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

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 25 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.006 Release! Character Customization and Party Screens! New Weapons!

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 24 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

This week we mainly worked on getting the Character Customization Screen and Party Screen together. They don't look like much right now but Kevin is working on the graphics which will make them much more appealing. This isn't the final layout either so if it feels a bit clunky don't worry, we're still working on it.

You will now start out at the Party Screen. By selecting a character and clicking "Join Party" you will add them to your group which you will take into battle. We've given you another random skill character to play with so now you can have anywhere from 1-4 characters in your party. There's currently no "Remove" option so just hit "Back" to clear your party if you want to change it.

If you click on Hero at the top it will take you to the Character Customization Screen which lets you do the same things as before except now you can do it to each character separately and there's a fun little option in there for showcasing the character.
Note: The male doesn't have any options for Hair or Cloak yet and currently your character settings won't be saved. We'll be adding all this soon.

We've also added several new weapons that you'll see the characters using. The skill list has been moved to the "Play HTD!" page so you can view it while playing. It also just makes more sense to be there rather than picking up so much space here every week. I'll be updating it as we progress as well as posting notes for them here.

Development on the Skill Selection and Skill Behavior Screens as begun and is currently in the design phase. The Skill Selections Screen is pretty self-explanatory but the Skill Behavior Screen is something new we want to implement due to your characters being on autopilot most of the time. Essentially this screen will let you customize each skill in a way that lets you tell describe when and how it's used by the character. For example, you could set up a healing skill to only trigger when a nearby ally or yourself is below 75%. This screen might take longer than the others to get just right but we think it'll be worth it and provide a valuable tool for the player.


Here's the list of characters and how they are set up:

First Hero - Fire Skills, 2H Sword, Kunai
Second Hero - Shadow Skills, 1H Sword, Wand
Third Hero - Random Skills, 1H Mace, Kunai
Fourth Hero - Random Skills, 2H Axe, Kunai


What's New:

-Character Customization Screen

-Party Screen

-Added 1H Mace

-Added 2H Sword

-Added 2H Axe

Note: We don't have a 2H animation yet so really these 2H weapons will just act like large 1H weapons for now.


In the Works:

• Human Male Hair: Swagger Shag (10%)
• Human Male Cloak(20%)
• Character Customization Screen Graphics (80%)
• Party Selection Screen Graphics (10%)
• Skill Selection Screen (50%)
• Skill Behavior Screen (10%)

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

Let us know what you think of the current version and any other feedback you might have in comments!


-Dan

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

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 23 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

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

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 23 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.004 Release! Fire skills are back 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 22 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Another week, another new release for HTD (and another late post, sorry about that). Fire is back and Shadow is still here. You will now have a character with all Fire skills, another with all Shadow skills, and the last with a mix. This gives you an idea of how your characters can have different skill setups and allows you to play around with each. The effect of the Shadow skills is now more apparent with it's new graphics, namely the DaT effect of Shadow. We've also added some cooldown visuals so you know what's going on when the skill you're spamming isn't triggering. There are also some new (re-colored, lawl) whelps flying around, they are a little older than the other ones so we've nerfed the younger original whelps to only be able to melee while the new ones can spit fireballs and will melee when someone is close to them.


What's New:

-Re-added Fire skills

-Added Key Bindings, 0 is your Native Skill, 1 is skill slot 1, and 2 is skill slot 2.

-Added new Native Skill graphics for Fire and Shadow, they are no longer just glows that grow

-Made one hero all Fire, another all Shadow, and the last a mix which randomly picks which NS to use and which other two skills to use as well as which skill slots to put them in between 1 and 2 (so sometimes magical skills like the fireball and shadow bite will be in skill slot 1 for example)

-Added new graphics for Shadow skill icons and effects

-Added a new red whelp that is stronger than the original whelp and will attack you with fireballs unless you get close to them

-Nerfed original orange whelp so that they can't spit fireballs anymore and only melee attack

-Implemented Elemental Countering, currently with only two types of elemental skills this isn't going to be very noticeable but the Fire Native Skill (NS) will erase the Shadow NS because Fire counters Shadow (Currently only NS counter eachother, other skills are left alone for now). However, your heroes are clever (well a little anyway) and won't use their NS on a target that already has another NS on it unless it's the same type, otherwise they'll attack the target using one of their other skills.


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.


Currently in the Works:

Revised Human Male
Water/Nature/Light Elemental Skills
Character Customization
Character Skill Selection
Interface Additions
And More!


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.

On a final note, if you haven't been to Kevin's blog let me provide you with a glimpse of the revised Human Male who will be join the battle soon!

Revised Human Male

Thanks again for all the support guys! As always feel free to leave any suggestions, ideas, or just plain feedback that you might have in the comments!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 22 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.003 Release!

