Pokemon Games: Update

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Senin, 27 Februari 2012

Weekly Progress, Day and Night system for PTD 2, PTD 2 Title Screen CONTEST!

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!

Hey guys and gals. Another week of Sam and Dan Games has begun! v6.1.1 of Pokemon Tower Defense is now out! You can get your very own Shadow Lickitung by finding the Mystery Gift Code at the link above. (Yes I know he doesn't know Shadow Rush, but you can relearn them move if you want :) )

We are working hard to get you guys some entertainment and at the same time thinking about what the next steps are for us. As an small independent game studio (we aren't even an official company yet, but will be this year) the best thing we can do is create new and exciting games. Pokemon Tower Defense is an exciting game but we really can only do so much with it because we didn't create Pokemon. Which is why you will see us focus on Hero Tower Defense once PTD 1 is over. But I realize that most of you here are fans of PTD and I have created over 400 moves which I plan to maximize. So I will also be working on PTD 2 on the side.

Last week I put up a poll about the Day/Night System for PTD 2 (which I explained last blog) and it looks like the winner is a Dynamic Day/Night System! Because that is the winner I wanted to include more details about it.

The Day/Night System will work similar to how it works in the game. Some pokemon or events will only happen at certain times in the game's clock. But unlike the game the clock will not be based around 24 hours or around your device's time. It will be based on your play time on levels. Each complete day might like 2-3 hours, when you first play the game will be in day time and as you play the time will be changing. About half way through the day you will enter night time. So as you can see it's not tied to any specific time zone or your computer's clock.

Last week I also finished the preloader for the game, so instead of seeing a white screen you will see a percentage on screen and I made a cool little race so you have something to be entertained by while you wait. The race is Chikorita vs. Totodile vs. Cyndaquil as you load your game they will move closer to the finish line and who knows maybe they will evolve. This is just a small detail that I hope you can appreciate while you wait for the game to load.

Also PTD 2 will have a nice little intro scene that Joel, my brother, made. Joel will also be helping make the intro and ending cutscenes for all the levels which will help make them more interesting and detailed. It will also help me complete more since I will have my hands busy with HTD.

PTD 2 TITLE SCREEN CONTEST!
Speaking of intro scenes, just like PTD I'm holding a competition for the actual title screen of the game, this time they can't have their own animated intro (since the game will already have an animation to start) but can have animated elements. So no rolling pokeball and pikachu coming out of it but you can have the rollovers or animations in the page itself. For now just put the same elements that the current game has on there. (Start, Options, Feedback, the Mystery Code, Pokemon Tower Defense 2, a Sam Game, and tell us how to make it better) Post these on our forum so other users can comment and give you feedback. The prize will be all 3 SHINY LEGENDARY DOGS! Which won't be available until PTD 2 comes out later this year. Like I said don't email me your entries, post them on the forum. This contest will run for at least a month so you will have time to make them special. Show me what you got!

We are also talking about our third game which is the Creatures Universe game (Project ANPO), you can read more about it here. As the weeks go by I will be talking more about the ideas I have for it on the blog so look forward to that.

This week in PTD we will have a new Story level, new TMs, a new Mystery Gift, new level cap, along with some other bug fixes. I will also put some of my pokemon up for trade, got any special request for what pokemon I should put up for trade? Let me know in the comments. Also let me know which TMs you would like to see this week in the comments. (TMs with moves that are already in the game will be more likely to be added this week)

PTD First Look for v6.2 by GraphicForce!

PTD 1 Progress:

Story Level (100%) - Pallet Town Training

Intro (100%)
Layout (100%)
Waves (100%)
Ending (100%)

Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - This is for Monday! MissingNo. The Glitch Pokemon!

Implement in Saving Code (100%)
Stats (100%)
Graphics (100%)
Moves (100%)

Added Toxic to the Pokemon Center's Move List (100%)
New TMs (100%)

Hydro Pump (100%) - Being available to more pokemon.
Bulldoze (100%)
X-Scissor (100%)
Fury Cutter (100%)
Sludge Wave (100%)
Psyshock (100%)

Level Cap Increase (100%) - Level cap to 95

Implement in game (100%)
Implement in Saving Code (100%)
Implement in Trading Center (100%)

PTD 2 Progress:

Temporary Title Screen (0%) - The final one will be from the contest winner, but I will make a placeholder one for now.
Options Menu (0%) - Adding some more options here, like a logout, and more.

HTD Progress:
Click here to see my HTD progress for this week.

That's all for today! As always let me know what you think! If you have any question about PTD, beating a level or how to get a particular pokemon head to our forums, many people there will be happy to help you. If you have account problems send me an email for everything else leave me a comment below!

