We need guns, lots of guns.

Hey everyone,

Yes that was a Matrix reference, mostly because the Matrix is awesome and because I couldn't think of a better title.

And really it wasn't even that true since the game i'm about to show a sneak peek of only has 5 guns but still it'll be enough for what you need.

The game in question is a top down survival shooter. For now i'm working an having a demo working in time for halloween, the demo will only feature survival mode although the full game will hopefully have missions too.

The idea is basically you're a Specialist Pest Exterminator sent into deal with some kind of infestation (might be mutant or might be alien, haven't decided yet)

Anyway that's enough talk, Check it Out

Nutter

Tower Defense

Hey everyone,

The blog has been a little quiet and empty lately. I haven't had much time to work on Flash Games but in the last few days i've started working on a Tower Defense engine, it's a genre i've wanted to break into for a while.

I'm planning to get the engine working, build a small(ish) game to test it then add features based on feedback from the game. Obviously there are many different varieties of Tower Defense whether it be grid based ones where the enemies find a path based on where you place your towers or the more classic ones where they follow a path.

So far my TD engine has the following features:

• Intuitive path creation system which allows level paths to be created easily without any extra code.
• Multiple Enemy types, including Ground, Flying and Boss units.
• Multiple Tower types with different buff abilities such as "Slow", "Stun" and "Poison".
• Towers which target Ground enemies only, Air enemies only or both types.
• The ability to select the target type for each tower - Closest Enemy, Fastest, Weakest or Strongest.
• The ability to upgrade towers to make them better/stronger.

Obviously these are all fairly common place features and don't do much to make my engine stand out. That's where my main big feature comes from.

When the player isn't building towers in "Build Mode", they can take control of a character (Webby in the case of my test game) and move around the play area collecting extra resources. This not only adds the extra element of resource gathering but also adds an extra risk that hitting any of the enemies moving along the path will cost a life in the same as if they reached the end.

The engine is still in a very early stage and there are a few bugs to work out but this could hopefully turn out to be a powerful (and hopefully easy and intuitive to use) engine which I might make available for other people to use when it's finished.

In the mean time, what features do you like to see in a TD? What else would you like to see in my TD engine?

Let me know in the comments.

- Nutter