Hero Tower Defense: Scheduling

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alright, time for a update on some HTD related stuff. First off as you may have noticed from the title and date of this post is that I will no longer be sticking to a new HTD post every Thursday. Reason being is that sometimes there just isn't much to report since we are taking our time with the new releases even though we are continuously working on it. So it would seem to make more sense to just make a post only when there is something worth posting about rather than trying to fill a weekly requirement. Plus it uses some valuable time that I could be using to work on the game instead. With that said I'll still be posting about HTD fairly often just not as consistently as before.

Now onto business. Sam and I put on our business hats and decided that the best thing for us would be to let Sam focus on getting PTD2 going and put the programming for the new HTD graphics setup on hold. The reason is a pretty clear one, more people want to see PTD2 than HTD and we're all about giving you guys what you want. However, don't mistake this to mean HTD progress is stopping. That's not true at all, all that's on hold for now is the programming part, the graphics are still being worked on. If you've been following Kevin's blow you probably already know this (linke at the bottom of this post). In fact, once Sam gets a playable version of PTD2 out he will be dedicating some extra time to HTD in order to get everything moving again. Another thing to keep in mind is that since the graphics are still being worked on in the meantime that the next release of HTD will contain even more reworked content than we originally planned for.

For those of you that have been looking forward to the next HTD release (like me) and have been patiently waiting, I apologize for the temporary delay but it's ultimately a better route for the company to take. It shouldn't be too much of a delay though really. And for those of you who want to point out Ninja-ja I'll assure you this is a different case because there is more than just one person (me) working on HTD. Plus, a new version of Ninja-ja WILL come out eventually. I just need to find time for it which is scarce these days.

Thanks for all the continued support guys!


In the Works:

Design

• Commander/Player Skills (25%)
• Stat Progression (5%)
• Pet System (50%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Animations (90%)
• Unit: Race #2 - Concepts (20%)
• Unit: Race #3 - Concepts (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Concepts (80%)
• Unit: Creature #3 - Concepts (20%)
• Unit: Creature #4 - Concepts (10%)
• Weapons: Batch #2 - Assets (20%)
• Armor: Batch #1 - Assets (10%)

Programming

• Interface: Setup (75%)
• Unit: Setup (10%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Be sure to leave any ideas, suggestions, or other feedback you might have in the comments! Thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 42 - Creatures Vs Races

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 41 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Progress on the new art and graphics system is still underway and is going well. We're doing our best to get a new release out to you guys ASAP but we aren't looking to rush it out just so we can have something. I never liked seeing that happen in other games and then having to deal with all sorts of annoying bugs. Granted we're a small group and can only find so much but we do what we can. :)

Now, on to the topic at hand. Creatures Vs Races! In HTD when we say Creatures we are typically referring to enemy units and when we say Races we are referring to playable heroes. However, there will be units that are both playable races and creatures that you fight. The HTD world isn't one with race wars going on with one versus another but rather just a world full of all sorts of races and creatures that have various factions within different groups. Some are good, some are bad. This allows us to be a bit more versatile when it comes to designating enemies for maps because we can mix various kinds of units together and still have it make sense.

You might be wondering why aren't all units just creatures and playable races. Well, because it would be difficult to make something like a slug into a playable unit. The playable races require far more animations and set up in order to work with the system we've established. The main reason is because they are dynamic and allow for weapon and armor swapping which requires a lot more assets and work. However, we can always use creatures as companion pets/combat pets since they are a more limited version of a playable unit. So some might end up being available in that respect.

Another good thing about having creatures as pets and races as enemies is that we can reuse assets that we already have. It's a huge time saver and provides some additional diversity, especially the races. For example, we can use the human race as an enemy and have all the armor and weapons available to outfit them however we like and even give them variations among themselves. We can also use their animations to do different things with. All of this essentially for free since we already have them available for the playable human race.

We're all looking forward to the next release and hope to share it with you guys soon. Thanks for the continued support!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (100%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (100%)
• Unit: Human Male - Animations (25%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (75%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Be sure to leave any ideas, suggestions, or other feedback you might have in the comments!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 41 - Show and Tell

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 40 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Unfortunately the new release won't make it out this week because we were originally thinking we could set up the new interface menus using a mix of the old graphics process with the new graphics process. It seems now that we can't actually do that or it wouldn't be worth it because we'd have to redo it anyway. So we're taking the more efficient route by continuing to work on the new graphics process and then once we have that set up we'll be able to throw together the new interface and it'll be set for good. However, I wanted to give you guys a little bit of a preview in the meantime.

Hero Customization Screen

This is the Hero Customization screen where you'll be able to change things like your Race, Hair Style, Colors, etc. You might notice that there's no character roster at the bottom. This is because this screen won't always be available, it's more of a triggered screen that will become available when you are presented with the option to change some of those features. For example it'll appear when you start a new game in order to make your main hero and when you get new customizable heroes or items/quests that allow you change race or hair color. For testing purposes we'll be allowing easy access to this screen from the Party Management screen till we are at a more finalized version of the game.

Party Management Screen

Next is the Party Management screen where you'll be able to set up the group you'll take into battle, enter battle, and for now, access the Hero Customization screen. On this screen you can see the character roster, navigation buttons, and a preview of the currently selected hero. The preview will also show you the hero's name, native element (behind the character), and their currently active skills. The Enter Battle text and icon will light up when there's at least one character in your active party.

