TDTK WIP

Another WIP post about TDTK, I'm pleased to announce another new feature for coming update of TDTK. That is endless/survival mode. This is courtesy of a Firas, a user of TDTK. The challenge of this addition of course, is to be able procedurally generate waves of enemies endlessly. And on top of that, make it customisable.

I'm still very much experimenting on the best way to customise the wave generating algorithm. But it's reasonably ok at current state. To make this easier in the first place, creep prefabs is now added to the game via a CreepManager, similar to how tower prefabs is added TowerManager. Then in infinite spawn mode, each creep can be set to be available after certain wave. The HP, speed of each creep can be customised via a set linear formula so they increase or decrease over time. There are optional random deviation for each parameter to make things less predictable.

You can get the general idea from the SpawnEditor image shown about how the system works. Obviously it still support all the default spawn mode, all time-based, wave-cleared, round-based. It's by no mean complete. There are still stuff I yet to add. Like functionality to use it to procedural generates wave for a level with finite wave. Maybe even some more tweaking that make it more dynamic in nature, like general difficulty setting? Should be interesting...

Something New

I figure it's time to post something. I have spend most of my free time working on TDTK. Hell as interesting as it's working on adding new feature, it is starting to take the life out of me. I have to spend a huge deal of time been working on ironing out the bugs and smoothing the rough edges of TDTK. It's a never ending quest to be honest.

Anyway, I've try my hand on something new. Well not entirely new, it's an old nemesis of mine, art asset creation. I've been wanting to create a set of custom-asset to go with TDTK. The idea is it should be low-poly and generic so it's applicable in various genre, TD, RTS, top-down or even third person game. So I figure I start with a set of turrets. I've made it so they are modular and good to be used for mix and match. Here's some possible combinations:

Every component is extremely low poly, they should be able to batched dynamically if they shared the same material. Obviously they are still untextured, and that's the challenge. I'm still very much on the learning curve so it's pretty daunting just trying to texture these low poly model. But I'm very excited thinking about the prospect if I can get this done.

Too bad I dont have more time on my hand to play on this. Even these simple component has taken two weeks of my leisure time to put together. Still, hopefully it will make it to TDTK at some point.

TDTK WIP and Update (Ability System)

It has indeed been a while since my last post. I've been on a rather long break right after that.

But I'm back again working on the next update for TDTK. I still have quite a lot to catch up follow the last update. To fix various bug and error, not to mention update the documentation now it has almost become obsolete following the change I made in previous update. Hopefully my video would do an adequate job for the time being.

Anyway, I've been working on adding more stuff. It's a continuation of the perk system for last update which is a player ability system. Basically it's a set of abilities player can actively trigger and used in the game. Similar to the perk system, you can create a set of abilities, configure what an abilities do, the cooldown, the cost, etc. and then enable/disable them individually in each scene. The system is tied to the perk system like the tower does. So you can set it up so there are perks that upgrade an ability or modify the ability. I'm still experimenting with some of the elements. As per every other feature in kit, I'm trying to make it as flexible as possible to accommodate a wide range of user design.

For now, these are the effect the abilities can do:

• AOEDamage
• AOESlow
• AOEStun
• AOEDotUnit
• AOEDotArea
• AOEDamageBuff 
• AOEBoost
• AOERepair

Yes it's all AOE based effect, but at least a single abilities can have 3 effects. So with some mix and match it could still offer some variety. I'm open for for ideas atm so feel free to suggest. 

ability editor (atm)

A little bombshell, I'm considering to add first person turret control mechanism. I think it's a cool idea however it would be a bit of a nightmare adding control support for mobile devices. I might just do it anyway, without adding support for mobile device, just for fun sake.

Also, I've controller support to the UI for a contract. So if you need controller support, now you know it's possible.