Kamis, 05 Januari 2012

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

Senin, 10 Oktober 2011

Hero Tower Defense Tuesday: Day 8 - Character Creation

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 Tuesday!

Go here to read the Day 7 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

This week we're going to take a look at Kevin's WIP human female design, talk about character creation, and answer some related questions that are likely to be asked after reading this.

Kevin has started working on the human female character which I know some of you have been waiting for. It's still early in development though and we're making adjustments as we go. Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for some additional information and concept art he's working on. He'll also be starting on some hair styles and is interested in some suggestions for them from you guys. Here's the latest version of the human female character:

Early render of a human female in full plate armor

You might notice the usual characteristics that distinguish a female from a male are absent in this initial image. We intentionally started out this way because we want to be sure that you can easily tell the difference between the genders just from their contour and shape even when they are fully suited in armor. This is important for being able to glance at things quickly and knowing exactly what it is.

Male characters can also share a lot of the same features that are typically used to identify females, e.g., long hair, light colors, etc so we don't want to be restricted by these things by fixing them to a specific gender for the sole purpose of differentiating them from eachother. Another thing that falls into this category is having all the females showing a lot of skin regardless of how much armor they are wearing. To me that's a cheap way out for making a female identifiable in heavy armor.. or lack thereof. It makes more sense for lighter armor to look that way since it allows you to be more agile.

Another reason we don't want to restrict specific colors, hair styles, etc to genders is because we want there to be as many options available as possible during character creation so you can create the characters you want. We're still figuring out what you'll be able to customize exactly but right now we're thinking race, gender, skin color, hair style, and hair color (remember this is just for your character, not their armor, weapons, effects, etc). We would like to have some facial features as well at some point but it's a lot for a little so it's not a high priority right now.

Now I'll address a few questions that are bound to be asked eventually:

"What about eye color?"

The style Kevin is current going with doesn't really involve significant detail to the eyes so they are generally just black ovals. They will be quite small as well so only a few colors would be really be noticeable and the rest would kind of all look the same as those.

"Can I change the character's height, size, or proprotions?"

This is very unlikely unfortunately because all our graphic assets are sprites and changing any of these attributes, even a little, would cause all kinds of conflicts with the armors and such.

"Will you see the hair when wearing a helmet?"

This is an interesting topic because it's one of those simple things that is actually quite complex to implement. As of right now we are going with no visible hair while wearing a helmet, even if you have long hair. However, we would allow you to turn off the helm graphic without actually unequipping it and thus still taking advantage of it's stat bonuses.

The reason for this because you'd not only need to create the hairstyle itself but you'd also need to customize every hair style for every helmet in every angle and that adds up to a lot of work very quickly for something that isn't really that significant.

Although something that just came to mind is maybe we could have just a generic "long hair" look while wearing a helmet and that would be applied to all long hair styles and their share their color of course. Shorter hair styles would just show no hair while wearing a helmet. A problem you might realize though is that if your character has a ponytail and it switches to this generic "long hair with helm on" look it wouldn't be in a ponytail anymore. A possible solution could be to just have a couple different "long hair with helm on" looks to cover the majority of the hair styles but we'd probably only start with one for now. We'll have to see, I'm rambling now though so I'll stop there :P

As always feel free to leave us feedback, give us suggestions, ask us questions, or just let us know what you think in the comments!

-Dan

Minggu, 02 Oktober 2011

Pokemon Tower Defense: v4.3 is out now!

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

Hey guys, Sam here, v4.3 is now out! Here is a summary of what is new and changed.

What's new in v4.3

New Story Level - Team Rocket Hideout - Meet a certain video game creator that will train you for your next battles. On this level even if all the candy is taken you will still win. Later on I will add achievements for actually beating the level correctly.
New battle song from The Kira Justice - http://youtube.com/thekirajustice2
Level Cap up to 52 - New moves are introduced into the game because of this level cap increase.
New Mystery Gift Pokemon -Venonat and it's evolution Venomoth!
New Adoption Pokemon -Venonat is now available for adoption!
4 new moves added to the game.
New Pokemon Evolutions (1) - Venomoth.
Added Keyboard Controls for scrolling the map - Arrow keys or WASD.
Potion upgrade - When you beat the latest level.
New TMs

Hyper Beam

Fixes:

Pokemon that level up will regain all their health.
Added steamroller for Golem.
Added Swagger to Hypno and Drowzee at level 45- Thanks Tyd from the blog comment!
Geodude now properly learns Stone Edge at level 50
Made Tri attack faster so it shows all the components and lower the amount of particles in the attack so it will hit faster.
Using the attack Double Hit will no longer freeze the game.
Pikachu can now learn and relearn Thunder at level 50.
Game Corner now takes 5 coins to play, you only get 50 turns, but you win x10 more coins on each prize (80, 150, 1000, 3000) - This change was made to alleviate the server from too many request. Since you only get 50 turns instead of 100.