Inventory Screen

And lastly we have the Inventory screen. Your currently selected hero's equipment is on the left and the shared inventory (all characters use the same one) on the right. The check marks on the Helm and Cloak slots are toggles for turning those items visually on and off. In order to see the details of any items/skills you would just hover the cursor over it and details for it will pop up in a window.

That's all I'm going to show for now, don't want the post to get too large. There are still some placeholders at work here but as you can see it's mostly an overhaul. Hopefully we can get a new release out for you guys soon so you can try it and provide us with some feedback. As you can see we're hard at work though and things are coming together nicely, the current content just takes some time to put together.


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (90%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (90%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (75%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Suggestions and ideas are always welcome in the comments, thanks guys!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 40 - Revised Graphics and Interface Progress!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 39 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Hope you all had a good holiday weekend! We were all a bit busy visiting with family and such so no game update this week. However, we have been making good progress with all the revising we have going on. The graphics are moving along and the revised interface is just about finished so we should be able to release a new update next week. There's still some tweaking to do but overall it should be a big improvement over what we currently have which is mostly a bunch of placeholders.

Some of you have commented on how it felt clunky and a bit confusing and that's definitely one of things we've addressed. This new set up should make all the menu screens much easier to navigate and more intuitive. One of the main features is that you can change characters from any screen and the navigation buttons that let you go to other screens are always available. We'll also be making use of tooltips for further instruction as well as displaying things like skill and item details.

With the interface out of the way I'll be able to help Evan with some of the 3D assets which should also help speed things up. Evan is working on the animations for the Human Male character which requires rigging the model in order to make it easier to animate. I'm getting a render scene set up which will be used for importing any assets and then rendering out frames for all three angles, lighting, and position. Once we have those frames Sam can take and implement them into the new system which will allow him to proceed faster and easier since he'll have some reference graphics.

So things are moving along slowly but surely. As I mentioned before we hope to have a new version available for you guys next week which should include all the new interface menu screens. We hope you guys will like it and we'll definitely be looking forward to everyone's feedback!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (85%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (85%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (65%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Suggestions and ideas are always welcome in the comments, thanks guys!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 39 - Community Request: Playable Races!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 38 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Just a short post this week while we continue to chug away at the next release which should be coming soon. Another benefit of the new graphics system is that it will allow us to more easily add additional playable races. Before it meant an exponential amount of more work when adding armor because of all the additional frames required for the new race. Now, since it's in 3D, it's just a little extra work fitting it to the model of the new race and then rendering out all the necessary frames accordingly.

So, what this means is we have a lot more flexibility with what sort of playable races we can put into the game since the workload is far less significant. This works out because we weren't going to have much focus on race wars and factions but rather on good and evil. In other words it'll be a common occurrence to see a mix of races working together on everything from daily tasks to fighting a common enemy.

This is where you guys come in. What are some races you would like to be able to chose from? Are you a fan of the tried and true trifecta of Human, Orc, and Elf? Are you more interested in an obscure race that you don't see so often such as Golems (like Kevin!)? Tell us what sort of races you'd like to be able to play as in the comments!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (75%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Melee Concept (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Ranged Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (50%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

And of course, leave any suggestions, ideas, or other feedback you might have in the comments!Thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 38 - New Weapons! Revised Player Controls! MOAR Artists!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 37 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alright well we're back up and running after some technical difficulties. Hopefully that doesn't happen again but you never know. You tend to run into some speed bumps no matter how much you plan ahead. Speaking of speed bumps, the transition to the new graphics system is going well. Evan just finished up a nice 3D model for the Human Male and will now start implementing the animations. We have to take things one step at a time since this is our first go at setting things up this way but once we have a system in place things will speed up. I'll also be helping with some of the 3D assets once I finish re-arranging the Interface and some other design and management tasks.

Kevin and Bill have been working on some new Creature concepts and we've also picked up Josh, another enthusiastic artist who is excited to work on some concepts for us. We've also picked up some assistance from Sam's brother, Joel. He'll also be helping with some art concepts and assets.

So you've probably noticed by this point that we've only been picking up additional artists, and lots of them. There are a few reasons for this. Primarily it's because art tends to take more time than everything else because of the sheer amount of art work required for video games. They have to create concepts with multiple views, then they have to be modeled in 3D, textured, rigged for animation, animated, and then rendered. And all throughout that process thing have to be tweaked, changed, and approved. In other words, it's time consuming. It's also better for the art to be done before programming so that when the programmer (Sam in this case) codes in something new he has the art assets to go with it. As you've probably seen we currently have a lot of placeholders scattered around HTD. That's because programming is ahead of the art right now. Granted we have to redo a bunch of art now with the new system but that is something that's pretty unavoidable and necessary, but it's a logical move in the right direction and we all agree it's worth the extra time and effort.

Now then, on to more fun topics. We put a new version up with some new weapons! These were some of the last assets done with the old graphics system so we decided we'd just throw them in. And yes, some are massive, but who doesn't like swinging around huge weapons? The Boomerang is a melee weapon for now, but don't worry it won't stay like that, it's just a temporary arrangement. We also couldn't add the Ranged weapons we had made because we don't have a ranged animation yet and it'd look pretty silly trying to make it work with one of the current animations. So we're leaving those out for now.

