TowerDefense-ToolKit 4 is released!

Finally, it's now live on AssetStore!

And I can't tell you how exciting and pleased I'm with it. It's probably my best AssetStore work to date I recon. A culmination of the things I learned throughout the years. 

Speaking of years, TDTK is almost 6 years old. It was first released on July2011 (Imagine that!), so it's a month a way from it's 6th anniversary since release. Fitting time for a new version I guess. I like to take this opportunity to give thanks to all those who has supported the framework, either by purchasing and using it, or gave feed-back/ideas. It's those support that drive me this far. I hope the framework will continue to serve you well in the future as I continue to make improvement.

TDTK4 Preview

Not going to lie. I've been spending most of my time working on TDTK4. It's been a great fun and things are coming along really well. Which is why I really feel compelled to temporarily put other stuff on hold and focus on this.

It's almost 'done'. I'm just in the process of testing and getting things ready for AssetStore. So it won't be long before it's submitted to the AssetStore. There may be more addition to come but I think it's more than sufficient in it's current state for first release.  I can't wait to see what people think about it. Here's some sneak peak, taken straight from the demo scene.  :)

Since things has been finalized, I will briefly talk about the major difference between TDTK3 and TDTK4.

First up is the path system (obviously). The new system can support branching paths which I've talked about in this post. Then there a more comprehensive perk system, which support the modification of just about every stats available on a unit/ability/buff-effect, both in the form of modifier(+) or multiplier(x). Next, First-person-shooter mode is dropped, at least for the first release. And finally, the no so obvious change, a much better optimized code base. 

Of course, there are tons of little improvement here and there that are simply too many to be mention individually. I'll leave it for you to find out yourself.  :)

Next TDTK?

This may have been coming a long way and I've been asked about TDTK4 a lot. Since I've been casually working on it and made a reasonable amount of progress, I might as well make it official that TDTK4 is currently in development. Here's a glimpse of the new UI.

Of course, it's by no mean complete but as I'm looking at it now, it's going to be better than the previous version in almost every way. There are more options available to get the setting you need. It supports more features. The perk system are much more comprehensive than before. All this, with much less code. That means it's much easier for me to maintain and update it in the future. And also easier for user to mod.

That said, I'm leaving out FPS mode at the moment for a few reasons. First it's not really the main selling point of the framework. Second I don't think too many people are using it. Third and the most important reason, it's kind of tedious to support the touch input for FPS mode. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan for virtual joystick on touch screen by any mean. When I first started working on FPS mode, it's fun and interesting to play with it using mouse and keyboard. The problem is it hasn't cross my mind that I'll have to add touch control support. So eventually when people are asking for it, it becomes kind of a pain for me. In short, FPS mode is dropped for now. I may add that in a later update but we'll see.

Either way, it's looking rather good for now. I've no idea when it will be ready. To clarify, I'm not working on it full time. Just using it as a way to keep myself from burned out working on MechCorp.

Weekend project - a new path system

Once again I decided to spend the weekend working on something novel. And this week, it's a new path system that may or may not be the back bone of next major TDTK upgrade. I'm not sure where I get the idea from but wouldn't it be great if the creep can choose the shortest between multiple branching path. And following short video demonstrate the the concept in working.

It's still a very flexible system. There is not limit to how many branch a path can take. Branched out paths can rejoin, or not, or branch out to even more path. Either way, the creep will always look for the shortest way to get to one of the potential many end point at every branching point.

The best thing of course, in my opinion, is the code. For what it's, it's cleaner and easier to maintain than the old code in TDTK. That is the one thing I'm most please with.

However I should clarify that this doesn't mean I'll be actively working on TDTK. It's just something I'm casually working/experimenting on weekend atm. Until it's finally released, MechCorp still takes precedent over everything in my schedule.

Element TD free is out!

I didn't notice that it's been 4 months since I last posted something. So if you have been reading these regularly, no I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've been working very hard on MechCorp but I will take about it in another post. For this post, as the title suggested, ElementTD free version is out! Apparently we have a video:

The free version is similar to the full version in term of content. But there are features that are locked behind pay wall. But you can still play the full game in it's standard mode anyway. I apologize in advance for the ads but I'm sure you understand the team has to monetize this, somehow.

