think that this has a lot of potential for success outside of BYOND. I'd be interested to see what a talented and established developer like you would be able to come up with.

Any plans to add some sort of optional subscription system? If you have a bit of money to invest in pixel art right now (it probably wouldn't take more than $100 to find someone talented to do some quality artwork for you), you could probably make your money back really quickly once the game is released.
#2 Mar 30 2011, 3:56 pm
SilkWizard wrote:
This sounds great! BYOND is perfectly suited for this and could absolutely kill in the tower defense market, so I think that this has a lot of potential for success outside of BYOND. I'd be interested to see what a talented and established developer like you would be able to come up with.

Any plans to add some sort of optional subscription system? If you have a bit of money to invest in pixel art right now (it probably wouldn't take more than $100 to find someone talented to do some quality artwork for you), you could probably make your money back really quickly once the game is released.

I've been thinking of how to make a subscription system work for the game since I started and the only things I can really think of is something like a map editor and other minor things. Haven't come up with anything that would really sell.

What I'm hoping for the most (which is why I'm making sure it's compatible with the Flash client) is that BYOND will share ad revenue with developers much like Kongregate does so a subscription system wont even really be required. BYOND not doing so would be a big loss on their part, but if they don't, hopefully the game will be able to be listed somewhere else that does.

And yeah, I'll probably set aside $100 or so for an artist (might need somebody for sounds and music also), but I want to make sure its a good investment first (being that subscriptions might not be a viable solution).
#3 Mar 30 2011, 4:02 pm
Aaiko wrote:
What I'm hoping for the most (which is why I'm making sure it's compatible with the Flash client) is that BYOND will share ad revenue with developers much like Kongregate does so a subscription system wont even really be required. BYOND not doing so would be a big loss on their part, but if they don't, hopefully the game will be able to be listed somewhere else that does.

We will definitely work on schemes to help developers turn a profit. One thing to keep in mind is that it should be possible to post BYOND Flash games on Kongregate itself. In that case, we could work out a sharing plan for their ad system (maybe by posting the games on your behalf and sharing profits, sort of like the subscription system). I do want to make sure that we're a part of the equation since we really do need a reliable source of income to sustain these efforts; at the same time, I greatly believe in developers being able to make money (even make a living) doing this, since it's a huge incentive to keep going.
#4 Mar 30 2011, 4:03 pm
You'd be surprised what people will pay for. A lot of times when someone enjoys and independent game, they'll purchase a subscription just as a way to show their appreciation for it. That's probably been the motivation behind at least 10-15% of NEStalgia's sales this past month.

Like you say, even something as simple as a map editor would do the trick. Or perhaps an extra mode for subscribers (an endless survival mode, for example). It really doesn't have to be anything too flashy.

An ad revenue sharing model would be interesting, but even if something like that ever does get set up on BYOND, it's probably a long ways off.
#5 Mar 30 2011, 4:14 pm
Tom wrote:
I do want to make sure that we're a part of the equation since we really do need a reliable source of income to sustain these efforts; at the same time, I greatly believe in developers being able to make money (even make a living) doing this, since it's a huge incentive to keep going.

Indeed. If the short term model will be that BYOND will be creating custom Flash clients for specific games, I think that working out an ad revenue sharing deal on sites like Kongregate is a really reasonable tradeoff. The advantages that would come from such a massive level of exposure are so great that any BYOND developer with a quality game on their hands would be crazy to turn down such a deal.
#6 Mar 30 2011, 4:22 pm
My subscription to Casual Quest is sheerly because I think it's the best game BYOND has to offer. I could truly care less about the additional classes.
#7 Mar 30 2011, 4:22 pm
SilkWizard wrote:
You'd be surprised what people will pay for. A lot of times when someone enjoys and independent game, they'll purchase a subscription just as a way to show their appreciation for it. That's probably been the motivation behind at least 10-15% of NEStalgia's sales this past month.

I'd say that has been the motivation behind at least 80-90% of Decadence subscriptions for its entire duration on the hub.
#8 Mar 30 2011, 7:46 pm
... Spire? ;)
#9 Mar 31 2011, 7:11 am
If you're interested in sticking with the medieval theme, I can probably get you a lot of things like ballistics, catapults, cannons. My dad does a lot of hobby work in 3DS Max, so you could have them at any angle, fully animated.

He's usually looking for new things to design in 3DS (since it is a hobby), so just let me know and I'll tell him to start working on something.
#10 Mar 31 2011, 12:02 pm
Mikau wrote:
If you're interested in sticking with the medieval theme, I can probably get you a lot of things like ballistics, catapults, cannons. My dad does a lot of hobby work in 3DS Max, so you could have them at any angle, fully animated.

He's usually looking for new things to design in 3DS (since it is a hobby), so just let me know and I'll tell him to start working on something.

That would be perfect (assuming they looked nice), but the problem is, unless all the creatures are made the same way, the game's look probably wont be very consistent and look kind of bad. Terrain will need to fit in with everything as well.

Also, I kind of want somebody to work with as the game develops, to design art as the game gets polished up, maybe even giving their own ideas and just making the experience more fun and less "buy an art package and use it" type thing.

I was going to work on an RTS with somebody who was basically doing something like that (making things in Blender and then converting to be used in 2D games), but things fell through. I might contact them and see if they are interested in this project before I do any official looking for an artist.
#11 Apr 19 2011, 10:52 pm
I have an idea for a tower defense game theme to throw out there. What if its based on a computer? Each tower would essentially be a program and you have to defend against attacks by hackers in the form of denial of service attacks, worms, viruses, etc. You could even make it so if you were to arrange certain towers (programs) in a unique way then it could trace one of the hackers. Another set of towers could send attacks back at the hackers. It would almost be a tower defense/offense type game.