Lastly, we're going to change the way the player interacts with the game a bit and make you more of a commander and less of a 5 person entity. Right now you have access to 5 characters and all of their active skills which you can use manually at will. We've come to the conclusion that this is too micro-intensive for what we want to do so we'll be removing that aspect of interactivity. They skills and everything will still be there to setup your characters with but they'll just do them automatically in combat and will be affected by the behaviors once we have those in. All we're really doing is removing the manual override you can do during combat. We will, however, be adding some new skills that only you, the player, can do. These skills will be along the lines of the Class Native Skill (the same for all heroes, it lets you transfer charges to another Hero), a skill that lets you temporarily power up a character, perhaps a skill that absorbs all charges your heroes have and then unleashing a powerful attack, and probably combination attacks where you'll select multiple heroes to perform a powerful attack that differs depending on the Native Elements of those heroes. I'll elaborate more on this later but we think it'll free up up the player to focus on more fun tasks like strategy and power moves instead of trying to micromanage every hero.

So, as we continue to catch up again on the new art and graphics process have fun with the new weapons and let us know what you think about the idea for the new player skills. Thanks guys!


In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (50%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (75%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Attack Concept (75%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (25%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Be sure to leave any suggestions or ideas you might have in the comments!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 37 - Decisions, Decisions

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 36 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week we have some good news and some bad regarding the current state of HTD. As some of you may have noticed the game has started to run rather slow as we've been adding more and more to it. This was a worrying sign as we knew it would only get worse as we continued to develop the game. We also want to release HTD on other platforms, particularly the phone markets. The phones run far slower than the PC so we knew we were in trouble and needed to start looking into a solution.

After some research we did find a solution and did a few tests which were giving us some positive results. However, in order to take advantage of this solution it requires the graphics to be processed a different way than how we've been doing it. There are a lot of little details involved in this that affects how the graphics are drawn and animated but essentially we have to revise the majority of the graphics. So with that in mind we started discussing our options and other concerns that we might be able to fix since we have to adjust the graphics. This led to the concern of the armor requiring a lot of work, which we were already aware of but if we could somehow make it easier it would save a lot of time. We didn't want to reduce the amount of character customization that the players would be able to adjust using equipment and other items because we know a lot of people enjoy that aspect of the game. Plus, it was something we really wanted to have as developers.

We spent some time thinking about it and discussing it and decided that perhaps the easiest path to take would be to make all the graphics in 3D instead of 2D. It would still have a similar cartoony/anime style to what we have now because the 3D graphics would be rendered out using a cell shading method. The reason for going to 3D is because it removes a lot of tedious work after the upfront work is finished. Here's a few numbers to give you an idea of what we're talking about here. On average we have around 3 frames per animation and estimate to have about 8 animations for the characters. So right there we have 24 frames, now that's only one angle. HTD has 3 angles (Front, Back, and Side which mirrors) so now we have 72 frames to draw, per item. So take a helm for example, that requires 72 frames ot be drawn. A full suit of armor (6 parts) is 432 frames that have to be drawn and that's just for one character, one race, one gender. The female would require a different set of 432 frames for the same suit of armor. A different race would require another 864 frames for both genders, etc. As we add more more races the amount of work required for adding a single piece of armor increases by a lot.

So with that in mind let's go back to 3D. I work 8 hours a day doing 3D for my full-time job and Evan has been working in 3D for awhile and taking some classes in it as well. Kevin and Bill are more specialized in 2D but their talents aren't lost because we need lots of concept art for both designs and animations, and both of them are very good at it. So how does 3D help us solve our problem? Let's take the helm as an example again. First, we'll have to model it based on concepts. Then we set it up on the character. That character would be animated to match the concepts. Once he is set up with the animations we never need to deal with them again. Since it's 3D we can just attach the helm object to it's proper location on the character and it'll position itself for all the animations automatically. Sometimes we might have to manually adjust it for certain frames but it's still a one-time set up. After that we have cameras and lights set up for each angle all we have to do is hit the render button and it'll give us all 72 frames or 432 frames for a full suit within minutes. Adjusting it to work on another gender or race is also far easier, just some slight adjustments and it'll be all set. Also making different colors and such will also be much easier and faster.

While 3D does require a bit more upfront work, in our case it's very much worth it and we'll be able to keep all our customization that we wanted to have available to you guys. Now, this isn't like we're redoing the whole game, it's just the graphics really. Sam has to implement the new method of processing the graphics in order to speed up the game, which he's working on now, but once that's done we'll be right back to developing the rest of the game using placeholders and whatnot. We'll be leaving all the current graphics in as is for now. We may or may not add them as we go or just wait till we have a bunch done and do it all at once, we'll see.

So that's where we're at. It's a speed bump but worth working through. This is just part of the developing process, it's nearly impossible for a small team to prepare for every obstacle and plan everything out perfectly. Plus the way we are doing it with giving you guys updates as often as possible through the whole process can complicate that a bit as well but it's more fun for us. We should be able to catch up graphically in a reasonable amount of time since all the concepts and animations are already done for the assets we have now. There won't be an update this week and maybe not next week but we'll still be posting about our progress as we go. We're certain this is the way to go so bare with us while we make this transition, it'll be worth it!