Where can I play?

Play here on the blog by clicking on the "Play PTD!" tab.
Download the EXE, SWF or APK by clicking on the "Game Downloads Link" tab.
PlayTowerDefenseGame
FreeWorldGroup
Gamerfish
OneMoreLevel
NewGrounds
MiniJuegos

On monday I will post the top 10 forum questions of the week along with the new weekly progress list. Next week we are going back to the Pokemon Tower! Gastly and Cubone!

That's all I have for now as always, let me know what you think!

Selasa, 27 September 2011

Hero Tower Defense Tuesday: Day 7! Talents, Kevin's Blog and game progress.

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 Tuesday!

Sketch of logo

Go here to read the Day 6 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Sam again, working hard on the PTD update which is why this came so late. I will continue talking about the talents and elements in this post plus give you guys an update on where the game is in programming so far.

If you haven't read last week's post then you will probably be really lost so I suggestion you give that a quick look and then come back to read this.

First a lot of you commented on adding more elements to the mix and while that may be possible we want to keep it pretty simple at first and then in the future possibly add more elements as we go. Today when I explain the talents more you will see why we want to keep it at 5 elements for now.

Okay so in HTD the elemental talent system has some pretty unique features.

Every character gets the same elemental talent tree, regardless of what you pick.
Regardless of what element you are attuned to, you can pick skills from any element. (If you are attuned to Fire you can still pick up water element skills or shadow element, etc.)
Skills are separated by Physical and Magic and then by elements. (See picture below)

Mock up of Elemental Talent Trees

You can get special combination of moves by fulfilling the requirement of that move. Combination moves are special moves that sometimes give you a different version of the original move or a move that will trigger a special effect on a previous move. An example of this is a Tier 2 Magical Fire move that will create Magma Armor for your character, if you get a Tier 2 Water skill then it will unlock the combination move for the Magma Armor which is dousing the Magma Armor cooling it down and turning it into a Magma Stone Armor. The Magma Armor will help against magic while the Magma Stone Armor helps against physical attacks. In the picture below the requirement for Tier 1 Fire is to get any Tier 1 Light Move. You can see that now the combination move for Fire is unlocked. Note: Combination moves are free and don't cost points.

The combination requirement for Tier 1 Fire is Tier 1 Light, the combination move for Fire Tier 1 is unlocked.

You will get 15 points to work with once you reach the highest level in the game. You can go pure on an Element and it will unlock an Ultime move that you can use your last point in.

Using 7 Points on Fire Physical and 7 Points on Fire Magical will unlock an Ultimate Fire Move (not pictured)

Putting 3 points into all the elements will unlock all the combination moves for all of them, this will get you more versatility. Doing this will unlock a special move that will be free. But not as powerful as an Ultimate Pure Elemental move.


Putting 3 points into every element will get you the most elemental skills, and will unlock a special move for free (Not pictured on this mock up)

Other special arrangements like putting 7 points in one element and 7 points in a different element will give you an Ultra move. Also putting 5 points in 3 different elements will unlock a special move.

I know this is a lot to take in and it might be hard to understand without being able to play with it but this is the most we can offer right now.

With this system you can create a character as you see fit, do you want him to shoot fire balls and be able to heal with water? Go for it. Want to be a pure Shadow Master? Go for it. Want to be a pure physical machine? Go full physical fire and shadow. There are so many possibilities to what you can do! But we aren't done yet.

You might be thinking well what about classes? While the Elemental Tree system will let you go wild and create your own special class, there is also a Specialization Tree that you will get access to. The Specialization tree will allow you to pick more specific abilities both passive and active to your character. These will be more restrictive in that they require certain points to get them. When you put a point in the physical side of the Elemental Tree you will get a Physical Specialization Point that you can use in the Physical side of the Specialization Tree, same with magic. The specialization will help you define you character more with categories such as Defense, Stealth, Healing, Damage. Want to be a powerfull mage that can take hits like a tank? Well you can! Gone are the days of picking a class and being tied down to what you can do, we hope you will enjoy this system and help us fine tune it as we move forward.

Let's talk about our great artist, Kevin, for a little bit here. Kevin came to Dan and I requesting that he wanted to make his own blog that focuses on the art for Hero Tower Defense. While at the beginning we had our doubts on the whole idea, we finally decided to try it out and see how it goes. So click here to check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD. On top of that we will be posting small summaries each week here about what's going on in his blog so that you don't miss a thing. So go check it out!