Anyway following are the links, please download and rate! Your support is much appreciated!

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SongGameDev.EleTDFree&hl=en

iOS - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/element-td-free/id1158693529?mt=8

Now more screenshots to get you intrigued.

Now released: Element TD!!

I never talk about this publicly but I've been working on this for quite some time. In case you don't know, Element Tower-Defense is one of the custom mod originated from Warcraft-III. It was very popular during the warcraft days and it still is, having being ported to Starcraft-II and Dota-II.

I've been contacted by the game creator some time ago to work on the mobile version on a collaboration basis. Obviously the game only existed as 3rd party mod for other game prior to this, so the prior team have very little experience making a full fledged stand alone game with other engine. And this is where I came in. For a long time I was the sole Unity developer/coder on the small team, which consists of two coder (one came in at a later stage of the project), an artists, two designers/testers. Since we can't use anything in previous version we have to build everything from scratch.

A glimpse of the towers

The development process is very challenging to say the least, we are trying to port a game that is originally designed to be played on medium/high-end pc to mobile device. To put things into perspective, the game has 30+ unique tower with unique abilities (some are beyond wacky and have crazy visual). Player could potentially build 50+ towers on the map. Not to mention the packs of fast moving creeps. It's a monumental task alone to make sure the game run smoothly on mobile device, let alone taking consideration of control scheme and UI. Which need to accommodate game usability and all its intricate mechanic. Needless to say, I've personally put a hell lot of effort into this, despite it being a part-time project.

Anyway, it's done. Personally, I think there are still some rough edges and certain lots of room to improve. The team do plan to keep working on this. Adding more polishes, more features and contents, etc. It will be interesting to see where will this takes us.

If you are interested, it's on google play store right now and coming to other platform soon. Feel free to give it a go - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SongGameDev.EleTD       :)

Edit: iOS version is out - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/element-td/id1130157487?mt=8

You might recognize this. It's the map layout from the original warcraft mod

This is a new map layout though

New Update for TBTK and TDTK

Following my last week post on the new asset that I've made, and the fact that I've been putting it to good use in the latest update of TDTK, I've been working on doing the same for TBTK. Now I'm pleased to announce that the asset update on TBTK is done as well. With any luck, the new update is already up on AssetStore by the time you are reading this.

Unlike the update on TDTK, this update on TBTK actually contains more. First, if you are a long time user of TBTK, remember that it use to have collectible item before version 2.0. Well now it's back again. You can now procedurally generate (during both runtime and edit mode) or manually place collectible item on the grid. I recon it has a better application than the old system. Instead of just a simple effect that is applied on the unit, you can link a collectible item to ability which can do all sort of stuff. For instance, repair all friendly unit, damage all hostile within range. You can even have a wild card item that can trigger random abilities.

Along with the collectible system, I've also added some extra 3D model. It's not as fancy as the tank or turret. They are just a series of container/parts that are meant to replace the old freighter set. Like the old asset, they can be stacked. And they works pretty well for the most part with the new vehicles.

That's about all the major stuff I've been working on for the past few days. Hope you like what you see. Now this is done, I'm going to see what sort of progression system I can add to TDS-TK.

Pretty Pretty Things! (Tanks and Turret)

So I've teased about making a new turret and unit set in my last post. This is pretty much the follow up post. In short, it's done! Voila!

 

 

 

They looked gorgeous don't you think. Well, maybe it's just me but I'm extremely pleased with what I've come up with. Objectively, there can be no arguing that they are miles better than the current tank and turret set I'm using for TDTK and TBTK.

If you are wandering, they have a very low poly count and works well with Unity's dynamic batching for the most part. You can probably tell from the images that they are modular. Parts are interchangeable so you can create different units to a certain extent. The best thing is, the color are not texture dependent. You can change both the main and secondary color on the fly in Unity. You can even apply some wacky styling by applying a 'mask' texture, with result like the images below:

At this point you may think they are great and ask if there's any chance I will release them? Yes I would. Right from the start, I plan to include the set in TDTK and TBTK as a replacement to the old unit set. In fact, I've already updated TDTK to use the new unit. Hopefully it is live on AssetStore by the time you read this. I've yet to done the same to TBTK but it shouldn't be long until I do. Just need to take care of a few other updates before I commit the update.