In the Works:

Design

• Pet System (50%)
• Interface Revision (25%)

Graphics

• Unit: Human Male - Revision (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Attack Concept (25%)
• Unit: Skeleton - Concept (50%)
• Unit: Meerkat Non-Combat Pet - Concept (25%)
• Unit: Goblin - Concept (25%)

Programming

• Graphic Processing Revision (10%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

As always any feedback is welcome, let us hear what you have to say in the comments! Thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 36 - Current Progress! Community Request: Crafting!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 35 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

There won't be a release this week because Sam had some finals to study for but everyone has been working on things that'll be in the next update. Now that we have several artists helping us out we should be able to start adding more content each release. Loot drops, equipment/inventory saving, and character progression are soon to come along with some other things. We've also been researching more ways to improve performance and prepare for other platforms.

Some other changes we may be making is increasing the available unit placements for the heroes. Most unavailable spaces would just be blocked by some sort of environmental obstacle or away from the edges to prevent some other issues. However, there will also be another layer of placements to accommodate non-grounded units like flying pets or a hero with a levitation effect on them. This will allow for more variation and strategy which is always nice.

Another topic of discussion lately has been crafting/trade skills/professions (whatever you want to call them) and how they could work. We plan to have a lot of flexibility when it comes to changing the customization of your heroes. For example, you'll be able to change their hair color and hairstyle by doing something simple such as going to a nearby town. You'll also be able to alter the look and stats of your weapons through blacksmithing (either in town or perhaps through one of your characters). So say you have a sword with good stats and then you find a cooler looking sword later on that you like but it doesn't have very good stats, or vice versa. You could use a blacksmith to change your current sword to look like the other sword. So now you have a sword with the same stats but it has the new look. There may be some limitation to this in that it has to be the same type, e.g. a sword to a sword, not a sword to mace. The same could be used for customizing the way your armor looks.

Of course, you'll also be able to gather materials and create weapons from scratch. This would probably work like your typical RPG and allow you to break down other items to gain materials. Also, you'll likely acquire rare materials from bosses and quests that could lead to more powerful items.

we're throwing around some other ideas for crafting but I'm curious to hear from you guys about what you'd like to see or any ideas you might have. So leave us some of your suggestions in the comments and we'll be sure to check them out, thanks!

In the Works:

Design

• Story: Intro - Scene 1 (10%)
• Pet System (50%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen (0%)
• Skill Selection Screen (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Movement (100%)
• Weapon: Edged Boomerang (100%)
• Weapon: Tall Axe (100%)
• Weapon: Boomerang (100%)
• Weapon: Spiked Club (100%)
• Weapon: Claw Knife (100%)
• Weapon: Basic Crossbow (100%)
• Weapon: Flintlock (100%)

Programming

• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Let us hear any of your crafting ideas or other suggestions in the comments, all feedback is welcome!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 35 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.015 Release! Nature Skills!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 34 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week we bring you the Native and Tier 1 Nature Skills! We now have skills for each Element! The graphics for Light and Nature are placeholders for now but we'll be filling them in with something nicer soon.

Nature Skills have a bit more focus on utility rather than damage or defense. It will still have those things but you'll see they are more strategic in nature, no pun intended. For example, the Nature Native Skill heals a little but also immobilizes (roots) the target for 3 seconds. Useful for catching enemies that could be running off or going after certain characters at the expense of healing them slightly. On the other hand you could be using it as stackable heal for a hero that is mostly stationary.

You might wonder why you would use the Native Skill to heal instead of the Water Nature which heals for more and that can be answered with two reasons. One being Nature has additional utility in that it can also be used on an enemy to root them as mentioned before. And two, is that if an enemy is using a Nature Skill of their own that counters the Water Native then it'll wipe out the Water heal while the Nature heal would be safe.

As I've said before this will all make more sense as more skills and such get added. Same goes for why you can target your own heroes with direct damage skills that typically one-shot them. There's a reason for this that hasn't been implemented yet and the damage/health ratios are skewed a bit right now so it's imbalanced. We'll be addressing this in due time though.

One of the next things I'll be figuring out is how pets will work. I talked about pets awhile back in this post and got a bunch of good ideas from you guys so I'll certainly be taking those into consideration. Of course, feel free to offer some in comments for this post as well if you like. We always enjoy hearing ideas and suggestions from our fans!


What's New:

-Added Nature Skills (Using placeholder graphics for now)


In the Works:

Design

• Story: Intro - Scene 1 (10%)
• Pet System (10%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen (0%)
• Skill Selection Screen (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Movement (20%)

Programming

• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Feel free to leave any feedback you might have in the comments, thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 34 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.014 Release! Light Skills! New Artist, Evan!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 33 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Ok, so clearly it's Friday lol. I was away all Thursday so didn't have a chance to write the post and Sam was busy as well so we just put the update off till today. So, we'll just pretend it's still Thursday :P

Ok then, we've added the Light Skills. Probably the first thing you'll notice is the graphics for the effects and icons are a tad different than the rest.. as in they either aren't there or are very basic. Don't worry though, they're just placeholders while the final versions are being developed. The Native Light Skill increases the Physical and Magical Damage of the target.

We've also picked up another artist who will be helping us out with HTD graphics (we need a lot of them :D). So without further ado, welcome Evan! He's actually a friend of Bill's and is excited to be working with us on our games. Creating art for a game is very time consuming and tends to require more people than other areas so we're happy to have artists such as Bill and Evan helping Kevin out.