The last thing I wanted to talk about is how the programming is going for HTD. A lot of you keep asking when the game is coming out, and while the game is not close to being ready I will update you on where we are now. Each week I will provide an update.

I'm actually re-writing all the code for HTD using PTD as a reference. I have learned a lot from PTD and using all those lessons to make the code in HTD even better. HTD is also more detailed graphically so it requires more detailed code for attack effects. For example in PTD the pokemon will just tackle and hit the target in the middle of it. In HTD your character will move infront of the target and then swing it's swords. These differences make all the difference as far as presentation and code.

Work in Progress Picture, two characters attacking the dragon whelp.

Disclamer on the Picture above: We aren't going to have 10 units at once, only 5. I have 10 there as a previous test.

So that is what we have so far, the characters can be put on their spots and will attack an enemy that is going around the path. We are tweaking attack code and looking at how we can make the action easier to follow.

So which element will you choose?

That's what we have this week for Hero Tower Defense. As always let me know what you think!

Jumat, 23 September 2011

So where's the next Ninja-Ja: update?

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

For those of you who have been asking about when the next Ninja-Ja update will be out here's a quick explanation.

When I started on this update I had a few new features in mind that I wanted to add that would open the game up to more than just survival and top scores. As I was developing these features I realized some current things needed to be changed to accommodate the new stuff. What ended up happening was I noticed that some of the core code needed to be revamped a bit as it wasn't originally designed with these new features in mind. Also since I'm still a beginner at programming as I get better I notice some mistakes that I've made earlier that are hindering progress so I have to go back and fix them. This all adds up to a lot of work that needs to done before I continue with adding things but is good because once I have it in place then future updates should come faster.

So while I don't have an ETA for the next update it will have a bunch of new stuff like Story Mode which has an intro and boss fight, attacking as well as defending, actual enemies you can hit with ranged weapons, and different ranged weapon mechanics since they are primarily used for attacking now.

Anywho that's all for now, just wanted to keep you guys in the loop. Sorry for the delay! I know some of you are eager to try it out but bare with me while I get this set up properly and learn some more about programming so I can do things faster. As always any suggestions, comments, and general feedback is appreciated, thanks!

-Dan

Selasa, 20 September 2011

Hero Tower Defense Tuesday: Day 6!

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 Tuesday!

Sketch of logo

Go here to read the Day 5 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Dan is hard at work on the next Ninja-ja update, so I'm taking over this post bringing you more news and art for our next game Hero Tower Defense. If you haven't done so already make sure to read past blog post of HTD Tuesdays by clicking the link above this paragraph. I'll wait here until you do..... Okay! You ready now?

This week we are going to talk about the first game that Dan and I had planned but never released. Many years ago Dan and I would meet up once a week to work on our game. It was to be an action rpg, one of the main draws of the game was going to be its unique talent system. Sadly we never got around to making that game but we always wanted to use the talent system, so we are going to tweak it and add it to HTD.

The game world will revolve around 5 different elements. Every character will be linked to one of these elements. The elements will be Fire, Water, Nature (this name could change), Shadow and Light. Each of these elements will have an advantage against two other elements and have a weakness to the other two.

There are 3 categories for abilities (moves you will use in the game).

Offensive - These will be moves that mainly cause damage.
Defensive - These moves will prevent you from taking heavy damage also healing moves fall in this category.
Utility - Moves that will slow down the enemy, or trap them etc.

Element: Fire - Pure destructive energy, also provides light.

Main Category - Offensive
Second Category - Defensive
Advantage against: Shadow and Nature - Fire creates a light that shadow cannot beat, fire can also burn plants and nature very easily.
Weakness against: Light and Water - Fire creates light so Light element grows in the presence of fire thus overpowering it. Water can put out fire.

Element: Water - Healing powers and versatility. Water can take many shapes.

Main Category - Defensive
Second Category - Utility
Advantage against: Fire and Light - Water can put out fires. Light going through water gets distorted and weakened.
Weakness against: Shadow and Nature - Water helps nature grow more powerful. Shadow and corruption can easily get into water and corrupt it.

Element: Nature - Wild energy, can take many shapes, and fulfill many roles.

Main Category - Utility
Second Category - Defensive
Advantage against: Water and Light - Water and light both feed Nature it's nutrients and allow it to grow stronger.
Weakness against: Fire and Shadow - Fire destroys nature, and shadow can easily corrupt and prevent the growth of nature.

Element: Light - Pure energy, provides healing and power.

Main Category - Defensive
Second Category - Offensive
Advantage against: Fire and Shadow - Fire creates light so Light element grows in the presence of fire thus overpowering it. Shadow cannot exist in light.
Weakness against: Nature and Water - Nature uses light to grow. Light gets distorted when it goes against water.

