The following were removed from the first post as "too rigid":

• "Between levels new defences are awarded and/or existing ones can be upgraded"
  
• "Place your defences according to a limited budget"
  
• "Once the adversaries are on the move, player input is limited to the placement/repositioning of defences"

@PTC, your design sounds like Tower Defense to me. run with it.

@Game_Code_here, the same applies.

@Raven, if you plan on entering, see the next line.

If anyone is wondering if their idea meets the spirit of the challenge, don't hesitate to PM me, blink or scraggle with the general design, as other have.

guys, we all know what Tower Defense is. if the mechanics and play FEEL like Tower Defense, then it's Tower Defense.

@Phaelax Thanks for helping to dial this in. Scraggle tried to help with that but dialed it in a little too tight.

my initial post for this ended with Notes:

• I may amend the above to account for anything that I didn't provide for;
  > This is the first time I've set a challenge after all

maybe i should have started the thread with that in big, bold letters to emphasize that this is new ground for me. but, i do know that Community requires Communication and i hope that can continue before anyone else decides to "take their toys and go home".

If anyone is wondering if their idea meets the spirit of the challenge, don't hesitate to PM me, blink or scraggle with the general design, as other have.

Yeah., didn't expect my question to elicit quite the reaction it did.

guys, we all know what Tower Defense is. if the mechanics and play FEEL like Tower Defense, then it's Tower Defense.

Perhaps... I mean I know what is Classically considered a Tower Defence game (and I'm not a big fan of them)., things like Bloons TD, Kingdom Rush, Plants Vs Zombies, etc.
But then there are others, such-as some on the Gameranx Top 10 list:



That I'd never have really considered to be in the TD Genre.
I mean the original concept I had was for a 3v1 (asymmetrical multiplayer) design... where-in 1 Player is the Horde., they have "Horde" Points to select the Squads of Enemies they want to Spawn and their Spawn Points for a given Wave.
The other 3 Players are "Heroes" which have unique abilities and defensive structures / traps that they can construct to Defend the Objective.

When the rules were clarified (made more "Classic" in the restrictions)., well I came up with a different concept.
One where you had Tower(s) with Spiral Walkways around the outside... the objective for the AI was to reach the top to capture the Tower.
The Defender would build additional layers, traps, etc. to prevent them from reaching the top... this wasn't as fleshed out, and I still think it might be an interesting concept; but with the lift in the restrictions again, might go back to something similar to the original concept I had.

Going to keep having a think about what to do, as well to me whatever it is... would have to be interesting (mechanically and in terms of engagement) to me.
And I do want to do a bit more of a creative and unique take on the Tower Defence concept.

Rule 5 directly contradicts rule 1,2,3 and 4, use your imagination "but your game must do this this this and that", that's a very small box you are giving our imaginations to work with.

This is not a competition if we have to build the game as the rules says so.

Restrictions force Creativity, Imagination and Innovation to be Unique.
Consider this as a concept...

We all know how Hearthstone plays., we've all played it, right?
It's a super streamlined Magic The Gathering (which actually makes it fun rather than ridiculously convoluted)
Well how about the Game Board is akin to a Chess Board., where you place down your Cards that have a fairly simple setup of Attack-Defence and Attack Area (some cards are Horizontal-Vertical., others are Diagonal., others might be in a Star Pattern., etc. be creative)
At the start of a Turn you (as defender) get to put down all your cards; the defender then picks the "Lanes" they want to to put their cards into (with a restriction of cards per lane) from the hand they draw.

Conceptually what you'd have is a Tower Defence game., and could easily have it so your Cards / Pieces upgrade between each Level... but you've also combined it with a TCG and Chess., plus some vibes of Plants Vs Zombies in there.
It'd be within the Restrictive Rules; and be quite creative.

I mean, it's just a back-of-a-napkin concept., it'd need to be fleshed out more to be a game, but you get the point.
Restrictions don't squash Creativity... you do, by thinking the restrictions prevent it.

@ Raven. I like some of those examples in the video. The player is much more involved so perhaps a little adrenaline gets flowing.

