Development

Build Your Own Tower with TinyWars (June 2017 Update)

Build Your Own Tower with TinyWars (June 2017 Update) 733 522 andrew

I’ve spent the past few weeks coding out the new features of the game; quite possibly, one of the most complicated features of the game is implemented (partially). And this is the Inventory System and the Tower Building system!

I have put together this short video showing the new features in action!

 

 

The following post will explain in detail the new features.

Tower Builder

The tower builder is the screen that will be presented to the player prior to entering into any battle. This screen gives the player a brief description of the level as well as time to “prep” for the coming battle.

The Design

The UI follows the same design standards seen in previous screens, sharing the “paper” theme that the previous menu screens shared.

However, the UI is transformed slightly into a more “modern” flat looking design. As the player enters closer to actual gameplay, the design of the screen becomes more and more “modernized” and animated. This is the design path we have chosen in order to ready the player more and more for some “live” action in the game as opposed to the story telling style of the rest of the screens.

This ties into the story of TinyWars as this sort of magical book telling a story of the tiny people who once lived, and as we get into the battle scenes, the story starts to unravel and become alive!

Shaders are present and running on this part of the game. A blurring effect can be seen on the background items whenever the “item select” menu pops up. You may notice some jagged edges on the “blury” objects. It might not be the most perfect shader, but it doesn’t utilize many resources and we have tested it working perfectly on mobile devices. This is a big win for us as it allows us to leave the game 1:1 from PC to its mobile versions.

Function of the Tower Builder

The functionality of this feature is highly complex as it ties in with the inventory management system, which in general can be one of the most complicated parts of the game development. We do plan on having a lot of items in the game, so we had to code the system with scale-ability in mind. (Even if the upcoming Story Demo will have limited options, it will run off the same engine we’re building.)

There are three elements to the tower:

  • The Main Body
  • The “Accessory”
  • The Bottom

Clicking on any of the three item slot boxes next to the tower preview will bring up the “Item Selection” menu.

This screen displays all the current items the player has unlocked. Selecting the items will bring up their name and description. Each tower items has a shield icon next to it which displays it’s Shield Count: this adds to the total HP that the player will have with the tower configuration. As expected, higher HP items might not have as good perks as items with lower HP levels. Play your strategy wisely!

Different tower bodies will have different configurations for the accessories added to them.

Finally, the tower is deployed when the player hits the “Fight!” button.

The tower serves as the end of the path that the enemies will walk through. In this sense, TinyWars is literally “tower defense.” We expect that this new feature will add an additional level of strategy and fun to the game. Personalizing anything in a game is always fun and having different perks and abilities based on the tower you choose should prove to be another thought proviking gameplay feature.

Items

This feature has not been fully implemented into the game yet. We have an inventory system for normal items as well, not just tower accessories. These items can be brought into the battlefield and deployed in various ways from having more spots to place your units to dropping bombs on enemies.

The number next to each item displays the quantity of the item which the player owns. This feature is the next big feature that we will be working on.

New Graphics

Part of the development of the new demo involves redefining the graphics and in-game visuals completely!

A new summoning system will be implemented into the game that is basically just a visual redesign. The goal is to make it look a lot more “magical” and alive than the previous system.

The GUI has been redesigned and what you can see above is a sketch of the new level design. We still have a little bit more work to do until it is final, but I thought I would drop some images teasing what we have worked on so far.

We also finished this incredible poster design, here’s a speedpaint!

Thank you for following our development and we hope to see you in the next update! Follow us here! 

Is TinyWars for Mobile or PC?

Is TinyWars for Mobile or PC? 1280 720 andrew

I get asked the question all the time: “What platform is it going to be released on?”

Of course the answer is Android & IOS. (Cool everyone gets that!) AND also for PC. And this is where people start scratching their heads…

TinyWars to be released for IOS, Android, and PC

IOS and Android are pretty self explanatory. The touch controls are identical, and most games are released on both platforms anyways. The game can be controlled via a keyboard, such as pressing “esc” will bring up the pause menu or using the arrow keys will pan the camera view. Without the keyboard, the game can be navigated exactly the same way using touch gestures or the scroll wheel on the mouse.