Element: Shadow - Evil energy full of trickery and corruption.

Main Category - Offensive
Second Category - Utility
Advantage against: Nature and Water - Shadow prevents nature from growing and can easily corrupt both nature and water.
Weakness against: Fire and Light - Both fire and light create light and thus remove shadow.

Linking into an element will give you a passive chance to give your target a passive debuff having to do with your element. It also gives you resistance and weakness to other elements. For example if you link to fire all your abilities have the chance to trigger a fire debuff on your target that will burn him for a period of time but will increase his damage done slightly. Also you will take 5% less damage from shadow and nature attacks but take 5% more damage from light and water attacks.

I will continue talking about elements, talents and abilities next week. Now I leave you with some art that Kevin worked on this week.

You will encounter this monster on the first level of the game.

Senin, 19 September 2011

Pokemon Tower Defense: Weekly Progress for v4.2, Community Merging, how things are going, future talks

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

Hey everybody! Sam here bringing you the goods for this week. Last week I started the update half way during the week so I didn't get to complete the level 50 cap. That will be a priority this week.
Also this week something that is not going to happen that often will happen. The return of a pokemon for the Weekly code. There won't be a new code this week but for v4.2 there will be one. Like I mentioned before I'm bringing the Challenge Mode Celadon Gym level and the prize will be a shiny pokemon. So you get the regular version from the Weekly Code and you get the Shiny from the Challenge Mode. I will leave the pokemon to be a shocking surprise.

Other than that there will be some changes with the casino, I will be reducing the amount of tries per day, increasing how much each play cost but also increasing how you get per day. This will help reduce the server load that many of us have been experiencing.

Another thing is many of you have requested that the potion behave like the pokeball in that it scrolls the screen when you are close to the borders, so I will be adding that on this update also.

Progress List for v4.2:
Level cap increased to 48 (100%)

Leaf Blade (100%) - Victreebell
Future Sight (100%) - Kadabra/Alakazam
Retaliate (100%) - Growlithe

Level cap increased to 49 (100%)

Gunk Shot (100%) - Ekans
Iron Tail (100%) - Onix
Close Combat (100%) - Mankey
Hyper Voice (100%) - Jigglypuff
Healing Wish (100%) - Clefairy
Double Hit (100%) - Scyther

Level cap increased to 50 (100%)

Mirror Coat (100%) - Voltorb
Last Resort (100%) - Eevee/Vaporeon/Jolteon/Flareon
Ancient Power (100%) - Mew
Stone Edge (100%) - Geodude
Sludge Wave (100%) - Tentacool

New Pokemon for Mystery Code and Challenge Mode (100%) - Magnemite

Graphics (100%)
Shiny Graphics (100%)
Add this pokemon's stats to the game (100%)
New Moves for this pokemon (3) (100%)

Metal Sound (100%)
Magnet Bomb (100%)
Mirror Shot (100%)

New Evolution (100%)

Graphics (100%)
Shiny Graphic (100%)
Add this pokemon's stats into the game (100%)

Add Magnemite as a prize for mystery code and challenge mode (100%)
Challenge Mode Level - Celadon Gym (100%)

Level Intro (100%)
Level Layout (100%)
Level Waves (100%)
Level Ending (100%)

Game Corner Changes (100%)
Potion Changes (100%)
New TMs (100%)

Iron Tail
Stone Edge

Bug Fixes (100%)

Scyther can now learn Aerial Ace TM (100%) - Thanks to you guys for helping me find this.

Distribution (100%)

The community is a big part of what gives games the extra spark needed to keep them alive even after they have been around for a while. It's been 5 months since Pokemon Tower Defense was released and our community is as big as ever. But a divided community does more harm than good. Having two different forums, adding more chats, all it does is thin out the community. Thankfully the two most popular PTD Forums are going to combine and create one central Sam & Dan Games Forum. The merger is still in progress, once everything is ready to go I will post the link.

My passion is to create games but a huge amount of my time goes into the community. Listening to suggestions, answering emails, taking care of account issues. Dan answers any orders that come in for SnD coins. He answers comments for Hero Tower Defense. We are as open as we possibly can be and the merger of the forum will open new ways for us to connect with you guys. We will have a weekly questions section. You submit your questions on the forums and every week Dan or I will answer the questions and post them on the blog. Another feature that will come to the forums will be that you will be able to suggestions a new feature for the game and every other week the best one will be chosen and I will implement it for the update. Unless it's something that will make the game worse. I can't wait to see this feature play out.

I enjoy working on PTD and HTD, I like the fast schedules, the instant feedback. With every update the game get's closer and closer to completion, the more moves are created the easier it is to increase the level cap and the easier it is to add new pokemon. I always like to think of the next step.