I'm planning doing a 3D under water version so I'm making a few models including a shark. Maybe that can add a Jaws vibe
although I might go with cartoon-ish graphics so nothing too scary. Texturing would be much easier too.

I wanted to add elements of resource gathering for paying for the defenses, but then I feel like it turns into more of an RTS

Count me in.
As an beginner right ?

My entry will be more of an open map TD where you kinda block the way or build mazes

Looking good janbo. Is that A* or some custom pathfinding?

Looks like "Flow Field" to me

but then I feel like it turns into more of an RTS

TD already has elements of RTS just very simplified, go for it, I am!

Janbos looks a bit RTS like too (your meant to control the towers, not the troops)

Never knew the actual Name of the pathfinding method.
Its just a step away from A* and A* is basically a fancy breadth first search...sooo...yeah looks like its actually called Flow field ^^

By the way thats also how you calculate light level in minecraft Worlds

@PartTIMECoder: nice idea maybe i let the PC controll the Towers

Yeah Flow Field is slightly more CPU intensive than A* but the benefit is you generate the field once and any entity on the map can use it without a regen, for a single target anyway, A* needs a path for each entity, on a map with more entity's than targets Flow Field is the way to go for sure

let the PC controll the Towers

Ah, player be the aggressor, I like that idea....

I did play a TD years ago that had a 2 player element to it, both have a base and use towers to expand into the others territory (with tanks and troops as well), that can work and fits the genre

I did play a TD years ago that had a 2 player element to it

THAT's what i'm hoping for in my current go-to time killer. i'm in contact with the developer so, maybe someday

Ok so I put a lot of work into making this work right, it was not easy.

I Still have to make each wave happen in between and change levels to choose different guns and stuff. Each Gun has different bullet hit points. So some guns are better then others.

Defend Egypt

Defend Your Egypt artifacts from Zombies. A zombie out break has happened and you have a array of different artifacts you have collected over the years.

Zombies are trying to destroy your artifacts to take over the world.

Yes, it is up to you to defend your artifacts to save the world.

Looking good, you have a good eye for level design.

You still got that sprite size issue going on tho, I can see a slight size variation when the animation changes, other than that it looks good, keep it up.

You still got that sprite size issue going on tho, I can see a slight size variation when the animation changes

That is odd because I'm not changing any sprites size over any animations.

I am not changing any sprites sizes in the loop at all, and I'm not seeing any slight size variations.

Can you point it out to me more clearly please so I can understand what your saying?

Can you point it out to me more clearly

watch the zombie's head inflate/deflate when it walks:



not the best snippet/example of it but it's across the board on this and your platformer. it's generally a result of resizing all images to the same size vs scaling them all to the same scale (assuming each frame is a separate image of different sizes). where did you get the images? they are familiar and i'm sure they have freebies we can play with to offer advice.

it looks like they are being stretched in certain frames, maybe its the animation, I just watched it back in fullscreen and to my eye, some frames the head and torso seem to 'bloat', they certainly don't look consistent, are all the frames of all the animations the same size?

One of the zombies seems to have a dodgy leg, it keeps disappearing, lol

watch the zombie's head inflate/deflate when it walks.

That is suppose to happen lol.

That is how the sprites are for fun filled animation.

I cant change this as I did not make the sprites images.

I will say I'm not worried about that at all.

One of the zombies seems to have a dodgy leg, it keeps disappearing, lol

lol yes, he has a bone for a leg, for some reason his leg disappears lol. oh well.

That's normal for zombies. Their insides are rotting and bubbling.

Ah well, at least you got a playable demo, I'm still trying to get my prototype working!, I dont suppose you know anything about orbital mathematics, inverse trigonometry or cyclometric functions? ... lol

That's normal for zombies. Their insides are rotting and bubbling

Now that is funny and gross


inverse trigonometry or cyclometric functions? ... lol

I do why what's up?

I do why what's up?

Map a path between 2 points on a spherical object.

Somewhere in this mess is the answer!