I'm really happy that people are enjoying the game, and what's out there now was my vision for the game and I was only concerned with making a great TD. I did not design the game with the expectation that people would play it dozens of times. I think of it kind of like a summer blockbuster. You go see The Avengers one or more times and it's cool, but you could easily spend more hours watching sports each year - yet no one would argue that watching sports is cooler than The Avengers. Also for the record, The Avengers is a much better 2 hours than playing my map, let's just be clear about that.
I've been on vacation for a few weeks, so I wanted to provide an update on this project.
First - I have decided not to push this game into EU. I plan to only focus on preparing it for the 1.5 patch (a lot of work), and it will be available to EU when the maps become global.
Second - I tried to get this game published to the 1.5 beta a few weeks ago, but there is a terrible new bug that completely breaks the game. I really don't know what I'm going to do if blizzard doesn't fix this bug. (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/5836263601)
Third - In the very short term, I plan on releasing a fast paced version of this game with all of the story removed. From whenever I can get the game working in 1.5, this fast version will be out a few weeks later.
Fourth - This is the big one. I had always planned to release a new version of the game in HOTS that is exclusively competitive play. I've got about a dozen pages of notes and designs on this already. Players will be able to disrupt each other's parks, steal spectators, gang up on other players and eliminate them. The idea is supposed to be that you're running a business and competing against other tower defense businesses, and you need to run them out of town. There will be at least 30 levels that players can progress through, each one offering new unlockable bonuses. New towers, new upgrades, new facilities, new structures, special abilities, and bonus starting resources.
On top of all this, each game you play will be assigned one of 30 random "mutators" at the start, and the best players will be the ones who can most successfully adapt to the mutator. These mutators can change game rules, give bonuses to the weakest player, make it easier to disrupt the top ranked player, change the way you earn income, or just add a little dose of havoc into the game. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
Just published v1.12 with a few real quick updates. I'm going to take more of these suggestions and integrate them soon, I'm just out of time right now.
v1.12
Fixed errors with night 10, the inspection event, that can break the event when a player quits the game at a specific time
Burnout Towers were not receiving the damage bonus from Kinesis Crystals, Target Painter's weapon bonus, No Tower Left Behind upgrade, and Crowd Rally damage bonuses. This has been fixed, and players counting on Burnout Towers during crowd rallies should have a lot more success.
Player's name now properly turns grey when they leave or quit
Fixed spelling of "Satisfaction" on the daily earnings printout
Blood Towers once again have a damage of 35% > 140%
Mobile Tower kill bonus has changed
Used to be: +15% attack speed to all Mobile Towers for 15 seconds
New: 10% attack speed to all towers for 10 seconds
First Things First: Does anyone know how the double-click selection is configured? It is buggy in the game and I've been well aware of this, but I was never able to figure it out in the editor. Some towers work as expected and others don't work at all. This is one of those things where the editor's lack of documentation for many of the data fields makes my life extremely difficult.
-
Overall I think the towers are mostly balanced, but you have to figure out how to use each one. Glorn is really picking them apart here, which is what I expected would need to be done for a player to accomplish the highest difficulties. :D
Some towers are good on easier difficulties (powerful and easy to figure out, like Blood and Mobile), and other towers are better on harder difficulties (long term gains, harder to synergize).
Thanks for the feedback on Blood Towers, they're very tricky to balance. I want to have an elegant solution that makes them stronger earlier on and about as strong as they are currently in the late game. The only real advantage to a Blood Tower is that you can use them to get kill credit early in the game when you have not yet unlocked the kill bonus for any other tower. On higher difficulties, you probably don't want a Blood Tower stealing your kills once you get some good kill bonuses unlocked.
