Coming TDTK Update (WIP)

Been hard at work with the new addition/update of TDTK.

Last week I have shed some light on the new perk system I'm working on. I've since made a huge progress. For now the basic perk system with some preliminary perk type is ready. The basic UI is pretty much done as well. I'm considering adding various setup option to it to support several gameplay format right out of the box. Here's a preview of the perk menu at this point. You may catch a glimpse of what the perk system can do from it. You may also notice that I've added spawn information display. Please note that many of the icon are just place-holder.

Sample PerkMenu via NGUI free

Sample PerkMenu via default Unity GUI

Also to accommodate the perk system, I've revamped how the towers and resources management work. The new system will see all the components get access to the same pool of towers prefab and resource type. Say a tower has been added to the database, every BuildManager in every scene should be able to build it automatically. Then each tower prefab can then be enable/disable in BuildManager of each individual level. The resource system works in the same way. Gone the days where you need to configure each ResourceManager in each level just to get the name and icon right. More importantly, you no longer have issue where costs for tower is not compatible with the values of ResourceManager. 

 

Of course modifying these two leads to many other related elements. And while I'm at it, I've also made many tweaks that would make take away many of the tedium when using TDTK. Suffice to say I have reworked most of the kit, for the better of course.

Even at this point, this will be by far the biggest update and addition since TDTK2. And I might just add more stuff before release. Hope you like what you have seen and read so far.

Perk System for TDTK (WIP)

For the past week, I've been working on something exciting. A Perk/Tech/Shop system for TDTK. 

The idea is simple. You can setup a list of items using an editor. These items could then be unlocked/purchased in game using in game resource. You can configure if certain item is available for unlocked or already unlocked in certain scene .

As you would with other elements in TDTK, you can configure the item. For instance, name, description in game, cost, pre-requisite criteria, what they do and the corresponding value or stuff associate with it. The 'what they do' is the interesting bit. For now I'm still playing with ideas, but here's a taste of what they could be:

• gain life
• unlocking a new tower
• reduce cost for building towers
• increase tower attacking damage
• more resource gain from clearing wave
• etc...

As for the pre-requisite criteria, they could be number of waves in the game, or how many items the player has purchased or indeed has a particular item has been purchased. Getting the idea? Yes effective you can build a tech-tree of some sort. For instance a perk system where you need to unlock certain less powerful perk before you can unlock more advance one. Or a wave based tower unlock system where as the player advance into the level, they can unlock more tower types to build. This opens up a huge bunch possibility of course, which get me really pump. But on the other hand, it's a lot of work and I'm cracking my head for it.

A preview of the PerkEditor (WIP)

Still, I'm not promising anything at this point. Keep in mind that it's still experimental for most part. And I shudder to think about the UI I need to build for it. Still, it's something worth going for and I'm very excited. I hope all potential TDTK user are too.

Requiem of a Project

Well, this is more of a requiem rather than a game announcement. Cause it pains me to say that whatever you see here wont ever be finished and released. It's the game I built for a contract work using both off the shelves and some custom asset. Since the project is dead and the concept is hardly ground-breaking, I figure it ok at least to describe the game and show some screen shots.

A picture is worth more than a thousand words so screenshot goes first. These two are the actual game play screenshot.

So basically it's a tower defense, mixed with element of top down shooter. Except your dont shoot, just button mashing as there are auto-targeting and all. But you will still have to use wasd key to move "hero" unit around so he gets into position where he can shoot. Then of course, you can also build towers to stop creep that  comes in wave along several fixed path. It's a bit weird at some places regarding the game I know, but then it's not exactly my idea to start with.

If some of the UI look very familiar that is because the game is built on top of TDTK. So the NGUI based menu is taken straight from TDTK. I was so hoping that this could be a prime demonstration of TDTK in action when dressed with real game worthly asset. Which bring me to the assets. most of the asset in there are off the shelves, towers, skybox, creeps, etc... The tile set used in the game are custom made by James Brady, a freelance digital artist. Pretty nice work there I say. The levels are designed then put together by myself.

The game has seven levels. There's no linear level progression or a story linking all these level together. So the player can just pick a level, hop in a go. Basically it is a score attack game with the goal is to get the highest score you possibly can in each level. There's s a store where you can unlock more tower type and buy in game bonus to help you beat the game. Of course the store is where the monetization comes in. On top of all that, there's a log in system to log in with either facebook to twitter acount. 

