Just wanted to show off a new mechanic I implemented this week: Haunted Trees.
When enemies are killed near Haunted trees, they turn into ghosts and circle the trees. When they see other enemies passing through this area, they offer complete protection to them.
The counter strategy to deal with the Haunted trees is to not kill enemies near them, thus avoiding spawning ghosts. Failing that, the enemies can only be taken down after they leave the haunted area.
This mechanic will be introduced in the Sector 2. Coming soon.
Have a great weekend!
v0.2.4
Really minor error reporting fix
v0.2.3
Added a tutorial screen with video showing how to click-and-drag on tower to move it to a new location
Updated battle map for "Boss Router"
Fixed an internal parsing error that was freezing the game for some users
Fixes to Sniper gun and Sky-drill behaviour
Improved error reporting framework
Bunch of internal code updates for upcoming features (for e.g. Healer flower)
Updated level parameters to fit refactored changes
Developer Update: Healing Flowers
Hello all,
Big thanks to everyone who bought the game in the opening week. Your support is greatly appreciated.
I've been working on some new mechanisms for the new levels in Sector 2. While some of them didn't pan out as I hoped, one of them did come along nicely. This is one of the first features, where enemy AI decides to make short-term sacrifices for long-term advantage.
As can be seen, the flower takes certain number of enemy sacrifices to activate. Once active, it heals the enemies passing near it. This gives the player a choice to make. They can either build towers to block access to such flowers early on or let them get activated and deal with the consequences later. I can think of some interesting maps with these flowers already. It's going to be fun.
Some changes in the past couple of weeks have led to major refactoring of the code. So I will have to test all the levels again before I release the next build. It will take some time. I'll try to do it some time in the next week and push out a new build. Stay tuned!
That's it for now. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the extra hour of DST if applicable to you.
Tower Build Queue and Early Access preparations
Hi all,
If you haven't noticed yet, the date is now fixed. Dofense will release on Steam in Early Access on November 1st. Thanks to everyone who played the game during beta. Your feedback has been very helpful.
The EA release is one week away and I'm glad to have finished one handy feature just in time - the Tower Build Queue.
With this feature, the tower build requests are queued when enough energy is not yet available to build them. Even the tower upgrades are queued the same way. I had half-implemented this feature in the past and removed it due to certain problems it led to. But lately I realized that this kind of interface is essential to the strategic nature of the gameplay.
In action games a player's skill to respond to events is at test. The joy comes from mastering the motor skills to respond in timely fashion to kill the bosses. However in RTS games, the focus is on strategic thinking. The gameplay interface should allow the player to delegate their actions as much as possible. The TBQ feature achieves just that. Therefore I went back and dusted off the old code, fixed some technical problems and got it working in time for the EA release.
After spending more time playing with it, I figured it will be nice to have some UI to manipulate the pending tasks in the queue. Look how the build tasks get shown near the top of the screen. If you were to hover over them, you will be able to see which tower they correspond to. You can then just click on them to delete them. You can even cancel all the pending tasks by clicking the FLUSH button.
The whole gameplay becomes akin to visualizing the map of your strategy and manipulating it constantly.
Can't wait to see people try it next week when the game releases. Cheers!
Dev Update: Tower Build queue, Level Editor WIP
Hi all,
I've been working on two important features. First one is the Tower Build queue. It will allow you to build many towers in advance without waiting for energy to become available. All your build and upgrade requests will be queued and executed as the energy becomes available. You can do this even when the game is paused. It's a lot of fun to just draw a line on the map and see a bunch of towers queued in a row. This feature will let you visualize your plans better.
The second feature is the Level editor. I already have a makeshift level editor that I used to design levels. It needs some work before it can be of any use to you. You will see it soon enough though.
For now, you can enjoy these screenshots from the planned Manual pages. The manual is for advanced players who want to understand the strategy part better and design levels of their own.
Terrain types
Enemy types
Tower types
Have a wonderful weekend. Cheers!
Open Beta and release roadmap
After what seemed like endless rounds of revisions, Dofense is finally ready for you to test. The gameplay is engaging. There is enough variety in game mechanics that I can deliver a steam-worthy game with lot of playtime value. The colors look great. The UI is streamlined. It's time to start rolling out this baby.
Here's the latest trailer if you haven't seen it on the storefront yet.
[previewyoutube="sNHttvW7hG4;full"]
Dofense is now available in beta for everyone.
The game is organized in Sectors. Each sector contains a number of battles. In the beta build comes with first sector which introduces you to the core game mechanics. It has 25 battles. With every win, you gain a crystal that you can use to boost your towers in subsequent battles. There will be more number of sectors in coming few weeks.
The game will be released in Early Access, as soon as I've second sector ready. It will also give access to the basic level editor. I expect this to happen by the end of October.
The final release will have about 4 sectors, each with some unique new progression feature. It will have full level editor capabilities that will allow design of new battles and sectors. It will be integrated with the Steam workshop. I expect this to finish before the end of the year, however it may take longer. But the game will be available as early access title during the phase.
Try out the beta and let me know what do you think. I can't wait to hear your feedback.
Level design session live stream
You can watch me play newly designed maps on live stream.
Playing brand new levels of Dofense
I've added two exciting new actions. I'll play them on live stream during this event. You will now get Sniper shots.
Snappy eh! One more new action is Blackholes.
Tune in to check these new features and couple more levels. I'll play them on Hard, as always!
Live stream for Steam Game Festival
I'll be playing a demo build of Dofense on a live stream during the Steam game festival. It will also be available for you to play.