As for Mobile Towers, speed wouldn't help much because the 3 vepsene "Combat A.I." gives them the ability to teleport. The target lock feature is a designed draw-back for the tower that I put in very late during balance testing. When they weren't restricted to one-per-target, you could make lots of them and they just beat the game for you because the A.I is really smart. The effect looks good in the game now, but if you could have seen it when they didn't have a target lock feature you'd see that they work really well in groups, they just team up and win the game. In my opinion, Mobile Towers are a really fun tower to have in the game as they are now, but I completely agree that they're not a good choice on harder difficulties because they don't do anything for your income generation. Some changes would be good here, but I don't want to lose the flavor of them being the fun little support buddies that aggressively zip around the map killing things for you.
@SoulFilcher
The game does have a ton of text, and it can be very hard to follow any of it on your first play through. Once you get comfortable with the game mechanics it's not that hard. I was trying to make something new here, and it was unclear how much story a player could absorb (I think you'll find this problem on ANY multiplayer custom game). I'm happy with the story as is, and I certainly don't want to edit out elements of the story, but I've heard this feedback a lot and so I'm working on a story-free version of the game.
No changes made to the mineral drop rate, just the nerf to the Homing-Missile kill bonus.
I'll check the Terran boss. I only spot checked a few levels to make sure the secret difficulty worked. As far as balance testing goes on Secret Difficulty, I have never done a playthrough on this difficulty, I only added it and made sure it worked functionally. The slider goes up to 4x, but that doesn't mean it's mathematically possible. Or maybe it is? I have no idea. The people in the community like you are much better at this tower defense game than I am.
Future Lester has base HP of 150000. On Overkill, he has 150% more HP, so that's 225000. On Secret with 4x scaling, he has 150% + (50x4)% = 350%, which gives him 525000 hit points. What is the maximum? Something like 512000?
Anyways, the units late in the game have hidden damage reduction behaviors so that their health values don't skyrocket. Future Lester may be the only unit that can break the possible health max limit. But is it even possible to get there?
On the brood lord level; the randomly flying things take away lives; like... a lot of them. I lost 20 lives from them randomly flying backwards into my "exit".
This is not a bug, this is how you can leak on that level. Each flying guy make 4 passes across your park, and then proceeds to the exit. There's no way to tell which ones are about to go there, so it can look random. Some tower strats are better at this level than others (crossfire towers are REALLY good).
If you build your first upgrade center the second you get the minerals for it; the text will forever stay in the middle of your base; telling you to build an upgrade center.
Increased Burnout Tower kill bonus from 20% to 25% to increase crowd appeal while in normal mode
Lowered Homing-Missile Tower weapon upgrade from +30% to +25%
Homing-Missile Tower's mineral finder kill bonus now only increases mineral drop chance, no longer increases mineral value by +1
Chaosfire Tower lockout cooldown reduced from 3s to 2s
Solar-Powered Laser kill bonus now grants bonus energy at all levels of power, after 20 energy it adds 0.25 energy per kill
Petrol Sprayer support bonus increased from 25% to 40% chance to not be purged
Enhance Damage from Enhancement Crystals now properly boosts damage on Burnout Towers
Changed gift shop to reward a flat amount of money, this puts it in line with other facilities and makes it a good choice for the early game
Final nuke no longer kills towers
You should no longer get a negative score for tower assets at the end of the game when you have too many towers (it broke when you had more than $520,000 in assets)
Splitting tower life percentage changed from 75% to 90% normal, and 60% to 75% upgraded
The Day 11 upgrade "Satisfaction Guarantee" has had a new effect added to it. Now, in addition to the popularity boost, it will give you +1% spectators per day for each 25% popularity you have (rounded down, maximum of +5%)
Hotkey to build support towers has been changed
For Auxiliary Towers, the insta gib threshold has been reduced by -4% at all levels, but the Buff Forwarding upgrade now increases insta gib by +4%
Lowered Blood Towers from 35% > 140% (175% with upgrade) to 30% > 120% (150% with upgrade). A NOTE: I'm not sure about this change, but I have heard a lot from people believing the Blood Towers to be overpowered. Please let me know if you disagree with this nerf.
