To understand the scope of this project best, you must first understand that the game for development for profit is a stand alone game for android, but the proof of concept was first designed on paper, and the realization is that there are better ways to develop a proof of concept.
The niche of the game is a combat system, that can be related by triggers in a tertiary elemental prism. ??? What this means is basically 9 element arrays at 5 iterations of themselves with derived vector length group theory calculus. It isn't something I have been able to explain well for about a month, and I fear never will be, because of the complexity, but it is currently being proofed by a Calculus major as a potential thesis. The code for how to do this is complete on a superfluous text based program, and SHOULD be adaptable into SC with this tutorial. http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/13027-data-trigger-how-to-add-damage-through-a-trigger/
I started applying it to units and just ran my units in the test map past, and I realized... this is a lot like a TD. And thinking about it, most of the work I've done on the game COULD be adapted to a D&D TD. Only problem is the Starcraft looks so far from fantasy. Like a marine as an archer is ... ehh, and the further you get from it, the less it feels right. Then after the research on this site, I am now porting in my own WoW models with different animations and outfits for towers and creeps.
So the adaptation begins.
About the Team
We are actually a few people as of right now.
Lochen - I am heading this project as a means of therapy - I am of disability and unable to work away from home. I used to work on mod teams for War3 and Starcraft, but have let myself slip in the last 6-7 year. I was at the level of about intermediate in all factors, but capable of complete works at intermediate levels, models, custom spells, skinning from scratch, MPQ modification and batch editing... All stuff that is either outdated, different or called something new. More so in Galaxy than anything. I am struggling to FIND things, not know what to do next. Currently working 6-8 hours daily on the project average, but have been doing 20 hour spurts due to the disability. This is doing wonders for research with this website.
MSeven - Coder for a financial institution, and lead programmer for SRPG project. Most interested in connection to the regression of code to save time for adaptation to another language. Lives with Lochen, and works on a daily basis.
Sprocke - Coder for a school district, working on a secondary pro-bono basis. Experience in the high level math the system is based on.
Math Guy - A PHD Calculus hopeful and D&D nerd like me. We contacted on a level, that was able to express the abstracts of calculus, balance and game theory all in one. It really was a hilarious accident, and should it work, actually may be the basis of something useful in the math field. Pretty cool, but all this means is an incredibly skilled mathematician on a Pro Bono basis.
??? - Unnamed 'e' level celebrity endorsement of the system, and potential partnership agreement. In progress, not going to say more than I can.
FireHawk - Concept artist for the game, working as a requirement for school, and can apply his work to my work, and have a quick defined direction of what to be creating.
The Game Concept
You play as the NPC creeps of D&D. The cave dwellers - Goblins, Drow(UD elves from WotLK), Troll, Ogre - These sorts of units are what I'm using for towers and builders for the player. You are defending your loot stash from heroes portaling in from Sigil. The heroes are mainly Human, but in some cases specific models are used (Rexxar, Kael'thas, Jaina), or other races, Blood Elf, gnome, dwarf, dranei(deva) orc.
In theory there is a 9th, Prism, which is 1 of each of the others combined. In SC2 it isn't necessary.
These gems are the basis of the upgrade system, and makes it so that the bounty from kills is only applied to making more towers. Bounty will not be increasing much as difficulty increases in comparison to other TD's. It controls the amount of towers you have, so you don't power a single tower. Its a TD, just because we dont use plural (Towers) doesn't mean you should be able to power a single tower... that's just broken.
Creeps, Waves, and Behaviour
What a good TD comes down to is, unique towers, unique concept, good theming and a fun niche. The best example of this was Elemental TD or Wintermaul, where it explored using armor types for bonus damage.
To better represent combat of D&D the creeps will actually have a reason to move from way point to waypoint, and not be attacking the towers, yet attacking something else, and able to effect the towers. Sounds complex.
Using a target dummy from wow, and making a modified supply depot, it purposefully blocks the creeps, and when it is low hp, it lowers becomes invulnerable until the next wave starts. These can later be upgraded to raid bosses from wow that will fight back.