So that's pretty much all about the game. It's not the best of course. But it's pretty decent (imo) and it's months of effort. It's a shame nothing come out of it. Here are the general design and visual of the levels.

Status Update (New Year and a Fresh Start!)

It's a new year and whoa, it's really been a while since I post anything. I blame the holiday season and my break away from home. Actually come to think of it yes I've pretty much done nothing ground breaking for the whole of December.

That's not entirely true of course. I've been working on various stuff of course, just nothing significant. Also I've been engage myself quite a lot in a particular activity I would like to call 'research'. Well in regards to what I do that is of course play various games. In fact thanks to the steam sales and humble indie bundle I've been able to acquire quite a handful of great titles which has been keep me entertained enlightened throughout the holiday season. Xcom, FTL, SaintRow, AirMech just to name a few. This of course, gives me lots of new interesting idea and consumed a huge chunk of my time.

Also a bad news, the long term project that I've been working on is now dead. I should have see this coming but turns out the company that commission is running some sort of scam and they never intended to have the game finished. Still, at least I was getting paid for most of the effort I put in so it's not all bad. I guess that means it's ok for me to showcase some of the stuff I've produced as of now. I shall make a post about it later.

That also means I now have time on my hand to try some of my own idea. Probably start a new project of my own or something, which is always fun. Or I'll just take on some new contract, if there's any. Either way, cant be bad.

New year resolution, keep working and have fun! And play some game too. Xcom is awesome!

Christmas Sale and Happy Holiday! Yay

It's that time of the year again. And so happy holiday everyone, hope you have a great one.

I'm please to announce that I'm having a sales and all my product on AssetStore is going to have 30% or more discount. They are:

• TowerDefenseToolkit - $55 down from $80
• PathFinder - $25 down from $35
• InputTouches - $15 down from $25

Should you need more information about each of them, you can find them on either on this blog or in their respective unity forum thread. Just click the respective label on the right hand side of this page. For your information, this sales should run until 8th of January.

Once again, happy holiday and merry Christmas!

Status Update (Mini Break Edition)

In case you haven't been reading any of my unity forum support thread. I'm currently away from office on a semi vacation which involves a lot traveling and chaotic, spontaneous schedule. Personally, it has been pretty good fun and refreshing, to break from the normal routine. Unfortunately my work load has take a huge hit.

Despite my best effort to work using whatever time I have got left. A MacBook-Pro is simply no substitute for a PC with 25 inch screen, where I can work better and faster without the need to shuffling the all the windows on screen every 5 seconds. As good as the MacBook-Pro is, it's simple a tool for me to build and test my stuff on iOS.

Still, I did just most of the new update for TDTK on it. And yes, TDTK v2.1.3f1 has just been submitted to AssetStore. No major addition yet, but I'm playing with quite a few ideas that might just make it to the next update, v2.1.4, which I think wont be ready at least until new year, if all the idea does make it to release.

Also, Unity4, why you no have new GUI system yet?!

Nope, It's not Tetris

It just appear that I've got some free time on my hand for the last few days and I thought of trying something new (or rather old) for a change. And this is what I have come out with:

It has the gameplay of Tetris for now but no, it's not Tetris. At least that's not what I intend to call it. There's a very good reason to it. Turns out there's actually a bloody copyright to the game. That's utterly bollocks in my opinion when such claim is made to a game. If that's that is true and right and practise by every developer in the industry, imagine what would happen? Everyone would just stop making game and sue everyone they can find.

Anyway, since there's a copyright claim to it and I've no intention of getting sued, I shall have to tweak the gameplay before I could put it on a AppStore. If I ever come to that stage. It's still very unpolished and unoptimised at this moment. I have only worked on it for a few days with spare hours. We shall see where can we go from here.

Have to say it's been fun and it's quite satisfying seeing it work. It's not much, but you can have a go too if you fancy it. Here's the webplayer, comments/feedbacks/questions are welcome! Hope you enjoy the music!

edit: ops, just notice that there's no control instruction/tootip in the game. So here it's:

• wasd and arrow keys - left, right down and rotate
• space - pause/resume, restart when game over