Maximum number of towers has changed from 60 to 40 + day
The leaderboard now shows each players difficulty next to their name, and displays the current day up top
Boring Fixes:
Crossfire/Chaosfire towers now have the Sell Tower ability properly appearing on the command card
Made improvements to Day 10 to help prevent the event breaking with duplicate spawns
Fixed tooltip for Cryonic Tower weapon upgrade to say 5%
Clarified range on Cherry Picker Cannon tooltip
Known Bugs:
Player's names do not currently turn grey when they lose or quit (fixing that soon)
NEW DIFFICULTY MODE ADDED!
The game now has a new difficulty mode, SECRET DIFFICULTY. This is for you punks who figured out how to dominate the game in just under a week. Secret Difficulty starts at Overkill level, and scales to make the game more difficult with each level. At the starting game settings, you get to pick how much you want the game to scale in difficulty. With each level of scaling, it will increase your final end game buyout by +$50,000. If you've got a killer strategy, you'll now be able to rake in an incredible high score.
But how do you get Secret Difficulty? Well here's the secret, you need to do one of these three things:
Complete the game on Overkill, regardless of whether you have a positive popularity
Complete the game with a high score of over $800,000
Find one of the alternate endings on any difficulty
Also, anyone who has a saved high score of over $800,000 will have Secret Difficulty retroactively unlocked.
Now that you can customize the difficulty and boost your score, please post here with your new high score!
The brood lord hasn't sent for me in the past 3 games (since yesterday morning) He just stands there and eventually explodes. In all of these games I have used splitter towers; if this could somehow cause it; I havent tested it without using them.
You're a god damn hero, son. I just replicated it, it is the splitting towers. I think it's uncommon for players to have these towers by this level. I'm going to try to have a fix for this out ASAP!
Thanks for the bugs! I think some of them (like brood lord never moving) is the editor being stupid. Some times it just... breaks and I can never ever replicate it. The platform has a lot of flaws.
There's no way to avoid going negative the first time you run through the final level, but you shouldn't go negative for the second run through. The end game sequence changes based on how you do on that last attempt. There are 4 different endings.
Also, you lose when you go negative popularity, but you can't lose after level 48. I didn't want to jip people who lose on level 49.
Today I am very proud to announce the public release of my first custom map: Tower Defense Tycoon!
Tower Defense Tycoon is an FFA survival tower defense for 1 to 6 players. In the game, you operate and manage a tower defense theme park, where you need to construct towers, build up your park, attract spectators, and raise admission rates. Each night you must entertain your visitors with explosive tower defense shows and score bloody kills to impress the audience and attract new visitors.
Tower Defense Tycoon is a completely solo project, and it has been my only focus in the Starcraft map editor since the beta began. That puts the game’s development time at just over 2 years. Whoa! I have been developing the game with only one simple goal: To make it the coolest tower defense that Starcraft has ever seen!
Below are some highlights of my favorite features in the game. If nothing else, please check out my trailer!
A STORY-DRIVEN ADVENTURE
This game features 50 levels of story-driven adventure set in the Starcraft universe. Your journey sees you through the humble beginnings of your park, unforeseen dilemmas, unexpected disasters, and up through to the game’s epic finale.
BEYOND ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS
There are no damage types vs. armor types that you need to memorize. There are no air towers, hero towers, or detector towers. There is no rock-paper-scissors formula for you to worry about. Every tower is effective for every level!
Each tower has been designed with strengths and weaknesses, and it’s up to you to find the best way to use each type of tower. There are 18 different types of towers in all. You’ll find your familiar favorites such as the obligatory freezing tower. You’ll also encounter new kinds of towers that you’ve never seen before, like the Splitting Tower that divides units into two, or the Auxiliary Tower that can transfer kill credit to another tower, or the Solar-Powered Laser that charges up and becomes more powerful the less it attacks.
IMAGINATIVE LEVEL DESIGN
Almost every level in the game offers a unique challenge that is not repeated in any other level! No matter what your tower defense strategy is, there will be levels that challenge you in unexpected ways.
INCREDIBLE BOSS FIGHTS
Every 10 levels you will face a “Main Event,” a highly scripted boss round that has major implications for the story. Each of these Main Events will introduce something new to the tower defense genre, so even the most seasoned tower defense veterans will find something new here. These boss rounds are incredible, and you’ve never seen anything like it in a tower defense.