Multiplayer is always a topic that gets brought up every single day. I don't have a lot of experience making a fully working multiplayer system. So in the near future I will be taking the first steps toward the multiplayer with an Avatar Chat. You will be able to use your avatar and move him around while chatting with other players. This will help to get my feet wet and start working ironing out any bugs that might come up.

I constantly ask myself, what will I work on next? Will I make a PTD sequel? If I make a poll the answer will be YES! MAKE A SEQUEL! I don't even doubt that result. I know the demand is there. I haven't fully decided if I will make it or not. After PTD, Hero Tower Defense will be getting the most attention like PTD gets now. But I like working on multiple project so when HTD goes into high gear I will be working behind the scenes on the next big game.

I do however spend some time here and there thinking about what a sequel to PTD would be like. While making a Johto Sequel to PTD is a no brainer, I always like to push myself so what if the sequel wasn't a tower defense game?

I leave you with that, as always let me know what you think, try to keep any account issues away from the blog comments just email me directly. Thanks for the great support that all of you continue to give us to this day.

Rabu, 14 September 2011

Pokemon Tower Defense: Weekly Progress for v4.1, Level cap, and Potions

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

Okay so we are starting this week's update a little late but I will update this weekend. First if you haven't seen my brother's fan film I suggest you check it out, it came out great. He told me he is making a second video since you guys liked it so much. We also thought that you guys would enjoy a different point of view of the events in the game rather than just follow the game exactly so the movies will follow two new trainers.

Pokemon TD Fan Film

The Game Corner is out, you can play up to 500 times every day. You get 100 coins to start, if you ever go down to 0 then you will get 100 coins again, compliments of Giovanni himself. Different Machines have different rates of winning and different rates on their prizes. Some machines win more often, some win less often. Some have higher chances to win better prizes. You can win 8, 15, 100 or 300 coins. Play every day and save up for the new pokemon. Some of you, before the Game Corner came out, in the blog comments mentioned that you would like to buy the shiny versions of the pokemon with the casino coins, I thought it was a great idea but obviously the price for them has to be extreme since shiny pokemon are meant to be something that takes some time to get.

I get a lot of request by email or in the comments about converting Pokedollars to SnD Coins or Casino Coins. Before I can properly answer this question I have to address Pokedollars, right now getting a huge amount of Pokedollars is very easy to do, so providing a way to convert them to SnD Coins or Casino Coins essentially means that you could have an unlimited supply of SnD Coins and Casino Coins. I have decided that I'll be adding Casino coins to the Daily Codes. Instead of getting normal pokemon with breeding moves often you will get Casino coins often and the pokemon will be uncommon. The more you pay for the code the more Casino coins you can get. This will be implemented by this weekend.

Okay so let's talk about this weekend's update. These are the main things I want to get done.

These are for v4.1 which will be out this weekend.

Distribution (0%) - Creating all the different version, sending out the different versions to all it's locations.

I want to increase the level cap up to 50 but I don't know if I will make it so I will do it one level at the time. When that level is done I will post the next one.

Level Cap Increase to 45 (100%) - New Moves (4)

Horn Drill (100%) - Nidoran Male
Fissure (100%) - Diglett
Punishment (100%) - Mankey
Lock-On (100%) - Porygon

Level Cap Increase to 46 (100%) - New Moves (2)

Quiver Dance (100%) - Butterfree
Curse (100%) - Onix

Level Cap Increase to 47 (100%) - New Moves (5)

Hyper Beam (100%) - Gyarados
Leaf Storm (100%) - Victreebel
Wring Out (100%) - Bellsprout
Grudge (Skipped) - Vulpix - There is no PP in the game so this move will be skipped. In the future I might come back and add it.
Guillotine (100%) - Pinsir

The other big thing I want to do is add potions to the game, the first implementation gives you the regular potion for free as a default, eventually you will be able to buy upgrades for the potions. Once you upgrade you will get the updated potion for now on. With potions you will be limited to using 6 potions per level. Once you use 6 you won't be able to use it anymore until you start a new level. 6 should be enough to provide you a chance to beat the more difficult levels. They will work like the pokeball, you can drag it to your tower or drag it to the button at the bottom of the screen. I will also be adding the life bar to the button for each pokemon, so it will help you keep track of the tower's health.

Scyther doing Fissure (He can't learn it, I'm only testing). Notice the life bar in the button, and the potion above the pokeball.

Adding life bars to the tower buttons (100%)
Adding the regular potions to the game (100%) - Drag this to the towers to heal that pokemon for 20 health. Does not work on enemy pokemon.