What about performance?

This is a video showing the newest build of the TinyWars Story Demo running smoothly on our test device, which is a HTC Google Nexus 9 Android tablet. This video is just showing the new main menu (which has lots of particles in it) and the new overworld map, which is over 6000 pixels wide and contains very high quality artwork.

The particles loaded on the mobile version and the PC version are the same. Though we do have the ability to control the assets which are loaded, depending on the operating system, we have not incurred a situation where the performance on mobile was severely limited. (We may implement options for players to disable all particle effects if it really does take a toll on their device, but we anticipate that the majority of players will have a smooth experience.)

1:1 Versions

Because the PC, Android, and IOS versions of the game will essentially be identical in every way, we are thinking about ways in which the player might be able to load their saved data from the cloud and resume their game on any device.

 

This would require the player to need to have an account with us, which requires database, internet connection, and other verification such as the player’s full purchase of the software and keys. Right now, this feature is on the back-burner since the Story Demo is still in the works, but it is a feature that I want TinyWars to have. This is the type of game that can be enjoyed both sitting at a computer and on the go, and this requires the player to be able to have access to their saved data at all times.

What about the transaction?

Now this is the most complicated part of the whole idea and something that needs to be planned carefully. If someone buys the game off Steam for full price, will they be able to have access to the mobile versions for free? If someone buys the mobile versions, will they be able to have access to the Steam version without paying?

 

I have an idea for the solution which involves the first 10 levels of the game to be completely free on all platforms. Steam, the App Store, and GooglePlay would merely be distribution centers for the game, but let’s say for example, the player completes the first 10 levels of the game, it’s an idea that a prompt might appear telling the player that they need to create an account and buy the game in order to continue.

 

This does solve the problem of having players accidentally be charged twice for the game if they decided they wanted both a PC and mobile version of the game. The next issue is, who would handle the transaction?

Of course, these are all problems we will have to deal with in the future, but we are thinking about these things now as it is very important to have a solid plan when these issues finally do become relevant! Since the final game probably won’t be complete for another 2 years, we do have plenty of time to continue planning this out. We’d love to see other games that employ a similar model and learn from other successful titles.

 

Are there other titles which are directly 1:1 from the PC and mobile versions? And how do they handle their payments? These are topic for further research.

TinyWars May 2017 Update (New Menu, Characters, and Gameplay)

TinyWars May 2017 Update (New Menu, Characters, and Gameplay) 1919 1075 andrew

It’s been 1 month since our last update. All we were able to show in the previous update was a main menu and a few concept pieces:

In this update, I will discuss what we have worked on since then and where the project is headed.

New Character

We have a look at one of the new characters that will be present in the upcoming Story Demo. Of course, she is not our friend so watch out for her!

 

Rose is capable of using her forbidden magic to control thorny bushes and plants. This will hopefully make for an interesting battle and we do intend to throw the player immediately into the fray with the characters, story, and some big battles in the limited content we have to show off in this new Story Demo! We hope you’re excited for it.

 

The details of this grand battle will obviously be held under wraps until we have further content to show off, but what we have planned so far (including the amazing soundtrack) is sure to be one of the moments in the game people should remember and be posting about! (Hopefully!!!)

 

New Menu Page

A new page (literally) has been added to the menu system!

This is a screenshot from the current build of the game. This is the “Overworld” page, it acts sort of like the main dashboard or homepage of TinyWars. Visually, this page will represent the progress which the player has made in the game. As the player progresses through the game, more and more pieces of the map will become colored.

 

It should be noted however that the player does NOT need to visit every part of the map in order to complete the main story of the game. There are a few key places on this map that need to be visited, but the rest of the areas are completely optional.