BUILD YOUR PARK
In addition to your tower defense strategy, you’ll need to build up your park to make it run successfully. Build a restaurant to increase your park’s popularity, build an admissions booth to raise your admission rates, build a hotel to retain your visitors across multiple days, or build an advertising agency to promote your towers and attract more visitors. You know what’s better than a bloody kill? It’s a bloody kill with fireworks! Build a pyrotechnics factory to make your impressive kills even more impressive. And there’s more! It’s up to you to build the facilities that will work best for your park.
Get some popcorn, it’s trailer time!
Are you a tower defense veteran? Have you been playing tower defense maps since the original Starcraft? Have you seen the best and worst that the tower defense genre has to offer? If so, then you are my target audience for this game! The story includes a ton of tower defense meta-humor, and I also attached my loading screen for your entertainment.
Coming soon: Competitive mode! This mode will be one part tower defense, and one part social experiment. I plan to develop this once Blizzard has made improvements to custom game matchmaking.
If you have suggestions, comments, bugs, or if you just like the game, please drop me a line so I can make this the best tower defense ever!
Tower Defense Tycoon is finally published in EU!
I'm really happy that people are enjoying the game, and what's out there now was my vision for the game and I was only concerned with making a great TD. I did not design the game with the expectation that people would play it dozens of times. I think of it kind of like a summer blockbuster. You go see The Avengers one or more times and it's cool, but you could easily spend more hours watching sports each year - yet no one would argue that watching sports is cooler than The Avengers. Also for the record, The Avengers is a much better 2 hours than playing my map, let's just be clear about that.
I've been on vacation for a few weeks, so I wanted to provide an update on this project.
First - I have decided not to push this game into EU. I plan to only focus on preparing it for the 1.5 patch (a lot of work), and it will be available to EU when the maps become global.
Second - I tried to get this game published to the 1.5 beta a few weeks ago, but there is a terrible new bug that completely breaks the game. I really don't know what I'm going to do if blizzard doesn't fix this bug. (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/5836263601)
Third - In the very short term, I plan on releasing a fast paced version of this game with all of the story removed. From whenever I can get the game working in 1.5, this fast version will be out a few weeks later.
Fourth - This is the big one. I had always planned to release a new version of the game in HOTS that is exclusively competitive play. I've got about a dozen pages of notes and designs on this already. Players will be able to disrupt each other's parks, steal spectators, gang up on other players and eliminate them. The idea is supposed to be that you're running a business and competing against other tower defense businesses, and you need to run them out of town. There will be at least 30 levels that players can progress through, each one offering new unlockable bonuses. New towers, new upgrades, new facilities, new structures, special abilities, and bonus starting resources.
On top of all this, each game you play will be assigned one of 30 random "mutators" at the start, and the best players will be the ones who can most successfully adapt to the mutator. These mutators can change game rules, give bonuses to the weakest player, make it easier to disrupt the top ranked player, change the way you earn income, or just add a little dose of havoc into the game. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
Just wanted to confirm that Secret Difficulty at x4.0 scaling is possible. Someone sent me a replay of a successful attempt. :)
Just published v1.12 with a few real quick updates. I'm going to take more of these suggestions and integrate them soon, I'm just out of time right now.
v1.12
First Things First: Does anyone know how the double-click selection is configured? It is buggy in the game and I've been well aware of this, but I was never able to figure it out in the editor. Some towers work as expected and others don't work at all. This is one of those things where the editor's lack of documentation for many of the data fields makes my life extremely difficult.
-Overall I think the towers are mostly balanced, but you have to figure out how to use each one. Glorn is really picking them apart here, which is what I expected would need to be done for a player to accomplish the highest difficulties. :D
Some towers are good on easier difficulties (powerful and easy to figure out, like Blood and Mobile), and other towers are better on harder difficulties (long term gains, harder to synergize).