The wave is made up of 1 Heroic Lead, and 40 sub units, split into tanks, healers, ranged dps, and melee dps, 4 units per subset, and spawns a random set per round. The heroic Lead is one of the 16 units powered up to a heroic version of it, with 1 ability that is very definitive of itself. These are typically the paragon version of the class in D&D. In theory, 32 creeps, and can be scaled by level, and all the abilities that are given or unlocked over time can be researched via triggers at certain waves.
Tanks: Paladin, Fighter, BattleMind, Spell Sword
Heal: Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid
Ranged: Necro, Sorc, Ranger, Alchemist
Melee: Assassin, Shaman, Barbarian, Rogue
Heroic Tier
Crusader, Warlord, Ardent, Blackguard
Engineer, Dancer, Priest, Tree of Life
Warlock, Psion, Gunslinger, Test Subject(alchemical experiment gone right/wrong)
Shadowstalker, Beastmaster, Monk, Master Thief
Creeps will all be able to attack on the ground level, but unable to attack anything above the cliff, but can debuff the towers or buff each other.
Once they reach the end, they play the work animation which is the mining animation from WoW on free floating 2 mineral gold mineral patches, mine the 1 crystal, and try to return back to the portal at the front. Once it is mined, you lost its value, your life is gone, but you can at least get the bounty. There will be ways to buy more gold in the stash to replace lives.
After level N, creeps will begin to spawn as an element, as well as a class. All these will be is one of 8 mutually exclusive buffs that do nothing other than denote what type it is. The damage calculation is done through triggers. The only thing will be when it spawns, tint it a colour.
Towers
There are 20 tower Types. 5 Varied Ranges and 4 Varied attack types.
Attack Ranges: Ward Melee, Short, Med, Long, Global. Ward melee are placed on the ground are 1x1 and work like supply depots, short term expendable and very short range. Global hit max range but have a very reduced effect.
Attack Types: Arrow (Single target), Cannon (Circular AOE with secondary damage ranges), Laser (Linear beams and cones) and Magic (Mutli hit, max number caps in a range)
Upgrading towers after selecting the type it is is a matter of loading gems into it, using different builders. Your alchemist will add a poison versus a class to add +10 damage vs __.
Using your enchantress will change the elemental type of the tower and power level based on how many gems are put into it, of a quality. Basically once you select its element, additional gems will gain it experience and let it level up.
And using your tinkerer will allow you apply buffs and debuffs to the towers on hit. There are 5 buffs, you get them from applying prism's to the tower of various qualities to a certain buff. +1 mana/heal charge for dummy/+N% attack/+damage linear/+damage multiplier/Crit chance, for chipped, you get 1 heal and thats it, for flawed you get 2 heals and a attack speed increase. For a standard you get 3 heals, 2x the attack speed, and a flat bonus to damage. Etc.
The debuffs there are 8, one for each other element, and 5 degrees of them each, for 40 debuffs.
Blinding light, arctic wind, entangling roots, Caltrops, Gust of wind, Curse, Amp damage, and Glimpse(teleport back to portal).
Players will be left to balance what gems they have, what they want to have for certain, and then what they can get with the left overs. It should in theory up the customization a great deal, and prevent specific builds from ruling the game.
What you can do to help
Currently we are under-educated in the SC2 Galaxy editor, and working on learning as much as we can. The best way to solve this problem is to have an intermediate-veteran map maker join our team, or creating a mod team for the project. As we are using this as the proof of concept for our indie game in development, there is likely a position to be applied beyond just the SC2 map. The concept can be brought to a much further level of customization, but the limitations of the SC2 editor versus the benefit of using the SC2 Engine for this level of complexity should be possible based off what I have seen produced.
If you are willing to join, suggest tutorials, help with dependencies and models, or even point out flaws in the concept, it will be greatly appreciated and will make the process considerably easier.
And most importantly, if anything I have said here is an impossibility, let me know now, so that I can modify the concept on paper adaptation before wasting too much time.
0
Dungeons and Dragons SRPG
To understand the scope of this project best, you must first understand that the game for development for profit is a stand alone game for android, but the proof of concept was first designed on paper, and the realization is that there are better ways to develop a proof of concept.