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 WIP

Go here to read Day 21 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

First I wanted to point out that Fire skills have been temporarily removed due to some technical issues that couldn't be resolved before this small update but we have the Shadow skills ready for you guys to try out and decided to just throw those in for now. Don't worry, they'll be back ASAP (probably next update). :)

What's New:

-Fire skills temporarily removed

-Added Wand Weapon (Currently only used when casting the Shadow Bomb skills)

-Added beacon graphics for showing current hero and currently focused target selection

-Added Shadow Skills. You'll probably notice the graphics for the effects and icons are just recolored versions of the Fire graphics, these are just placeholders for now.

The Shadow Skills work a bit differently than the Fire Skills. I'll give a description of the current three skills for each element as we release them so you guys know what they do (eventually there will be descriptions in-game). 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 Fire and Shadow skills:

Fire:

Burn (Native Elemental - 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 - DOT - Shadow Burning 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 Bomb (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.

Something you may have noticed is that these Tier 1 skills are a bit similar to eachother. This is because there isn't a general auto-attack. Your characters are always doing a skill of some kind and with five different elements we needed a way to simply let you do JUST a melee/ranged Shadow Physical attack (Dark Strike) or JUST a Fire Magical attack (Fireball). I've mentioned in the past that we want all the skills to be viable in most situations as opposed to having a higher tier skill that just trumps all previous skills thus causing you to only ever want to use that one single skill. So with Tier 2+ skills you'll start to seeing the skills differentiate from eachother based on how each element's strengths and weaknesses start to come into play.

Currently in the Works:

• Re-implementing Fire Skills
• Revised Human Male
• Water/Nature/Light Elemental Skills
• Character Selection
• Character Customization
• Character Skill Selection
• Interface Additions
• And More!

Kevin currently has a poll going on his blog, KXN @ HTD for determing what order we'll be adding each 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.

Let us know what you guys think and what we can do to improve HTD in the comments, thanks!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 21 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.002 Release!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Purchase some SnD coins and get Ninja-ja bonus items free! 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 WIP

Go here to read Day 20 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

The next HTD update is now available! For this update We started implementing the interface and user controls for the skills. The interface still has a ways to go but it's a good start. I'll list the changes here:

What's New:

-Fixed swapping character locations with the civilian

-Added a custom cursor (hand/glove)

-Added zoom controls to the top-right corner. The keyboard shortcuts (numpad + and -) still work.

-Prettier health meters

-You can now click on the characters to select them. You can also click on character portraits which will select the corresponding characters. Currently selected characters will be highlighted.

-Made it so you have to drag characters slightly before triggering the move command. This makes it so when clicking on them for selection that they don't jump positions.

-Select an enemy to make your currently selected character focus fire on that target (A focus icon will appear). This means they will only attack that specific enemy and not whatever enemy happens to be closest.

-Skills are now available to cast manually. All characters currently have the same skills but clicking on one gives you the ability to target an enemy manually. Your character will stop auto attacking so that it doesn't keep triggering cooldowns on you. When you are in targeting mode your cursor will change to a crosshair and you will see the skill's range and clicking anywhere but on an enemy will do nothing. If you want to cancel out of using a skill just click the skill icon again and the character will return to auto attacking.

Note: Using the fire strike skill (flaming sword icon) will either perform the skill using melee (sword) or ranged (kunai) depending on how close the enemy is.

In the Works:

• Revised Human Male
• Other Elemental Skills
• Character Selection
• Character Customization
• Character Skill Selection
• Wand Weapon
• Interface Additions
• And More!

So have fun with this new release, it's still in survival mode so there's no beating it but play around with the new features and see what you think. Feedback is always welcome so be sure to leave all your questions, suggestions, and ideas in the comments section!

Also don't forget to check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for more HTD related stuff including the current poll to decide what elemental he should start designing effects and icons for next!

-Dan

Need Programmers!

Looking for new people that want to work with us is actually a pretty hard ordeal. We had many great applications for the artist position and we were fortunate to find Kevin which has shown that he has what it takes. With artist the quest of finding one is a lot simpler, since with art what you see is what you get. With programming it's not quite as easy as looking at a portfolio. But let's do it anyways. This programmer position will let you work with Dan, Kevin and I on all the latest projects that we have here on Sam & Dan games have going. Be a part of our team! We are in need of programming in pretty much all the areas of game development so if you are an expert in gameplay, interfaces, or tool building apply today!

Here are the requirements.

• Must be 18 years or older.
• Must have at least a year experience using Action Script 3.
• Must have mastery of OOP.
• Must have Adobe Professional CS5.5 or compatible software.
• Must have a passion for Gaming.
• Must speak and write fluent English.