Thanks for the feedback on Blood Towers, they're very tricky to balance. I want to have an elegant solution that makes them stronger earlier on and about as strong as they are currently in the late game. The only real advantage to a Blood Tower is that you can use them to get kill credit early in the game when you have not yet unlocked the kill bonus for any other tower. On higher difficulties, you probably don't want a Blood Tower stealing your kills once you get some good kill bonuses unlocked.
As for Mobile Towers, speed wouldn't help much because the 3 vepsene "Combat A.I." gives them the ability to teleport. The target lock feature is a designed draw-back for the tower that I put in very late during balance testing. When they weren't restricted to one-per-target, you could make lots of them and they just beat the game for you because the A.I is really smart. The effect looks good in the game now, but if you could have seen it when they didn't have a target lock feature you'd see that they work really well in groups, they just team up and win the game. In my opinion, Mobile Towers are a really fun tower to have in the game as they are now, but I completely agree that they're not a good choice on harder difficulties because they don't do anything for your income generation. Some changes would be good here, but I don't want to lose the flavor of them being the fun little support buddies that aggressively zip around the map killing things for you.
@SoulFilcher
The game does have a ton of text, and it can be very hard to follow any of it on your first play through. Once you get comfortable with the game mechanics it's not that hard. I was trying to make something new here, and it was unclear how much story a player could absorb (I think you'll find this problem on ANY multiplayer custom game). I'm happy with the story as is, and I certainly don't want to edit out elements of the story, but I've heard this feedback a lot and so I'm working on a story-free version of the game.
@GlornII: Go
No changes made to the mineral drop rate, just the nerf to the Homing-Missile kill bonus.
I'll check the Terran boss. I only spot checked a few levels to make sure the secret difficulty worked. As far as balance testing goes on Secret Difficulty, I have never done a playthrough on this difficulty, I only added it and made sure it worked functionally. The slider goes up to 4x, but that doesn't mean it's mathematically possible. Or maybe it is? I have no idea. The people in the community like you are much better at this tower defense game than I am.
Future Lester has base HP of 150000. On Overkill, he has 150% more HP, so that's 225000. On Secret with 4x scaling, he has 150% + (50x4)% = 350%, which gives him 525000 hit points. What is the maximum? Something like 512000?
Anyways, the units late in the game have hidden damage reduction behaviors so that their health values don't skyrocket. Future Lester may be the only unit that can break the possible health max limit. But is it even possible to get there?
You're lucky, man
This is not a bug, this is how you can leak on that level. Each flying guy make 4 passes across your park, and then proceeds to the exit. There's no way to tell which ones are about to go there, so it can look random. Some tower strats are better at this level than others (crossfire towers are REALLY good).
I'll take a look!
@GlornII: Go
v1.11 is UP!!
Who likes patch notes? I do!
Balance Changes:
Boring Fixes:
Known Bugs:
NEW DIFFICULTY MODE ADDED! The game now has a new difficulty mode, SECRET DIFFICULTY. This is for you punks who figured out how to dominate the game in just under a week. Secret Difficulty starts at Overkill level, and scales to make the game more difficult with each level. At the starting game settings, you get to pick how much you want the game to scale in difficulty. With each level of scaling, it will increase your final end game buyout by +$50,000. If you've got a killer strategy, you'll now be able to rake in an incredible high score.
But how do you get Secret Difficulty? Well here's the secret, you need to do one of these three things:
Also, anyone who has a saved high score of over $800,000 will have Secret Difficulty retroactively unlocked.
Now that you can customize the difficulty and boost your score, please post here with your new high score!
You're a god damn hero, son. I just replicated it, it is the splitting towers. I think it's uncommon for players to have these towers by this level. I'm going to try to have a fix for this out ASAP!
@GlornII: Go
Thanks for the bugs! I think some of them (like brood lord never moving) is the editor being stupid. Some times it just... breaks and I can never ever replicate it. The platform has a lot of flaws.
It is technically possible. I'll post a hint on the contest thread after I get the game into EU.
Oh also, TDT just hit the #2 spot! Squadron Tower Defense is the only one ahead, and that may be an insurmountable feat.