 

Each area will contain its own story and characters, and of course, players who take their time to visit the optional areas on the map will most likely be rewarded well for their time and unlock certain items which might make beating the main missions easier.

 

How to Visit a World?

What is meant by “visiting” when this is a Tower Defense game, not an RPG right? We like to consider TinyWars a hybrid of both an RPG and Defense Strategy type game. While there will not be any top down, 2D world exploration in the same sense of a typical 2D RPG, there will be world exploration in the sense of choosing which levels the player wants to complete.

The player will be able to zoom in pretty closely on the map. As you can see from the above screenshot, this map is quite large in terms of resolution, and a strong zoom is necessary for clarity in visuals, especially for mobile users! However, new elements will appear in these images, new buildings and levels, clicking on those elements will bring the player into that “live” world.

 

What is the “Live” world?

The “Live” world is another screen which is presented to the player upon selecting an area on the map in the previous page. This screen will be an overhead shot of the world which the player selected. For example, if the player clicks on the Stump Village (pictured above), they will be taken to the Stump Village “Live” screen.

This is a render of what the “Live” Stump World could actually look like. There will be various characters and elements in this world which will move and act almost as if a camera were placed in this position looking upon a real, live tiny world. The player will be able to click and interact with the different buildings in this world. Main quests can be obtained by visiting the Stump Palace, items can be purchased at the item shops, and the player can manage their own carrot farm and earn in-game cash to use for things like the item shops, etc.

 

Each world will have its own “Live” view, so there will always be something interesting to look at and the player should feel as if they are right there, interacting with the game’s world!

 

This portion has not been fully developed yet, and it will actually be developed a little later in the development pipeline, after we finalize ans refine the gameplay a little further. But this is a feature in the game which I am very excited for!

 

New Gameplay

What is most important in any game is, of course, the gameplay! So we will be focusing on this next in our development cycle.

1. GUI and Visual elements

 

The first thing that we will be updating is the in-game visuals and GUI. We will be starting with the GUI elements first, and work our way out to the actual graphics of the game.

 

Below is a screenshot of our Gameplay Prototype. In the Prototype, Mary (the main character, pictured) has a speech bubble which pops up next to her and presents information to the player. It is necessary from time to time to present info to the player. Information, such as tutorial elements or simply reminding the player what the goal of the level is, are things that might not necessary need a full blown cutscene! This is what the info box is designed for. It is less intrusive on the screen than a full cutscene, and if the player already knows these things, then it won’t impede upon gameplay in any way, it can simply be ignored.

Below is the new and improved system for notifications. The first thing that we did was add a “intro” and “outro” animation. The elements will just look smoother on the screen if they animate and “build” themselves info the screen rather than before, when the speech bubble just magically appeared on the screen. The visual experience should be slightly more pleasing with this new notification system.

In addition to looking much better, this new notification system actually has a practical purpose. Instead of appearing next to Mary such as a speech bubble would have to, the notification will appear in the “notification” area on the screen (towards the top of the HUD, out of the way of the player’s view of the game world). This reduces cognitive load on the player as they will always expect the notifications to appear in the same screen space everytime.

 

The speech bubble was not build into the HUD of the game since it needed to appear next to Mary, these notifications appear in the HUD and will always be in view to the player no matter how zoomed in or out they are in the game!

 

A final advantage of this new notification system, is that Mary no longer will be the only person speaking to the player. We will be able to see chat-like conversations appearing in the notification area, such as Mary speaking back and forth with an enemy, or some of the other units crying for help or giving words of encouragement to the player. These smaller things will help bring the game to life and allow the player to interact or have a window into the game in a way that feels more modernized and more inviting than the previous system!

 

2. New HUD

Pictured above is the old HUD from the TinyWars Prototype. It has a lot of different shapes, sizes, and colors, though it is “themed” and somewhat cute, this is not the look we intent to pursue in the final build of the game.

 

Pictured below is the newly designed HUD.