Anyway, the set will be available as a stand alone package on AssetStore at some point (Depend on how long the review process take). I plan to add more stuff to the set yet. Feels like there are something missing, drone or transport container for instance.

Happy 2016! (and new TDTKv3.1 update)

It's a new year and boy I'm glad that I'm here.

Since the release of the new TDS-TK (TopDownShooter-ToolKit), I've been busy working on giving TDTK a overhaul. I know, my packages naming is getting a bit silly but whatever. At least they are adequately named. Back to the point, TDTK is now ready for another update to version3.1. I've made so much changes in the new update that I'm a bit tempted to version it as 3.5. But I will have to say very little of those change applies to gameplay and mechanic.

First, all the editors has been rewritten to improve its usability. Most noticeable would be the layout. I've put a lot of attention into making the editor more intuitive and explaining what each setting does. Then there's the detail like better integration between different editor windows and undo/redo, multi-instance editing for certain prefab and so on. Have to say, the most important of this all is that the code will be much easier to maintain and expand in the future.

The new UI

The next big change would be the new UI. The old UI is a bit clunky if I'm honest. It's done in the earlier days of unity GUI when I just started to getting the hang of it. Some of the code is even obsolete post Unity5.1. So the new UI, it's cleaner in term of code and better organized when it comes to arrangement in hierarchy. Not to mention it's marginally better looking (in my opinion). At any rate, any user who intend to modify it will have an easier time. Or at least it will serve as a better example for anyone who wants to make their own UI

Finally, lots of changes has been applied to the existing code base. Most of these are to simplify and optimize the code, or at least have it make more sense structure wise.

In a nutshell, I would say that all these have pretty much laid the ground work for TDTKv4.0. I cant tell you how much I have fight the urge to simply carry on, give everything a face lift and simply make it 4.0. But that would be a task for some other time.

So now that the update for  TDTK is done (It's now live on AssetStore). Moving on to TBTK.

New TDTK and TBTK is out!

Finally, I can now get back to working on MechCorp. Well, in case you haven't read the title, both TDTK3 and TBTK2 is now live on AssetStore. It has taken me 3 full months of working like mad to rebuild both of this packages from ground up. But it's well worth it I say. Both of them are now more polished than ever.

It's as promised, they now use the latest uGUI. For that reason, they now require Unity4.6 to work. And since uGUI is a lot more accessible then both NGUI and old script-based GUI, both the old GUI has been scrapped.

Anyway, I've updated each respective page to reflect the new update. Check them out for more info.

• TBTK - http://song-gamedev.blogspot.co.uk/p/tbtk2.html
• TDTK - http://song-gamedev.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page_27.html

Oh, did I mention they are free update to the older version. So if you already bought it, go download it! Just remember they are not backward compatible so don't import it into an existing project.

TDTK v3.0b WebPlayer Demo

Alright, I've spent way too much time on TDTK3. The good news is it's almost there. Still not sure if I should release it on AssetStore when it's done with Unity4.6 is still in beta. But for now I'm ready enough to put out a beta demo. Personally I think it's gorgeous! So, with pride, I present:

>> TDTKv3.0b WebPlayer demo <<

A little information about the demo, all the levels use procedurally generated spawn wave so it will be a different each time you play the level (I'm too lazy to manually set them up one by one). You can enter FPS mode by selecting any tower and click on the button with a cross-hair. While in FPS mode, you can use 'q' and 'e' to cycle between weapons.

Finally, I'm not sure how well the webplayer will work, both Unity and TDTK3 are still in beta. So feedback or bug report are welcome. Have fun!   :)

TDTK v3.0 Annoucement

Right I'm making it official that TDTK3 is now a thing. I'm still not sure when it's going to hit the shelve on AssetStore since I'm not done with it (still lots of polishing and cleaning up to do). Then there's the fact that the minimum required version of Unity (4.6) is still in beta.