Like I mentioned before I want to add Casino Coins to the Daily Codes and tweak some of the numbers on that.

Add Casino Coins to Daily Codes (100%) - Casino Coins will become the easiest prize to get on Daily Coins. This is available now!
Tweak the Daily Code prizes percentage to fit in the Casino Coins (100%)

The last thing I will work on is the big bugs that are hitting the game right now. The button pictures of the new pokemon are not showing correctly. (Examples: Eevee evolutions show gyarados, porygon, pinsir, scyther showing up as moltres, and new shinies showing up as Bulbasaur). Another bug is the life bars of your towers, making them behave correctly when you take damage. Also there is a bug when you remove your pokemon before it dies, so I will try to squash that also. Another small bug is pokemon in the Celadon Gym Level are running away after using their powder attacks (poison powder, sleep powder).

The tower's button showing the wrong pokemon (Ex. Flareon showing as Gyarados) (100%)
Tower's Life bar not showing correctly when taking damage (100%)
Removing a Tower before it dies bugs out (100%)
Enemy in Celadon gym turning around after using Sleep Power or Poison Powder (100%)
Fix False Swipe to actually work (100%)
Fix Daily Codes Reset (100%) - This is available now, you will no longer be able to use the code as much as you want on certain occasions.
Allow only members of Team Rocket to play in the game corner (100%) This is available now! This was made because you guys voted it to be this way!
Fixed a bug that was causing your moves not to go on cooldown when you missed (100%)

I was going to add a new challenge level but because I'm starting at the middle of the week I won't be able to fit that in.

We are about half way done with the story mode, 4 more gym battles, the elite 4, and then the final battle against Mewthree!

As always let me know what you think about the game, and about all things going on with Sam & Dan Games.

Selasa, 13 September 2011

Hero Tower Defense Tuesday: Day 5!

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 Tuesday!

Sketch of logo

Go here to read the Day 4 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Alright, it's Tuesday and time for another HTD update! Let's talk how we're going to implement offense and defense into HTD.

As we all know traditional tower defense (TD) games typically revolve around, as the name implies, defending. While this is fun and all it's also a bit limiting. When you start adding RPG elements to this system you begin imagining scenarios where you wish you could also attack. So why not add it? I'll describe some such scenarios to better illustrate what we have in mind.

Okay first let me just give some relief to the TD purists. There WILL be traditional TD levels, just not ALL of them. You'll still have your towers (heros) with your base/candy/etc (thing to defend) and all you'll do is defend against waves of enemies, just like the good ol'times. There will most likely be both versions of this as well. For example in some TDs (like PTD) the enemies have to make it to your candy and then return back with it. In other TDs the enemies simply need to reach your base and cause damage to it. I don't see why we can't just have both.

So having said that I've always thought it was kind of lame to have boss enemies simply be tougher units with maybe 1 or 2 special abilities that do exactly same thing as the other units. With RPG elements at your disposal you can do so much more and RPGs ALWAYS have awesome boss fights, which brings us to attacking.

Bosses are just one example of where we can use offense. Suppose you just finished working through a dungeon (each section would be a level with a TD set up for example) and now you face the boss. In this case he's defending his own thing (phat lootz most likely) and so you'll need to approach and attack him in order to get his treasure.

Some bosses may be stationary while others are mobile. You don't want the boss to start beating your casters to a pulp by either getting close to them or targeting them from a distance. So in order to do that you'll need to move and attack with the right units (melee/tanks) to keep him distracted. Just like how in PTD you can move units to different locations there will also be locations near the boss. Of course this puts you right where you'll take the most damage so you might not be able to stay there the whole time and have to swap different units in and out.

Now since we have both pure defending and pure attacking scenarios there's really no reason you can't have a situation in which you have a mix of both. What if there's a boss with little minions that are attacking you and going for your base/candy/etc at the same time as you're trying to defeat him (hint hint). It doesn't even need to involve a boss really, there's plenty of ways you can have defense and offense going on at the same time from both sides.

So to conclude, levels in HTD will vary from pure defense to pure offense to a mix of both which we think will keep things interesting and allow us to do much more with the game. And to finish it off here's an image showing some side angle frames from an attack animation that Kevin worked on:

Concept sketches and actual art with armor

As always give us your feedback in the comments and let us know what you think!

-Dan

Sabtu, 10 September 2011

Pokemon Tower Defense: v4.0 is out now! Celadon Gym!

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

Bug Report: Eevee Evolutions are showing up as Gyarados, I will fix this on v4.1.

I had a good time making this update, we are still missing the game corner and new daily codes but I will have those out by Monday. For now enjoy the Gym. This time around I didn't want to give you an impossible task so I added some healing for your pokemon every so often thanks to a special friend and also some assistance from your friend Joey.