Nature Skills will be coming up next and with those we'll finally have all the Native and Tier 1 skills available for each element. We've got several other things in the works so don't worry too much if you don't see the %'s in the progress lists below changing much. That's just a list of some of the more major things that are currently in the works. Sometimes we have to do a bunch of smaller things that we don't bother listing there.

Thanks everyone!


What's New:

-Added Light Skills (Using placeholder graphics for now)

-Made some performance tweaks

-Fixed female hair toggle showing for males


In the Works:

Design

• Story: Intro - Scene 1 (10%)
• Weapon and Armor Stats (100%)
• Map: Intro - Stage 2 (100%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen (0%)
• Skill Selection Screen (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Movement (50%)

Programming

• Nature Skills (100%)
• Saving Inventory and Equipment Setup (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Any suggestions or feedback is welcome in the comments!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 33 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.013 Release! Multiple Profiles Screen and a bunch of new graphics!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 32 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alrighty, another week another update! This time around we've added a Profiles Screen where you can set up multiple profiles. Having several profiles will have more purpose later on when things are more locked down (they are very open right now for testing purposes) and we add more features like achievements and whatnot. There will be a delete option eventually as well but since they are fully editable there's no need right now.

We've also added a bunch of new graphics for the menus that Kevin has been working on. Graphics for the some of the other screens are still in the works but you can get an idea of how things will be looking from these new ones. It certainly makes it look a lot more finished, so that's always nice to see.

The Party Screen has been revamped a bit with the new graphics and now mainly uses drag and drop functionality. It's far less clunky this way and overall easier to use. Some of you have mentioned this in the comments and suggested such things so expect the whole interface to become a bit more intuitive as we continue with development.

There have also been a few bugs you guys/gals have pointed out and we've fixed several of them. There's still a few we're working on but the biggest ones should be gone now. Thanks for pointing them out!

Light skills will be coming soon, there were some technical difficulties in the graphics department because the pen to Kevin's tablet bit the dust and he had to wait a few days while a new one shipped in. All is well now though and we'll see about getting them in asap!


What's New:

-Login Screen Graphics

-Profiles Screen (Multiple profiles)

-Party Screen Graphics

-Added Drag and Drop functionality to the Party Screen

-Added a Menu button (little gear next to the Zoom buttons) in the upper right while in battle. It will return you to the Party Screen

-Fixed a few bugs


In the Works:

Design

• Story: Intro Scene 1 (10%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko - Movement (20%)

Programming

• Light Skills (100%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Thanks for the support guys! Your suggestions, ideas, and feedback are always welcome and helpful so be sure to stop by the comments and let us know what you think!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 32 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.012 Release! Inventory and Equipment!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 31 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week we get to implement one of the bigger RPG elements of HTD, the inventory and equipment systems! Well, the start of it anyway, it's rather limited right now but we'll be building on it. Once again the graphics for the menus are temporary for the time being. Kevin will be replacing them with nicer ones soon.

The inventory is a place to store all your items that you gather through your travels. It will hold everything from potions to materials to ingredients to equipment. You can access the inventory and equipment screens from either the Hero Screen or by pressing the Inventory button in the bottom right during battle. The inventory itself is universal for all your heroes, they all share it. However, depending on the hero you have selected will determine which equipment is shown in the hero equipment window.

You can see that there will be quite a few equipment slots. Not all will be visual, smaller items like rings and necklaces most likely won't be visible on your hero. You'll also have a Main Hand and Off Hand weapon slots for both melee and ranged weapons. Your character will automatically switch between melee and ranged based on the enemies distance and the skill the hero is currently using. We'll get more into this later but basically you'll have Physical and Magical based weapons which your hero will choose to use for optimal efficiency for whichever skill they are about to execute.

Right now all that you can do is equip and unequip your armor and Main Hand melee weapon. You can move things around however you like; give each hero a different weapon, take off some of their armor, or take away all of their armor if you want to be mean (those of you that intentionally KO your own heroes will probably do this). Keep in mind that your equipment setup will no save for now, we're still working on that.

Currently none of the items have stats yet so you'll just be affecting visuals for now but those are coming soon! There's a bunch of stuff in the works that are taking some time but we're slowly but surely getting there. Some of you may have noticed the game getting a bit choppy after awhile. We're currently in the process of fixing this and should be able to resolve it soon.


What's New:

-Inventory System

-Equipment System


In the Works:

Design

• 
  
• Story: Intro (100%)
• Story: Intro Scene 1 (0%)
• Class Skills: Tier 1 (100%)

Graphics

• Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Unit: Fire Gecko Concept (100%)

Audio

• Sound Effects: Light Spell (100%)

Programming

• Multiple Profiles (100%)
• Light Skills (0%)

Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

As always feedback is welcome in the comments!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 31 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.011 Release! Buff/Debuff Icon System, 5th Hero, and More!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 30 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This update introduces a 5th Hero who comes equipped with a 1H Hammer. With him you can now take a full party of 5 into battle! We've also added the Buff/Debuff Icon System, a new cursor, and some minor other tweaks. We're working on the Light Skills next and those should be fun. Then all that's left will be Nature! At least for Tier 1 Elemental Skills, there's still plenty more to come.

For the buff/debuff icons you'll notice they are flashing, this is to warn you that they are about to run out. In this case these will always be flashing because the current skills only last a few seconds since they can be reapplied constantly. This won't be the case for all skills so when a buff/debuff lasts longer it will just stay solid.