But here's the shinny new features that I've added just to hype things up a bit:   :)

• Support for new uGUI 
• Support for multi-upgrade-path for towers
• FPS (first person shooter) mode now added (it's like any fps game minus the movement)
• Support for mecanim animation
• A much more comprehensive perk system (almost any stats on tower, ability and fps-weapon can be modified via perk)

I should say that all the old features are still there. Well almost. Except the now obsolete uGUI, and support for NGUI, and score system. But I'm hoping that I can add the score system in the near future.

Here's some screen shot, enjoy!

TDTK v3.0 Sneak Peak

I've been silence for a long long time. Since June last I remember correctly. For those who are interest in the reason why I fell off the grid, I took a 2 weeks break. Then I got hook to Mount&Blade for what feels like a century. But for most the time I've been missing, I've been cracking on MechCorp. I've completely what I consider a early alpha state demo. Then comes Unity4.6, which brings me the reason of this post.

I've stated in the past that I'll add the new uGUI support to both TDTK and TBTK. And I've also stated in the past that I would like to rebuild TDTK from scratch, reason being the coding is getting harder to maintain after all this extension and addition. Plus I wasn't as skilled back then. And so I set to work on the new GUI, before I know it I'm rewriting whole framework from scratch. And before I know it I've working on it for 2 weeks. I never thought it would take this long when I get started. And the scary thing is, it still quite some way from done.

The good news is, the new framework feels so simple and streamlined in term of coding compare to the old one. I think this will be great for anyone who like to modify the code themselves. Or at least it will be much easier for me to accommodate any future modification request. I feel like all this is worth it.

The editors has also been given a face lift. It's just subtle changes here and there but I hope they are for the better. Well at least now the full tooltip support should reduce the needs to refer to the documentation. Here are a sneak peak of SpawnEditor and TowerEditor, do keep in mind that they are work in progress.

Finally there's the new UI itself, I hope you like what you see.

Apart from what is shown, there are some other completely new stuff that I like to try and add. Very exciting about to see what I can achieve with the idea.. My hope is to get this done asap. Then move on to TBTK to give it the same treatment, before getting back to MechCorp. I really cant wait to get all these out in the public. Have to say I haven't been this exciting for quite some time. 

Now back to work, make things happen!

Defenders of Time

I'm so proud to give a shout out to Defenders of Time, a multiplayer tower defense game built on top of TDTK. I know this because John Flury, the CEO of the development company Four Lights,  told me about this. They have just recently showcased the game at E3, in which John gave a 17minutes interview to GameSpot.

Unfortunately I haven't play the game yet. But it goes without saying it looks amazing, evidently, according to the trailer. Even better, there seems to be some unique and interesting idea for the game play, which is what impresses me the most. I'm so looking forward to when this game comes out and see what's what.

So proud!!

TDTK Update (v2.2.5f3)

A minor update has just gone live on AssetStore. A fairly small update compare to the usual one really. I guess it's understandable given that the last update was only 3 weeks ago.

Anyway here's what going on in the update:



Version Change – v2.2.5f3
changes

• add support for damage (when creep is attacked) and resource gained (when creep is killed) overlay
• add min-max damage range to towers, as opposed to just 1 fix value
• add min-max resource gain for killing creep, as opposed to just 1 fix value
• improve scanning mechanic of straight-line targeting so it's more robust

bug fix

• fix bug where support adjacent tower buff stops working when a tower is upgraded
• fix a few error in demo scene
• fix some creep-editor bug where target point cannot be assigned
• fix a bug for TurretTower where a lengthy animation could cause error in targeting.

TDTK Update and WIP for TBTK

So another update for TDTK (v2.2.5f2) has just gone live on AssetStore. It's not much of an update really. Just bunch of bug fixes and some minute changes. And they are listed as below, please note that some very minor stuff are not listed:

• made some changes to ObjectPoolManager, unrecognised/new object requested to be spawned without initiation will be added to the pools
• fix a bug with default UI where certain screen area become non-responsive to cursor input after a tower has been selected
• fix bug on resource editor where the data wont load/save properly
• fix bug on tower editor where damage over time setting doesn't work
• fix bug and improves menu extension regarding adding UI or NGUI to a scene
• fix bug on SpawnManager where it throws up error in some case when set to auto-generate wave

Now that is out of the way, I can shed some light on things I'm working on for TBTK. If you are familiar with TBTK, You can probably tell what it's from the screen shot below.