The niche of the game is a combat system, that can be related by triggers in a tertiary elemental prism. ??? What this means is basically 9 element arrays at 5 iterations of themselves with derived vector length group theory calculus. It isn't something I have been able to explain well for about a month, and I fear never will be, because of the complexity, but it is currently being proofed by a Calculus major as a potential thesis. The code for how to do this is complete on a superfluous text based program, and SHOULD be adaptable into SC with this tutorial. http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/13027-data-trigger-how-to-add-damage-through-a-trigger/
I started applying it to units and just ran my units in the test map past, and I realized... this is a lot like a TD. And thinking about it, most of the work I've done on the game COULD be adapted to a D&D TD. Only problem is the Starcraft looks so far from fantasy. Like a marine as an archer is ... ehh, and the further you get from it, the less it feels right. Then after the research on this site, I am now porting in my own WoW models with different animations and outfits for towers and creeps.
So the adaptation begins.
About the Team
We are actually a few people as of right now.
Lochen - I am heading this project as a means of therapy - I am of disability and unable to work away from home. I used to work on mod teams for War3 and Starcraft, but have let myself slip in the last 6-7 year. I was at the level of about intermediate in all factors, but capable of complete works at intermediate levels, models, custom spells, skinning from scratch, MPQ modification and batch editing... All stuff that is either outdated, different or called something new. More so in Galaxy than anything. I am struggling to FIND things, not know what to do next. Currently working 6-8 hours daily on the project average, but have been doing 20 hour spurts due to the disability. This is doing wonders for research with this website.
MSeven - Coder for a financial institution, and lead programmer for SRPG project. Most interested in connection to the regression of code to save time for adaptation to another language. Lives with Lochen, and works on a daily basis.
Sprocke - Coder for a school district, working on a secondary pro-bono basis. Experience in the high level math the system is based on.
Math Guy - A PHD Calculus hopeful and D&D nerd like me. We contacted on a level, that was able to express the abstracts of calculus, balance and game theory all in one. It really was a hilarious accident, and should it work, actually may be the basis of something useful in the math field. Pretty cool, but all this means is an incredibly skilled mathematician on a Pro Bono basis.
??? - Unnamed 'e' level celebrity endorsement of the system, and potential partnership agreement. In progress, not going to say more than I can.
FireHawk - Concept artist for the game, working as a requirement for school, and can apply his work to my work, and have a quick defined direction of what to be creating.
The Game Concept
You play as the NPC creeps of D&D. The cave dwellers - Goblins, Drow(UD elves from WotLK), Troll, Ogre - These sorts of units are what I'm using for towers and builders for the player. You are defending your loot stash from heroes portaling in from Sigil. The heroes are mainly Human, but in some cases specific models are used (Rexxar, Kael'thas, Jaina), or other races, Blood Elf, gnome, dwarf, dranei(deva) orc.
Elements
There are 9 elements.
Holy, Water, Life, Earth, Colourless Void, Storm, Death, Fire, Chaos
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
Bounty is used to create more towers. Gems are dropped randomly on kill, of one of 8 kinds, and varied degrees of quality.
Topaz, Saphire, Emerald, Obsidium, -Prism-, Lapis Lazuli, Skull, Ruby, Amythyst.
In theory there is a 9th, Prism, which is 1 of each of the others combined. In SC2 it isn't necessary.
These gems are the basis of the upgrade system, and makes it so that the bounty from kills is only applied to making more towers. Bounty will not be increasing much as difficulty increases in comparison to other TD's. It controls the amount of towers you have, so you don't power a single tower. Its a TD, just because we dont use plural (Towers) doesn't mean you should be able to power a single tower... that's just broken.
Creeps, Waves, and Behaviour
What a good TD comes down to is, unique towers, unique concept, good theming and a fun niche. The best example of this was Elemental TD or Wintermaul, where it explored using armor types for bonus damage.
To better represent combat of D&D the creeps will actually have a reason to move from way point to waypoint, and not be attacking the towers, yet attacking something else, and able to effect the towers. Sounds complex.