We're looking to start on the Inventory, Hero Stats, Leveling, Skill Point System, and Class Skills soon. Those will add a lot of the RPG mechanics we want into the game and then we'll finally have nearly all the core mechanics implemented. The Inventory will be pretty typical although looting will be a little different than usual. I'll go into more detail about that when we implement it. The primary Hero Stats will be the traditional Strength, Stamina, Intelligence, etc but there will also be some secondary stats like Elemental Attunement stats which basically make you both better with a specific type of element overall as well as more resistant to the harmful effects of that type.

So look forward to those coming soon along with other cool stuff. We've also made progress with the development of the overall story (think of it like the main quest line) and will be starting to develop some more maps and such as well. So stay tuned!

On a side note, the HTD wiki folks requested some information so I'll be adding enemy stats and other tidbits to the Play HTD page for viewing till we get in-game versions implemented. Keep in mind the information there is temporary, the names and stats will be changing.


What's New:

-Added Buff/Debuff icons (They flash when under 5 seconds which is currently all the time, there will be longer ones later)

-Added 5th Hero

-Character Names (This was actually already in but you have to do it at the Hero Screen)

-Smaller Character Nameplates

-Added 1H Hammer

-Added New Cursor (It changes when dragging things)


In the Works:

Design

• Hero Stats and Points (100%)
• Story: Intro (20%)
• Story: Intro Scene 1 (0%)
• Class Skills: Tier 1 (75%)

Graphics

• User/Profiles Screen Graphics (100%)
• Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)

Audio

• Sound Effects: Light Spell (0%)

Programming

• Inventory System (100%)

Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Any suggestions, ideas, or feedback in general is welcome in the comments. Thanks guys!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 30 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.010 Release! Water Skills, Healing, Buffs, and Changeable Native Skills!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 29 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Ok, we're back with another HTD release! We ran into a few issues last week which is why there was no update. If things aren't ready then we don't release an update, we'd rather take our time to make them good instead of rushing things out.

So then, we've introduced some Water Skills. Since Water is the more defensive element you'll notice that these act a bit differently. For example the T1 Physical and Magical Water Skills still do damage like the Fire and Shadow skills but also give you a buff that increases either your Physical or Magical Defense respectively.

These buffs only last a few seconds but but they are easy to keep going since it is triggered every time you use the skill which has a lower cooldown than the buff duration. So essentially you can keep them up forever if you only use those skills. You'll only see the buff effect if it is a fresh buff. In other words if you aren't renewing the duration of a prior application of the buff then you won't see the effect. This is to prevent it from spamming.

You'll notice there aren't any buff icons to go with the buff themselves, these will be added soon. They just require another system that we don't have yet but it's high on the list. With the buff icons you'll be able to see which buffs/debuffs you have on each character.

We've made it so you can change the Native Skill of each hero. Go to the Skills Screen and click the Native Skill Icon (The big middle one) to toggle through the current (3) Native Elemental Skills. This is just temporary for testing purposes because in the actual game you won't be able to change this on a whim, you'll have to do something in order to change your Native Element.

The Water Native Skill is the first skill where the primary targets will be your own characters and not the enemies. This is because it is a healing spell which, like the other Natives, stacks up to 5. So since this would mainly be used on your own guys we had to make the heroes and the civilian target-able as well, which they weren't before. Also, we had to make the AI a bit better so as to heal your weakest guys first which helps a lot. The Heroes should also now prioritize their target selection to the lowest HP enemy within range for damage skills.

So now you get to play around with some defensive and utility skills and see how that'll work. As I've said before these Tier 1 skills are very basic because there is no plain generic attack to use. You will always be using a skill of some kind so the first skills had to fulfill that requirement for each elemental type. Light Skills are up next so expect to see those soon!


What's New:

-Added Water Skills

-Added Hair Customization Toggle Graphic

-Made Native Skills temporarily changeable (click the Native Skill icon in the Skills Screen to toggle through the current (3) Native Element Skills)

-Improved Sound Quality

-Added Character Name Plates (Changes to the names themselves still don't work yet though, we'll implement that soon)

-Dragging a character to any side of the screen now scrolls the map

-Added restrictions for how far you can scroll over the map


In the Works:

Design

• Hero Stats and Points (50%)
• Story: Intro (20%)
• Story: Intro Scene 1 (0%)
• Class Skills: Tier 1 (50%)

Graphics

• User/Profiles Screen Graphics (75%)
• Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)
• Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
• Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
• Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
• Weapons: Hammer and Swords (100%)

Programming

• Buff/Debuff Icon System (100%)
• Inventory System (0%)
• Saving Character Names (100%)

Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Let us know what you think in the comments and as always any feedback is welcome, thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 29 - The Class System

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 28 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Unfortunately there's no update this week because we are still working out some things that would have made for a less than stellar update. Things like game crashing bugs and whatnot so we'll be holding off till next week. You can expect this on occasion with HTD because while we shoot for weekly updates sometimes we have to skip a week here or there in order to spend a little more time to fix stuff.

So then, let's talk about classes. If you recall in an earlier post way back when I had mentioned the classes but I don't recall going into significant detail about them. So allow my to explain what out current plan is... it's interesting.

First we want to have it be more along the lines of an open-class system. That basically means everyone starts nearly the same way but customizes their character into a specific class as they level up. In a closed-class system you pretty much just pick a class and that's that. You might be able to branch off into different skill trees within the class but that's about it.