Yes it's vertical component for the grid. It's functional but I'm not sure how well this will go down when released. It's rather primitive imo. Still, I'm pretty pleased at how well it works with the existing line of sight and cover system. So that's that. I'll be giving more details when it's released. Finally, expect an update for TBTK soon!

Base Defense (Another released based on TDTK)

So apparently there's a new TD game coming out on Google-Play Store. And it is every bit worth mentioning because it uses TDTK. No trailer for this one I'm afraid. From the looks for it, it uses quite a lot of pre-made asset (I know because I do browse those through those assets on various online store) but it looks quite decently put together. Go check it out if you like TD game! The link is as follow:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ZyboxGaming.BaseDefenseGZ

NGUI3 for TDTK and TBTK! Yay!

It has been a rather productive week. I've build 3 GUI solution for TDTK, TBTK in total. Two based on NGUI3 for each TDTK and TBTK, and a default Unity GUI for TBTK. With that done, I'm releasing new update for both TDTK and TBTK. And this will be the only major updates in foreseeable future. Both of them are now live on AssetStore.

New Unity GUI for TBTK

New NGUI3 for TBTK

New NGUI3 for TDTK

Update Log for TBTK v1.0.6:

• added new GUI that is based on NGUI3
• added new GUI that is based on Unity GUI
• added new ability to spawn collectible
• added option to spawn collectible procedurally
• unit has the option to spawn collectible after they are destroyed

Update Log for TBTK v2.2.5:

• added new GUI that is based on NGUI3
• Resource can now be bring forth to the next level
• Platform and overlay mesh has been replaced with more optimized custom plane
• NGUI free no longer throws warning message in Unity4

Happy 2014!

Another year gone by and I'm still here. 2013 has been a pretty decent year. I've played some inspiring games, leaned some stuff, make some stuff... Most importantly, I find myself better equipped to take on more challenging task.

I know I've been talking about making a real game rather than working on endless development of various framework like TDTK. Honestly this has been going on for ages. Too long in fact. So the new year resolution is to get on with it. The project (the wip mech game that I mentioned in an ealier post) has been put in motion. Now I just need to find time to concentrate on it. I might also have some idea for a new toolkit. This one is more complicated at first thought. So it will only happen if I manage to pull it off.

I'm currently working my ass off on adding NGUI3 support for both TDTK and TBTK. It's a hell load of work and I'm trying to get it done asap. But having said that, instead of just porting the existing code and implementation to NGUI3, I'm taking the opportunity to review and redesigning most of it, at least in term of coding structure. The result is a cleaner and easier to maintain code, which should help to keep me sane when I want to do any update in the future. This is especially true for TDTK. The old UI code is so bloated because the idiot who worked on it has the brilliant idea to squeeze all the UI code into a single script. It makes me lost my will to work just by looking at it.

While I'm at it, the visual has been redesigned to be more coherent. I know this is a matter of personal preference but I find the new coherent color scheme much slicker. I've put up a couple of sneak peak in this post. You might notice that I have recycled a lot of the older layout and interaction to save me some effort.

Ideally I would really like to rebuild TDTK from ground up. With that I can clean up and re-organise all the code. Make it cleaner and more mod-friendly. As it's currently, there are quite a bit of messy hack that I put in much later after the first release to accomodate feature that never planned for in the first place. But I'm afraid given the existing feature on the toolkit, that is a herculean task that could easily take months. So just the UI overhaul will have to do for now.

So that's it for now. I hope that after all this, I can concentrate on "the real game"... game. Hope you all have a good year!

p/s: My asset sales on AssetStore are ending 4th of January. So this is the last day!

Age of Throne (A release based on TDTK)

I'm pleased to announce that a new release based on TDTK is now out for both iOS and Android. It looks pretty good, although I've yet to play it. I'm totally convinced by the trailer! 

I have to say quite a lot of alternation has been done to toolkit to accommodate the game design. I've been provide support to the developer to alter some aspect of the toolkit to fit the game design. And of course, a lot of additional work has been done on top of the base frame-work. The end result looks quite different from the 3D demo I have.

Still, quite proud to be part of it!

iOS download link:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id659900859?mt=8

Android download link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nexrage.ageofthrones