@PoisonHunter:
There's no way to avoid going negative the first time you run through the final level, but you shouldn't go negative for the second run through. The end game sequence changes based on how you do on that last attempt. There are 4 different endings.
Also, you lose when you go negative popularity, but you can't lose after level 48. I didn't want to jip people who lose on level 49.
@SoulFilcher: Go
Just passed SOTIS. Nexus Wars 1 is next, and then his twin brother.
The map just hit the 24 hour mark since I posted it, and it's now at 100 / 100 rating on Up & Coming.
Update: It's been just under 72 hours since I published the game. It's now at 4,000 hours played on page 1. :D
Tower Defense Tycoon - Official Release
Hello SC2Mapster,
Today I am very proud to announce the public release of my first custom map: Tower Defense Tycoon!
Tower Defense Tycoon is an FFA survival tower defense for 1 to 6 players. In the game, you operate and manage a tower defense theme park, where you need to construct towers, build up your park, attract spectators, and raise admission rates. Each night you must entertain your visitors with explosive tower defense shows and score bloody kills to impress the audience and attract new visitors.
Tower Defense Tycoon is a completely solo project, and it has been my only focus in the Starcraft map editor since the beta began. That puts the game’s development time at just over 2 years. Whoa! I have been developing the game with only one simple goal: To make it the coolest tower defense that Starcraft has ever seen!
Below are some highlights of my favorite features in the game. If nothing else, please check out my trailer!
A STORY-DRIVEN ADVENTURE
This game features 50 levels of story-driven adventure set in the Starcraft universe. Your journey sees you through the humble beginnings of your park, unforeseen dilemmas, unexpected disasters, and up through to the game’s epic finale.
BEYOND ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS
There are no damage types vs. armor types that you need to memorize. There are no air towers, hero towers, or detector towers. There is no rock-paper-scissors formula for you to worry about. Every tower is effective for every level!
Each tower has been designed with strengths and weaknesses, and it’s up to you to find the best way to use each type of tower. There are 18 different types of towers in all. You’ll find your familiar favorites such as the obligatory freezing tower. You’ll also encounter new kinds of towers that you’ve never seen before, like the Splitting Tower that divides units into two, or the Auxiliary Tower that can transfer kill credit to another tower, or the Solar-Powered Laser that charges up and becomes more powerful the less it attacks.
IMAGINATIVE LEVEL DESIGN
Almost every level in the game offers a unique challenge that is not repeated in any other level! No matter what your tower defense strategy is, there will be levels that challenge you in unexpected ways.
INCREDIBLE BOSS FIGHTS
Every 10 levels you will face a “Main Event,” a highly scripted boss round that has major implications for the story. Each of these Main Events will introduce something new to the tower defense genre, so even the most seasoned tower defense veterans will find something new here. These boss rounds are incredible, and you’ve never seen anything like it in a tower defense.
BUILD YOUR PARK
In addition to your tower defense strategy, you’ll need to build up your park to make it run successfully. Build a restaurant to increase your park’s popularity, build an admissions booth to raise your admission rates, build a hotel to retain your visitors across multiple days, or build an advertising agency to promote your towers and attract more visitors. You know what’s better than a bloody kill? It’s a bloody kill with fireworks! Build a pyrotechnics factory to make your impressive kills even more impressive. And there’s more! It’s up to you to build the facilities that will work best for your park.
Get some popcorn, it’s trailer time!
Are you a tower defense veteran? Have you been playing tower defense maps since the original Starcraft? Have you seen the best and worst that the tower defense genre has to offer? If so, then you are my target audience for this game! The story includes a ton of tower defense meta-humor, and I also attached my loading screen for your entertainment.
Coming soon: Competitive mode! This mode will be one part tower defense, and one part social experiment. I plan to develop this once Blizzard has made improvements to custom game matchmaking.
If you have suggestions, comments, bugs, or if you just like the game, please drop me a line so I can make this the best tower defense ever!
En Taro, Tycoons!
-Skrow