What we are hoping to do is take the open-class system but having it guide you into a class that is determined by what skills you want. So instead of assigning attribute points to increase hero stats you will just be picking skills which will then determine which what attributes are increased. It's important to keep in mind that there is another set of skills called Class Skills (CS)which we haven't implemented yet. These are more character based and mostly passive skills that help shape your hero into the class you want.

So let's go through a few steps on how this would work. Every so often you would get a Elemental Skill Point (ESP), you'll probably only get 10 of these (used to be 15 but lowered it for a few reasons). You would assign this ESP to a skill like Physical Tier 1 Fire, Flame Strike. So now you have this ESP in a Physical Skill (PS). Every level you will be getting Class Skill Points (CSP), there are two types of these, Physical and Magical. Which one you get is determined by what ratio of Physical:Magical ESPs you have signed. So for example if you have 1:0, each level would be giving you all Physical CSPs. If you are 1:4 you'll be getting some Physical CPS but mostly Magical CSPs. The amount of CSPs you get increases by one per level each time you get a new ESP until you are maxed and then every so often after that. So eventually you're getting 10+ per level.

The reason for the Physical and Magical CSPs is to keep you on track with your Elemental Skill (ES) choices. It's never really good to assign all your ESPs to Physical ESs and then increase your Intelligence stat really high. It's a bit of a conflict since the damage of those ESs will be based on other stats like Strength. With this set up you pick the ESs you like and you are given CSPs to help make it better. If you have a mix of Physical and Magical ESs then you get a mix of CSPs, etc.

Class Skills themselves will increase various stats to different amounts depending on their purpose and the amount of points invested in them. For example there might be a skill that allows you two wield Magical weapons more effectively. This would be a passive Magical skill that increase your Intelligence and perhaps Agility stats as put more points into it. You might also find an active skill such as Taunt in the Physical section which would increase your Strength and Stamina per point.

So the reason for all of this is so that you can pick the skills you like and end up with character stats and CSs that support them. Doing all of this ultimately defines your heroes into certain classes. For this reason, it's more like a dynamic class system that adjusts as your character takes shape. You might start out as a Warrior and end up a Paladin with healing. You could begin as a Healer and end up as an Battle Mage that can also tank. Perhaps you'd start as a Fighter and become a Monk. You can still go the pure route as well and be a full on Archer, however their title will also change as they develop because there will be different "classes" of Archer. For example some higher classes might be Marksman, Bowman, Ranger, Sharpshooter, etc.

The ESs you choose may also affect your class, for example Shadow Knight (Shadow ESs), Holy Paladin (Light ESs), Arch Mage (Wide mix of ESs), etc. For this reason there will be a whole lot of classes that you could end up as. Discovering them will be part of the fun, and yes there will be ways to respec your heroes so you won't have to keep making new characters to experiment.

Now, what I'd like to ask you guys is, what classes would you like to see? Give me a Class Name and what sort of Elemental and Class skills they might have. Be general with the skills, I don't need specifics but more of just an overall idea. Here's an example: Death Dealer - Fire and Shadow Skills with dual wielding melee skills and fast attack speed skills. Now let's here yours in the comments!

I'd also just like to mention once again that there is a HTD wiki page that has been created by our fans! It can be found here: http://herotowerdefense.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_tower_defense_Wiki

Big thanks to everyone who has been contributing! We've also added the wiki to the Fan Links/FAQ tab.


In the Works:

Design

• Mid-Battle Skill Screen (100%) - Different from the current pre-battle screen
• Story: Outline (100%)
• Hero Stats and Points (50%)

Graphics

• User/Profiles Screen Graphics (50%)
• Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)

Programming

• Targeting Heroes With Skills (100%)
• Bug Fixes (100%)

Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

I'm looking forward to hearing what classes you guys come up with along with any other feedback and comments you guys have! Thanks again for the support!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 28 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.009 Release! User Profiles!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 27 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week is a small but useful update. We've added user profiles which will save your character set ups. No longer will you have to customize your characters every time you log in! It also uses the same profile as PTD so you can just log in with that. It's more like a S&D Games profile at this point and any other games will most likely use it as well.

Currently it saves everything except your party set up which eventually will be saved as well. As the game develops it will of course save everything else as well, such as your inventory, character progression, story progression, etc.

So that's it for this update. If you've been watching the progress list you'll notice there's a bunch of stuff done that didn't make it into this release because the user profiles take awhile to set up. That's ok though because originally we were just going to have temporary local profiles which are more limiting but faster to implement. Sam decided to go above and beyond and made them hook right up with the PTD profiles, so cheers to Sam!

For the next release you guys can look forward to seeing the first of Bill's work, new graphics, additional sounds, and more! Thanks again guys!

I'd also just like to mention again that there is a HTD wiki page that has been created by our fans! It can be found here: http://herotowerdefense.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_tower_defense_Wiki

Big thanks to everyone who has been contributing! We've also added the wiki to the Fan Links/FAQ tab.


