Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 24 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.005 Release! Human Male is back! Weekly Progress!

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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

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Go here to read Day 23 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

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Hurray, the human male is back in action! Kevin wasn't happy with how the original male turned out so he wanted redesign him. There were also some technical issues we started to notice after finishing the original male which would eventually become a hinderance if we didn't address them now. So with that in mind he built the female in a way that could overcome the technicalities that the original male's build had trouble with and then planned to rebuild the male himself using these new techniques. Overall he turned out well and we're happy with him, we hope you guys think so too!

Now on to other things. We made a bunch of small technical fixes like text telling you if your target is out of range or on cooldown so that the game is more responsive. The Shadow character is now the only one with the wand and primarily uses their Magical skill (Shadow Bite) but will melee if close. Some new sound effects have been added and various bug fixes. Read below for all the details!

Also, we've decided to add a weekly progress list for HTD as well so you can check back and see how far along development is going for the items in the list. It's in the "In the Works" section.

Note: I changed this to be more like an overall progress list rather than a weekly release list. Basically it just lets you see how we're doing. Anything that is at 100% should make it into the next release, otherwise we're still working on it. The list doesn't represent everything we're doing though, just some of the major stuff, we are always fixing bugs and smaller things as well.


What's New:

-Re-added Human Male, he's now more awesome (There's no hair or cloak for him yet)

-Re-added the T1 Physical Fire and Shadow skill effects, they disappeared the last release somehow

-Added sound effect for the Whelp's Melee attack

-Added casting sound effects for the Fireball and Shadow Bite skills

-Added sound effect for Shadow Bite's detonation

-Added "Target is out of range!" notification

-Added "Skill is not ready!" notification

-Changed the skill range indicator graphic to be less intrusive

-Made Focus Fire (When you just click on an enemy without a skill) affect all your heroes. So now they will all go after the target you choose instead of just the hero you currently have selected.

-Made the auto-mode skill selection smarter and less wasteful

-Made Native Skills have a longer cooldown (6 seconds) but will now cancel all skill effects of a countered type on the target.

-Gave the wand to only the hero with the Shadow skills. She will primarily cast her T1 Magical skill but will melee if an enemy is nearby.

-Adjusted the Whelp Melee hit sound effect to be more in sync with the animation

-Fixed a bug that caused the skill range graphic to disappear


Each week I'll list and update the descriptions for the current skills available in the game. That way you guys know what they actually do (eventually there will be in-game descriptions). I'll just provide a brief description for now because the actual damage values and such will be changing a lot as we tweak them. You'll be able to see them in the future though.


Key Terms:

Direct Damage (DD) - Causes full damage instantly
Damage over Time (DoT) - Causes continuous damage over a period of time
Damage after Time (DaT) - Causes damage after a period of time has passed


Here are descriptions for the current skills in the game:

Fire:

Burn (Native Elemental - Stackable DoT - Fire Burning Man Icon) - Sets your target on fire causing it to take continuous damage. Stacks up to five times. Grants the caster a Fire Charge that increases their Fire Damage. A character can hold up to five charges at a time.

Flame Strike (Tier 1 Physical Elemental - DD - Fiery Sword Icon) - Attacks with your weapon ignited in flames.

Fireball (Tier 1 Magical Elemental - DD - Fireball Icon) - Hurls a fireball at your target


Shadow:

Infliction (Native Elemental - Stackable DoT - Shadow Consuming Man Icon) - Inflicts your target with Shadow decreasing it's Physical and Magical Defense. Stacks up to five times. Grants the caster a Shadow Charge that increases their Shadow damage. A character can hold up to five charges at a time.

Dark Strike (Tier 1 Physical Elemental - DD + DaT - Shadowy Sword Icon) - Attacks with your weapon engulfed in shadow, does additional damage after timer runs out.

Shadow Bite (Tier 1 Magical Elemental - DD + DaT - Shadow Bolt Icon) - Casts a shadowy bolt at your target that fills it with darkness till it explodes, does additional damage after timer runs out.


In the Works:

• Human Male Hair: Swagger Shag (0%)
• 1H Mace Weapon (100%)
• 2H Axe (100%)
• 2H Sword (100%)
• Character Customization Screen (100%)
• Party Selection Screen (100%)

Note: There isn't a 2H animation yet so really these weapons will just be used with the current swing animation. So imagine them as large 1H weapons for now :P

Kevin currently has a poll going on his blog, KXN @ HTD for determing what order we'll be adding the elemental skills in (Ignore the The Second Element title, he's just extending the time and it won't let him change it). Shadow was winning originally so we did that as the second element already. Looks like Water might be next!

Any feedback is welcome as always, let us know what you think in the comments!


-Dan