Using a target dummy from wow, and making a modified supply depot, it purposefully blocks the creeps, and when it is low hp, it lowers becomes invulnerable until the next wave starts. These can later be upgraded to raid bosses from wow that will fight back.
The wave is made up of 1 Heroic Lead, and 40 sub units, split into tanks, healers, ranged dps, and melee dps, 4 units per subset, and spawns a random set per round. The heroic Lead is one of the 16 units powered up to a heroic version of it, with 1 ability that is very definitive of itself. These are typically the paragon version of the class in D&D. In theory, 32 creeps, and can be scaled by level, and all the abilities that are given or unlocked over time can be researched via triggers at certain waves.
Tanks: Paladin, Fighter, BattleMind, Spell Sword
Heal: Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid
Ranged: Necro, Sorc, Ranger, Alchemist
Melee: Assassin, Shaman, Barbarian, Rogue
Heroic Tier
Crusader, Warlord, Ardent, Blackguard
Engineer, Dancer, Priest, Tree of Life
Warlock, Psion, Gunslinger, Test Subject(alchemical experiment gone right/wrong)
Shadowstalker, Beastmaster, Monk, Master Thief
Creeps will all be able to attack on the ground level, but unable to attack anything above the cliff, but can debuff the towers or buff each other.
Once they reach the end, they play the work animation which is the mining animation from WoW on free floating 2 mineral gold mineral patches, mine the 1 crystal, and try to return back to the portal at the front. Once it is mined, you lost its value, your life is gone, but you can at least get the bounty. There will be ways to buy more gold in the stash to replace lives.
After level N, creeps will begin to spawn as an element, as well as a class. All these will be is one of 8 mutually exclusive buffs that do nothing other than denote what type it is. The damage calculation is done through triggers. The only thing will be when it spawns, tint it a colour.
Towers
There are 20 tower Types. 5 Varied Ranges and 4 Varied attack types.
Attack Ranges: Ward Melee, Short, Med, Long, Global. Ward melee are placed on the ground are 1x1 and work like supply depots, short term expendable and very short range. Global hit max range but have a very reduced effect.
Attack Types: Arrow (Single target), Cannon (Circular AOE with secondary damage ranges), Laser (Linear beams and cones) and Magic (Mutli hit, max number caps in a range)
Upgrading towers after selecting the type it is is a matter of loading gems into it, using different builders. Your alchemist will add a poison versus a class to add +10 damage vs __.
Using your enchantress will change the elemental type of the tower and power level based on how many gems are put into it, of a quality. Basically once you select its element, additional gems will gain it experience and let it level up.
And using your tinkerer will allow you apply buffs and debuffs to the towers on hit. There are 5 buffs, you get them from applying prism's to the tower of various qualities to a certain buff. +1 mana/heal charge for dummy/+N% attack/+damage linear/+damage multiplier/Crit chance, for chipped, you get 1 heal and thats it, for flawed you get 2 heals and a attack speed increase. For a standard you get 3 heals, 2x the attack speed, and a flat bonus to damage. Etc.
The debuffs there are 8, one for each other element, and 5 degrees of them each, for 40 debuffs.
Blinding light, arctic wind, entangling roots, Caltrops, Gust of wind, Curse, Amp damage, and Glimpse(teleport back to portal).
Players will be left to balance what gems they have, what they want to have for certain, and then what they can get with the left overs. It should in theory up the customization a great deal, and prevent specific builds from ruling the game.
What you can do to help
Currently we are under-educated in the SC2 Galaxy editor, and working on learning as much as we can. The best way to solve this problem is to have an intermediate-veteran map maker join our team, or creating a mod team for the project. As we are using this as the proof of concept for our indie game in development, there is likely a position to be applied beyond just the SC2 map. The concept can be brought to a much further level of customization, but the limitations of the SC2 editor versus the benefit of using the SC2 Engine for this level of complexity should be possible based off what I have seen produced.
If you are willing to join, suggest tutorials, help with dependencies and models, or even point out flaws in the concept, it will be greatly appreciated and will make the process considerably easier.
And most importantly, if anything I have said here is an impossibility, let me know now, so that I can modify the concept on paper adaptation before wasting too much time.