These next ones are things are pluses that will make you more likely to be considered:

• Have published a successful Action Script 3 Flash game on the web.
• Have worked on a published game using different languages and engines.
• C++, Java, C#

So there you go, like the artist position this is a paid position. Here is what we want to know from you:

• Email to sotero86@gmail.com with subject "Programming Job Opening for SnD Games" (Can you follow simple instructions?)
• Your experience in programming: What languages, how long, etc (Do you meet the requirements?)
• Examples of your work: Published games, tools, widgets, etc (Do you have any of the plusses that we are looking for)
• Why you want to work with us? and why should we pick you? (We want to see your passion!)

So let the search begin! I'm looking forward to the applications!

-Sam

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 20 - First Impressions And What's Next

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Purchase some SnD coins and get Ninja-ja bonus items free! 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 WIP

Go here to read Day 19 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

Alright, we're back! The first release of HTD was rather well recieved considering the low amount of content. I think pretty much everyone knew that's how it was going to be though and nearly all the feedback was written accordingly so it was very helpful as always. Several of you pointed out that bug where you could swap locations with the damsel in distress, sending her to the front lines to fend for herself lol. We're really glad you guys enjoyed it though and we got a lot of good comments and suggestions, so thanks for that!

Now to fix that low content problem. We'll be releasing updates for HTD as often as we can. On average I'd say every 1-2 weeks but we're not guaranteeing anything because we'd rather take our time to do things correctly instead of rushing things out. Sometimes things might take a little longer than usual because we're making everything from scratch and trying to keep everything original. We're also still finding our groove as far as having a steady workflow which will allow us to schedule things more accurately. So it'll be a little up and down at first but figuring all this out is part of the fun!

Currently we're working on the next update which we hope to have ready for the next HTD post on Thursday. A few things on the to-do list are a refined interface with better portraits and more information displayed, skill and cursor icons, clickable skills which will allow you manually use them on specific targets, separate heroes that you can customize a bit so that all 3 aren't identical, a male hero, and more! We'll see what actually ends up making it into the update but we're working hard to get as much done as possible.

In the meantime continue having fun with the initial release and don't forget to see some concept HTD art Kevin's currently working on at his blog, KXN @ HTD!

We always welcome feedback from our fans so leave any suggestions, questions, or ideas you guys might have in the comments!

-Dan

Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 19 - Happy Holidays! HTD Pre-Alpha v0.001 Release!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Purchase some SnD coins and get Ninja-ja bonus items free! 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 WIP

Go here to read Day 18 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.

Play Hero Tower Defense!

First off, Happy Holidays everyone! We'll all be taking a short break while we enjoy the holidays but we might jump in every now and then to answers comments and such. I hope you all have a good time during the next several days and get lots of cool stuff!

Speaking of getting cool stuff, we here at Sam & Dan Games would like to give you guys a small gift of our own; the first release of HTD! Yay! Now you may have noticed the title "Pre-Alpha v0.001." This is pretty accurate. In other words this is like the very beginnings of HTD's physical form. For those of you who haven't been following the HTD's posts you might play this be wonder where the rest is. We've done a lot of stuff but as with most big projects the inital stage of development takes a lot of time in order to build the foundation and set things up for everything else to follow. You guys have been very helpful in that process with giving us feedback and we plan to continue asking for it every step of the way. This early release being one of those steps.

This version is basically just a demo survival map with some basic, core functions of the game. You have to protect the character with no armor (we don't have armor done for them yet :P) for as long as you can. Eventually you'll get overrun but it's a good testing ground for trying things out as we continue to add stuff. There are no profiles, leveling up, choosing skills, or manually triggering skills but they'll be coming soon.

While there isn't much there right now, this is our starting point, and from now on we'll be releasing updates for HTD as often as we can. There's a lot to come and we'll be asking the community for ideas and suggestions on a regular basis. Everything from quest ideas to weapon concepts to level designs. We have plenty of our own ideas but it's not like we can think of everything and having you guys help out is a great resource. Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD is one way you can voice your opinion on such things. He puts up art related polls and asks for feedback on stuff he's currently working on as well as answers questions you guys might have for him.

So play around with this early release, see what you think, and let us hear your feedback in the comments! Have fun and Happy Holidays!

-Dan

Hey guys! It's been a long time coming but we are finally at the release for Hero Tower Defense! I'm pretty much going to repeat most of what Dan said! The game is really early, but I hope you guys can see what is there and use your imagination to see where the game is going to go. Some small things that aren't mentioned is that you can use the arrow keys to move the map and the "-" and "+" to zoom in and out. I wanted to thank Kevin (our artist) for doing such a great job! Thanks pal! I also want to thank Dan for answering all the SnD Coin emails and for taking over the design of HTD! ;P My family and girlfriend (they probably won't read this) but I thank them for all the support, letting me spend all this time on the computer! Lastly I want to thank you guys for such a great year, I say this a lot but I always mean it that without you guys we wouldn't be here right now releasing this game. I hope you guys have a good Christmas and New Years. See you guys in 2012!
As always let us know what you think!
-Sam