It still transmits the same information as previous, but has a much cleaner and a more minimalist feel. We want the player to be able to see and enjoy the game’s world in all its glory, without the HUD interfering with that experience. Of course, opting for a cleaner look like this just makes the game look more professional and inviting for new players. Not all the new elements are present in this HUD draft above, elements such as the “Unit Summoner” have not been fully designed yet!

 

3. New Game World Graphics

This is the OLD game world appearance from the level in the gameplay prototype. We hope that you find these graphics cute and happy! Of course, this works for a “tiny” themed game. But the colors, the lighting, the graphic could really be improved.

 

List of improvements to make are based on the feedback we received from many of the players to posted gameplay videos on our gameplay prototype:

  1. Visual theme. Focus on a few complementary colors that will work for the world of the game vs. just random array of objects.
  2. Lighting and time of day – provide unique levels and look that have varying lighting, time of day and mood.
  3. Repeating items and textures – While some textures such as the grass and dirt can be repeated, it’s not pleasant to see the same exact mushroom multiple times on screen!

 

That is about it for the main things we want to improve in the new Story Demo. We are currently working on this phase right now, so I do not have any screenshots to present at this time!

 

We will do our best to make a “screenshot worthy” game. The type of graphics and gameplay that is so beautiful, the player will feel obligated to take a screenshot and share it with their friends! We took a lot of inspiration from playing Breath of the Wild, and have some great ideas for making a more beautiful and visually pleasant game world for TinyWars.

 

That’s All For Now

Working on the visuals of the in-game world will be the next step in our game’s development. If the newest menu screenshots and video are any indication, we intend to deliver a really well polished Story Demo to the world. Please support us by following our social media updates and news on our Official Facebook Page and helping us build an audience up until launch!

The New TinyWars

The New TinyWars 1080 607 andrew

Welcome to the new TinyWars! We are working every day to produce the finished product, or at least a replica of it. The “Story Demo” of TinyWars is the reflection of the final product, and likewise, the features, gameplay elements, and graphics are set to be 1:1 with that of the final game. Of course, this is a demo, which means it might only contain 10% of the content we would have in the final game.

What To Expect in the Demo

We are running on a limited budget here, but I had plans to include at least the first 10 – 15 quests in this demo. That should just about cover the bulk of the “Stump Town” which is the first world players will experience in the full game. As you can see by the map (game screen mockup) below, there is a lot of further worlds planned for the game, but each world should have more than enough content to provide hours of gameplay.

 

This story demo itself should have plenty of content for someone to experience a good taste of the project. The goal is to have a good deal of content packed into this demo to provide a meaningful experience. I can’t expect people to want to buy or support our project based on the previous “Gameplay Prototype” that we released on PC and Android last year. That was merely a tech demo as well as a concept for showing off our art and music styles, but does not provide any meaningful content or a proper taste of what is really to come.

 

It is also quite difficult to maintain a social media and online marketing campaign for a project which has no content released. There’s only so much we can talk about when it comes to the ideas we want to have in our game, as opposed to actually showing off the features and content of the game itself. This new “Story Demo” will really reshape the image of TinyWars as well as our media campaign as a whole.

Quests

The game utilizes quests as the primary mechanic for progressing through the story. Not all of the quests are mandatory of course, but players who choose to go above and beyond on the optional quests will be rewarded for their efforts! What are these rewards? The rewards could come in the form of a few things which would be meaningful to the new mechanics of this game.

Virtual Currency

Right off the bat, I want to say that we really do not intend to have players use real money into order to obtain any of the virtual currency (Of course, that really depends on our financial forecast and how confident we would be in sales of the game or crowdfunding.) The items for virtual currency include: Gold Magical Mushroom Spores, and The Blood of the Witch (Or the Blood of Mother).

The two virtual currency units will be used in different ways that can shape the way your units function and behave! This is because we have greatly expanded upon the traditional model of a “tower defense” game that we have been used to playing in the past.