I've never really talked about him here but my brother, Joel, makes films and he made a fan video for Pokemon Tower Defense, it came out great so check it out by clicking on the picture below and tell him what you think on youtube. Like the video, subscribe to his channel, check out his blog to check out what other things he is working on in the future.

Pokemon TD Fan Film

What's new in v4.0

New Gym Level - Celadon City Gym
Game Corner Section in the Pokemon Center
New Daily Code Prizes (Pushed to v4.1)
New Mystery Gift Avatar - Thanks Kimmy Lube!
New Pokemon (4) - Porygon, Scyther, Pinsir, Dratini (You can get these from the Game Corner in the Pokemon Center)
New Pokemon Evolutions (1) - Dragonair (Level cap is not high enough for Dragonite)
New Moves (10)

Conversion - Porygon
Conversion 2 - Porygo
Signal Beam - Porygon
False Swipe - Scyther
Vacuum Wave - Scyther
Razor Wind - Scyther
X-Scissor - Scyther/Pinsir
ViceGrip - Pinsir
Brick Break - Pinsir
Dragon Tail - Dratini
Dragon Rush - Dratini

New TMs

False Swip
Aerial Ace
Gyro Bal

Added the words "Hacked Version" on the main screen of the hacked version of the game - Big red text will let you know that you are playing the hacked version.
Fixing types affecting the wrong moves - I thought I had fixed it but I made a mistake in my code, this now works correctly.
Made Daily Code Reset at the same time every day - This is available now! Instead of the code's 24 hour timer triggering when you get the code, it now resets at the same time everyday so no matter when you use the code you won't lose time. A lot of you requested this so here it is :)
Fix typo on Meditate attack info - The duration text is now 1800 as intended.
Fixed Vaporeon Graphic - Thanks Haplo!

Where can I play?

Play here on the blog by clicking on the "Play PTD!" tab.
Download the EXE, SWF or APK by clicking on the "Game Downloads Link" tab.
PlayTowerDefenseGame (Not yet updated)
FreeWorldGroup (Updated to v4.0)
Gamerfish (Updated to v4.0)
OneMoreLevel (Not yet updated)
NewGrounds (Updated to v4.0)
MiniJuegos (Not yet updated)

I hope you guys enjoy the level, I took a lot of the feedback you guys gave me. A lot of you asked for spots that only allow one type to be on it so I added those. A lot of you asked for a gym with only it's own type of pokemon so I did that. Many of you also asked for Joey to help you in levels again so I did that also.

The next update I will make the gym level into a challenge level, removing some of the help that you get and making your enemy stronger.

I'll be posting a new progress list on Monday, for now let me know what you think.

Hero Tower Defense Tuesday: Day 4!

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 Tuesday!

Sketch of logo

Go here to read the Day 3 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Today we're going to touch on some ideas we have for HTD and where we hope to take it.

So over the years Sam and I have played many games from all different genres. While most games generally share similar ideas overall, every once in awhile you'll experience something that sticks with you because of how awesome it was. It might be a quest with a great story, maybe an intense boss encounter, perhaps even just a spe

cific environment, dungeon, or town that left you feeling like you were actually there. Sometimes it's certain characters and their personalities, etc. It could even just be a cool item, ability, or spell. Whatever it may be it leaves you with a great memory and sometimes you wish you could experience it again.

Sam and I have a lot of these memories and we think it would be cool to be able to relive some of them again, but this time in HTD. This means you might notice some of the content we create is greatly influenced by something else you might be familiar with. While we don't want to copy these things exactly, for several reasons, we would like to look at the general concept of something, add some S&D flavor, and create something that is both new and nostalgic.

We stopped to think though, why stop at just games? Some of our memories are from books or movies too, so why not add them into the mix? Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Also, Sam and I are only two people, we haven't played, read, or seen everything. So why not ask our fans! What are your favorite memories? Let's hear about them in the comments. Of course, anything we put into HTD has to be relevant. You're not going to see a bunch of stuff that doesn't really fit just so we can rereate the memory. Sorry Star Wars fans, I'm not sure a Death Star would fit into the HTD world exactly.. unless maybe you have space gnomes or something. :P

As for those of you who prefer purely original content, rest assured. We'll have plenty of original content. We have a lot of our own ideas and hopefully we can create some new experiences that will leave a lasting impression for all to remember!

On a final note, while I'd love to give you some examples of what we have in mind I don't want to spoil anything. I will, however, give you this little teaser of the level Kevin is currently working on. Let's see what you think it might be in the comments. :)

Level Teaser

Don't forget to leave any feedback you might have for us, it's always welcomed! Sam will probably add some more later as well.