What's New:

-Added User Profiles


In the Works:

Design

• Mid-Battle Inventory Screen (100%) - Different from the current pre-battle screen which has already been designed
• Mid-Battle Skill Screen (20%) - Different from the current pre-battle screen

Graphics

• Water Skill: Soak (Native) (100%)
• Water Skill: Aqua Strike (T1 Physical) (100%)
• Water Skill: Water Pistol (T1 Magical) (100%)

Programming

• Water Skills (100%)
• Bug Fixes (0%)

Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Let us know what you think in the comments! Any ideas, suggestions or any other feedback is always welcome! Thanks guys!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 27 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.008 Release! Skill Selection Screen! New Artist, Bill!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 26 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alright we're back! For this release the main attraction is the Skills Selection Screen. This screen does just what it's name implies, it lets you select skills for each of your heroes. The graphics for the menus and everything are still just placeholders while Kevin works on the actual graphics and some features of this screen are still missing but are in the works.

The heroes still come with their standard skills but you can customize them however you like. All you have to do is drag and drop skills from the skills menu into the active skill slots at the bottom middle. You can swap active skills by dragging them onto each other and remove them by dragging them out of their active skill slots.

The skills still follow the same rules as before where they will do their skills in order of priority based on the skill slot position they are in, start with the Native skill which you can't move or change yet. So right now your character will always set the highest priority on the Native Skill first (up to 3 stacks on the enemy) and then skill slot 1, then 2, etc. If a higher priority skill is on cooldown they will automatically skip it and check for the next highest priority skill, and so on till there is an available skill to use. In other words, your heroes will keep busy with the skills you've given them.

There have also been some graphic bugs that were fixed along with giving the male some hair and a cloak to wear. You may also notice that each of screens basically look completely different from each other. Don't worry, it will all become more unified as Kevin finishes the graphics for them which he is currently working on.

On that note, we have brought on another artist to help with HTD. So let's welcome Bill to the team! He will be helping us push graphics along a bit faster and is looking forward to designing some creatures and effects especially along with doing animation in general. Kevin will be helping him out so the graphical style stays consistent and everything moves along smoothly.

I'd also just like to mention again that there is a HTD wiki page that has been created by our fans! It can be found here: http://herotowerdefense.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_tower_defense_Wiki

Big thanks to everyone who has been contributing! We've also added the wiki to the Fan Links/FAQ tab.


What's New:

-Added Skill Selection Screen

-Added Human Male Hair: Swagger Shag

-Added Human Male Cloak

-Fixed various graphical bugs


In the Works:

• Design
• Skill Behavior Screen (100%)
• Profiles Screen (100%)
• Inventory Screen (50%)
• Graphics
• Party Selection Screen Graphics (100%)
• Water Skill: Soak (Native) (75%)
• Water Skill: Aqua Strike (T1 Physical) (75%)
• Water Skill: Water Pistol (T1 Magical) (75%)
• Audio
• Sound Effects: Water Spell (100%)
• Sound Effects: Male Hit (100%)
• Sound Effects: Female Hit (100%)
• Sound Effects: Male Death (100%)
• Sound Effects: Female Death (100%)
• Programming
• User Profile (100%) - Being able to save your settings, you can use your same PTD log in

Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD concept art, art related works in progress, and more!

Leave any questions, ideas, suggestions, bugs, and any other feedback in the comments! Thanks!


-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 26 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.007 Release! Fan Made HTD Wiki!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!

HTD Logo

Go here to read Day 25 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This release contains mostly bug fixes, some little changes, and small additions. A bunch of these were mentioned by you guys in the comments, so thanks for that!

Melee attacks now hit everything in a small area which includes stacked enemies. The Whelp now has a sound effect when it dies and some other sound effects that have been adjusted. We started implementing the graphics for the Character Customization Screen along with some more features (Note: While the character name field works it doesn't save and you won't actually see it anywhere else in the game so it's a bit pointless right now). You can now also remove characters from your party.

Now on to some other things. The poll Kevin had going on his blog for determining the next graphics to be created for the elemental skills has ended. It looks like the order will be: Water, Light, then Nature. We'll be starting on the water skills soon and then the others will follow in time.

We're working on the skill selection screens and hope to have a rough version of that in for next week's release. As the name implies, this screen will allow you to select skills for your characters so you can set them up how you want. Coming up soon will also be profiles which will be handy since it will allow you to retain all your customizations so you don't have to keep setting things up each time you play.

And last but certainly not least, Eba77 commented in the last post that there is a HTD wiki page that has been created by our fans! It can be found here: http://herotowerdefense.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_tower_defense_Wiki

Big thanks to everyone who has been contributing and to Eba77 for pointing it out!
We've also added the wiki to the Fan Links/FAQ tab.


What's New:

-Melee attacks now hit all enemies in an small area, including enemies that are stacked on top of each other

-Character Customization Screen Graphics

-Added Rotation buttons to the Character Customization Screen

-Added "Invalid Target" notification

-Added a sound effect for in-game errors (such as the notifications for the target being out of range, etc)

-Added Whelp Death sound effect

-Added Leave Party button so that you can remove characters

-Removed the civilian's weapon

-Fixed overlapping cooldown graphic on abilities

-Fixed a problem with some effects not layering correctly over the enemies


In the Works:

• Human Male Hair: Swagger Shag (100%)
• Human Male Cloak (100%)
• Character Customization Screen Graphics (100%)
• Party Selection Screen Graphics (40%)
• Skill Selection Screen (100%)
• Skill Behavior Screen (50%)

Be sure to check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD concept art, art related works in progress, and more!

As always let us know what you guys think about the game and how we're doing. If there's anything you would like to see or any suggestions you might have be sure to mention them in the comments!


-Dan