Expanded Gameplay Model

We actually try very hard NOT to refer to our game as a “tower defense” game. Many people are immediately turned off from that word due to the negative connotation a tower defense game holds in the gaming community. I have heard things such as “tower defense games are simple and boring,” to things like, “tower defense games are basically copy/paste style games, gets old after a while.” We want to assure our fans that TinyWars is NOT a traditional tower defense game by any means!

 

While our game does maintain the core elements of a traditional tower defense game (building units, defending against waves of enemies, upgrades, etc.), we have greatly expanded upon that model and have added some elements that are less traditional in a tower defense game. (I’m not sure if any tower defense game exists that holds these gameplay mechanics!) The virtual currency comes into play due to the ability to purchase more permanent items in the game.

 

If you are familiar with tower defense, then you already understand how unit upgrades do not persist from level to level. Each level begins with basic units which need to be upgraded as you earn currency through defeating enemies in each wave. Part of the reason I believe many people will refer to tower defense as boring is due to the nature of this system. I have definitely experienced times when I have played through 20+ levels of a tower defense game and it started to feel old when I have to start with basic units over and over again.

 

We’ve added a system that will allow the player to progressively increase and maintain persistent upgrades from level to level. I truly believe we have an original gameplay model on our hands, a sort of hybrid between tower defense and an RPG game. Because of this, I really do not want to spill the details until we get to a point where I can display a gameplay video and really break down and discuss how the gameplay works! (Sorry!)

Story

Of course, this is called the “Story Demo” for a reason! You will get a glimpse into the full story of TinyWars from the very start of the game til the demo ends. Each level begins and ends with a short cutscene that progresses the story a little further. Not all of the cutscenes have been fully written for the game yet, though the main story and plot points have already been established. We have designed the cutscenes to leave little cliffhangers which encourage the player to continue to the next level to find out what happens next!

 

Just a glimpse into the TinyWars story as a whole. Just like life, the beginning is filled with fun, light hatred joy and some painful moments. As the game progresses, we will explore the life of our main characters as they begin to develop their friendships and establish their role in their life. We will see the characters transform and the friendships strengthen over time. Of course, as the story continues, the tone will begin to get progressively darker and darker until we hit a few key turning points.

The Combined Experience

Combining all of the new elements from map exploration, virtual currency, new gameplay mechanics and story will really help to create the full fledged TinyWars experience that I have been wanting to share with the world for quite some time now. I have not even discussed the music or artwork in this post, but I hope that some of the media shared above drove the point across. This is the point in which I believe we are developing a AAA title here, and we’re putting the remaining budget into this Story Demo. I hope it will be one heck of an experience for you all, I’ll post further updates as we continue to progress in this long journey ahead of us.

TinyWars GamePlay Prototype Update New Features and Trailer

TinyWars GamePlay Prototype Update New Features and Trailer 720 405 andrew

This is probably going to be the last time we talk about our gameplay prototype, after this, all of our efforts will be geared towards releasing our first fully featured story demo. What is meant by “fully featured” is that this demo should contain all of the elements that are expected to be present in the final TinyWars game. But before we can get some work done on the demo, we needed to do some major upgrades on the prototype.

What’s New?

  • Updated animations and graphics

Early version of the game from 2016 (above).

How the prototype currently looks.

 

The animations for attacks and upgrade effects were greatly enhanced. The whole experience feels alive and the world is interesting to look at. We hope that this graphical improvement will help make this game a beautiful piece of art to look at. Unfortunately the character animations are unfinished still. Having our character animations hand drawn, frame by frame, is a very time consuming project, but it does allow us to create animations and characters that I feel are more alive and fluid than those which use 3D models converted into 2D animations. Of course, time and money is the trade off. (We will be including the full animations in the upcoming demo.)

 

  • Lowered Difficulty Level

Many of our early players noted that the difficulty level of this prototype was extremely difficult. Though this did lead to some very interesting playthrough videos on youtube, I thought it was for the benefit of everyone who was introduced to this game that we reduced the difficulty bar significantly. I didn’t feel like we were doing any good to potential new fans by making the game practically impossible to beat. (Let alone beat with a perfect score which was something I challenged early players to do in exchange for a wallscroll.)

 

  STRATEGY GUIDE:

Our prototype still retains a certain level of difficulty, but if you want to get past the first 2 waves with ease, then take a look at the screenshot below.

This screenshot shows what my field looked like AFTER I completed the second wave with perfect health. The numbers next to the units indicate the order in which I placed these units. If you want to pass the second wave without loosing a single point of HP, then it is advised to follow this cheat sheet above.

 

Is there anything else new about this prototype?

Not really. The visual enhancements were a HUGE project on their own and it really does change the entire feel of the game. There were a few animations quirks that were taken care of, but these are minor details. The whole experience comes alive through animation both in the characters and in the UI of the game. I encourage everyone who has already played earlier versions of the prototype to give this new one a try. In terms of the overall experience, while nothing has changed significantly in the story or waves, the whole experience has been enhanced, not only through animation but also through the difficulty. I believe the lowered difficulty (when I say lowered, it is still a challenge), will allow a wider audience to finally experience and enjoy this game!

 

Prototype Re-Launch Trailer

This trailer features some beautiful music and some of the best visuals that we have gathered over the years of working on this project. Of course, this trailer does more to show what the final game of TinyWars might feel like: emotional, fast paced, and visually beautiful. This trailer also does do a good job of paralleling the philosophy we have with this game.

 

We are NOT interested in jamming a story down the players throat. If the player WANTS to experience the story and is interested in investigating interesting clues left in the story, we want to implement mechanisms to allow the player to uncover the story if the WANT to. Look at this trailer a second time. You don’t have to read the fast text that appears in order to see a trailer for an anime themed defense game, however, for those who are interested in seeing what lies beneath the surface of this cute looking game, luckily, the YouTube video player has mechanisms to allow you to read the text in the words if you really want to.

 

However, I leave this journey up to those who are actually interested in it. We’re not going to spoon feed the story to the player. If you want to skip the cutscene, then skip it. If you want to just play and experience a cute anime themed defense game, then go for it! We won’t stand in your way and I won’t let a story that the player is not interested in, get in the way of them enjoying the game. Everybody has different levels of interest and experience when it comes to a game like this, and we want you to experience our game the way you truly want to experience it.

 

This trailer reflects that philosophy…  of course, on a much smaller scale. And perhaps we don’t have much of a choice with only a 30 second ad slot.

 

Why is this update important?

This update marks our official departure from the Gameplay Prototype build. We can finally scrap a lot of old and inefficient code and organization that was specific to this tiny build and begin construction on the larger and more optimized demo build of the game, which will lead to the final build. The reason we want to make a big deal out of this final update is also because there will be a “dry period” during this time of heavy development where we won’t be releasing much new content or updates.

 

The new demo build requires a lot of work before it can be considered presentable. We’re no longer in the business of showing off concepts like this prototype, we will be building out a demo that represents the final game. And the final game should reflect that of a AAA project. We don’t want any animations unfinished, and we don’t want the GUI or graphics to have any downside. But finally we can begin to dive into the meat and bones of what TinyWars is all about.

 

By working on a demo that reflects the final game, we will be working on a demo that shows off the actual story of the game. And this is something I have been waiting a very long time to get started on. Having the story pre-written, we took a lot of time to build out this demo and give the players a gameplay experience; and now everything finally circles back and we can begin meshing the story with the game.

 

I hope we will be able to get a larger playerbase on this prototype. Out of 3,000 fans on our facebook page, our android game is only reporting 100 – 500 downloads. I would love it if we could get a much wider audience on this prototype now that the graphics have been ramped up to a level which I think is above average in terms of 2D indie games. I can’t expect a large audience unless the game is good, and I think this newest update for the prototype puts the current build of the game at a whole new level of quality.

 

Note: We understand that our audience is severely limited due to the lack of an IOS release. We will be working on that for the story demo!

 

 STORY DEMO?

Welcome to the story of TinyWars. The new story demo is going to be the reflection of the final project, likewise it needs to feel like a AAA title worthy of being called final. Much work has gone into simply designing the main menu! But even the menu design has a story to tell! I have put a lot of attention into the smallest details of this project and I hope our efforts will be noticed in the final project.

And this is the map of the tiny world which is riddled with adventure. I can’t talk much about this world or the things we want the player to experience in it right now, but we will be excited to discuss this in the future.

 

The coming months may be a bit quiet, but we hope to be able to show off some powerful visuals once the demo starts taking shape. You can expect to see some very beautiful visuals such as the menu screenshot above, only I hope to be able to show off some updated gameplay as well. We have several unique gameplay features that we are unable to fit into the gameplay prototype, but will be present in the new demo. The gameplay will be slightly different, while still remaining a defense game.

 

Thank you for following our development. We hope to be able to share some more exciting work of the new build soon!
You can keep up to date on our game by following the official TinyWars facebook page. 

Building A.I.’s, Virtual Currencies, and Collection Mechanics

Building A.I.’s, Virtual Currencies, and Collection Mechanics 1080 1080 andrew

For those who have been following our social media, you may have seen some posts about a side project that we started working on over New Years. MemoryWars: TinyWars is an android game which we built as an experiment, but ended up releasing as a full fledged anime game. You can download it here.

What is this project all about?

Don’t worry, we have not given up on TinyWars. What this project really means to us is the ability for our programmers to work on new features and ideas that we would otherwise not be able to work on with the main TinyWars project. There is no interactive A.I., and up until this point, we had never even considered any sort of collection or virtual currency method for repeat gameplay. (I still don’t think it would be appropriate for TinyWars, but we had the opportunity to experiment with these features in our mini project.)

This is the first A.I. we have ever programmed; it’s quirky, stupid at times, but it works and is fun to battle against!

Now we can’t show off all of it (Not that it’s worth seeing anyways) but admittedly this is some of the sloppiest code we’ve done! …it works… and this is especially good practice for us! Having used some techniques in this project, I have looked back at the original TinyWars Tower Defense Engine and seen some very specific lines of code that could totally be optimized!

Collecting

While the primary objective of this project was to gain experience programming an A.I., collecting was added to the project for the very same reason: experience. We wanted to experience what it might be like to add virtual currency and collecting mechanics into the project. On top of that, the project currently had very little replay value. Play the A.I. a few times and get bored of it (Early players who tried the original android app testified to this in their reviews!)

So we added the collection method to increase replay-ability of the game.

Here’s a screen of the collection room. Currently one of these cards, the most common one, does serve a gameplay mechanic for the game. Now we have had all sorts of ideas on how this game could really be revamped and improved, but we must return to the main TinyWars project. I admit that the downloads of this project on the GooglePlay store are slightly disappointing, and this is probably an indicator that we need to get back to the main project. If people really like this, then we might resume adding the updates and new features to this game.

The “Beat All Levels” card can only be obtained after beating all the levels in the game.

Mysterious Menu

This was a chance for us to experiment with some other interesting elements such as a mysterious looking menu design. I believe when players are first presented with this menu, they will immediately recognize that these are levels which need to be played through. The red cards at the end should spark some curiosity and it might be obvious that these levels are supposed to be “hard” or “boss” levels.

Regardless, there was a good amount of effort and thought that went into the UI design of this mini project in order to present this game as a full fledged project and not just some side project that nobody should care about. We’re not interested in releasing “throw away” projects to the public.

Should I Play It?

Yes. Even though we refer to this as a “side project,” it is still a fully featured, full game worth putting some time into. I feel like my memory has been greatly enhanced simply from playing this game over and over again. And those levels at the end are truly a challenge.

We would be very sad if nobody plays our new game, even if it isn’t the main TinyWars project!!!

Download it here.