Pokemon Tower Defense v5.8.1 release! Story level making process, and Weekly Progress!

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

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


Hey guys! V5.8.1 of Pokemon Tower Defense is officially released! Go get your Ponyta and swf, exe, and apk files! I didn't have enough time for the co-op level last week so this week I will see to it. I hope those of you who are far enough enjoyed the Zapdos fight, you can expect similar type of battles for the other birds when we get to them. This week we will continue the story along with some other things.

So to change it up a bit I wanted to talk about what the thought process was for creating the Zapdos fight, and the general process of coming up with a new level for each week.

Step 1: What's going to happen next? - So I have an idea in my head of what the story is going to end like, almost like some bullet points, but the actual details I come up with each week. In this case the gang had just finished spending some time at the Safari Zone, kinda relaxing and just capturing new pokemon. So I thought it was time to make something exciting happen in the story. Your characters had not been to the cycling road so I thought there needed to be a reason to go there. Originally I thought that Gary would show up and tell you that you needed to go to Professor Oak to learn Surf but I didn't want to go to Viridian City again yet since that will be the last gym. I also thought of the possibility of not meeting Gary but another friend on the Cycling Road but I thought I was running out of time and I needed to deal with Gary and the birds in order to move on. Plus I thought the idea of the next level being Gary and the legendary bird would excite the players (you guys). As far as what happens in the level. I always like to make fun of Joey, and just show that our gang still has fun along the way. Also a good reason to travel to the Cycling Road was that they hadn't gone there yet as Joey mentions. Since Gary was running away from the birds I wanted to see him cornered and you show up to save the day! Also making this level with Gary and Zapdos facing off I thought of something interesting for the story and I left some small hints of it in the scene.

Step 2: Level Design - Usually on Monday I will think of the general theme of the next level. Last week was Gary and Zapdos. I knew I wanted to make the fight with the legendary birds.... errr legendary. So I thought okay I want this fight to just be you and Zapdos but Gary is there so he needs something to do. I put that aside for a moment and thought that Zapdos is electric so I want him to be sending out attacks very often and that they should affect your whole group. So since Zapdos will be doing a lot of damage to your party Gary would be perfect to heal your pokemon, similar to Celebi. But I wanted to add more work to the healing, so unlike Celebi you have to actually take your pokemon away from battle to get healed. A player a long time ago suggested an idea to have nurse joy on the side line and you sent your pokemon there to be healed. This was a variation of that idea. Now back to Zapdos. First I thought okay Ground is immune to electric attacks so I would use Drill peck to counter that, which also brought the idea of he being able to target anybody in the field regardless of their position. But I read that flying doesn't do a lot of damage to ground and I didn't want everybody to have to get ground pokemon to beat the level. So I made all damage be a set amount. Also I thought simply removing your units from the field to prevent damage was overplayed and would remove the need to use Gary so I added way for Zapdos to wait for your units to be ready which introduced some bugs (when your party dies the level doesn't end since Zapdos is waiting for a target).

Step 3: Implementation, Balance and Testing (Making it happen!) - This part is the last part to happen, once I have my ideas I set out to animate the scenes make the new characters and create the new moves for the level. In this case most of the characters were done, I just had to make Gary into a Tower and create the new moves for Gary and Zapdos. The new moves can sometimes create technical difficulties. I can spend a good amount of hours bug fixing or just balancing the moves so they do enough damage. Once the bugs are cleared I create a team of pokemon that will be the best to beat the level. In this case I made a team of 6 level 90 Rhydon with Stone edge, I didn't buff them but I thought it would give me a good idea of what kind of damage the players would be able to put out. I played it until it took at least 6 waves to beat him while moving the pokemon around to get healed etc and moving them around to always be attacking Zapdos. After that I tweaked with Zapdos stats a bit to make it just right.

So I hope you guys enjoy seeing what it takes to make the level happen. Now on to the progress list! (Note that Hero Tower Defense Progress will stay in the HTD post from last week)

Weekly PTD progress:

PTD FirstLook!

New Story Level (100%) - Route 19 Training Level

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

Zapdos boss battle co-op level (100%) - This will be for Monday! Exclusively on PlayTowerDefenseGames.com
New TM (100%)

•  Icy Wind (100%)
• Dive (100%)
• Hail (100%)

New Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - Seel! This will be for Monday!

• New Moves (100%) 
• Icy Wind (100%)
• Dive (100%)
• Hail (100%)
• Add Graphic (100%)
• Add Shiny Graphic (100%)
• Add Shadow Graphic (100%)
• Add Stats to Game (100%)
• Implement TM/Relearn moves (100%)
• Implement in Adoption (Battle Ready and Shiny) (100%)
• Implement Shadow in Game Corner (100%)
• Implement in Trading Center (100%)
• Implement in Save Code (100%)

Decide who will I trade my Shiny Mew (100%) - Congrats to xlawrunes, he caught my eye with his all shiny all psychic team of Psyduck, Jynx, Starmie, Alakazam, Exeggutor, Venomoth! This was a hard choice!
Choose a new pokemon to trade for next week - my account is samO (100%) - I'm putting up a big number of shiny and shadow pokemon that I have collect during my journeys! Next week I will trade every one of them, if you see something you like send me an offer!
Add new moves to the Pokemon Center's Move List (100%)
Finish implementing design to trading pages (0%) - Forgot some >.<
Bug Fixes (100%)

• Make Route 17 end if your party all faints (100%)
• Only one weather effect can be active at a time (100%)

Thanks guys for the continued support, I have a couple of things in the works that I will talk more about next week. I will keep updating this list as the week goes on and....As always let me know what you think!

Weekly Progress and v4.5.1 release

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

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

What's new in v4.5.1

Level Cap up to 60 - Last level increase until the next chapter!
Fast-Forwarding x3 and x4 - Speed up even more!
New Mystery Gift Pokemon Krabby -Get your own cute little krabby!
12 new moves added to the game - For Krabby and pokemon going up to 60.
New Pokemon Evolutions (1) - Kingler.
Fixes:

• Added hints on how to get Flash to the Rock Tunnel level
• Fix an issue with not being able to put Gastly on the field after catching it
• Fixed Perish Song
• Fixed Curse
• Fixed Dragon Tail makes the target turn around before hitting them
• Earthquake's attack info will now include that it will hit your own towers
• Adding more space on Mt. Moon 2 and Cerulean Gym so that you can see pokemon coming before attacking
• Adding Speed x3 and x4
• Using a Shiny Golem and Steamroller, the regular golem graphic shows up
• Fixed Dragonite not learning Wing Attack at 55
• Fixed Lick Attack's text color being the wrong one
• Fixed Shiny Sprites for Ivysaur, Magnemite, Venusaur, Electrode
• Fixed pokemon evolving will say Bulbasaur evolved into Ivysaur
• Added Scope to inventory list in the Pokemon Center
• If a pokemon faints while you are dragging it, it will now not be able to be placed on the field
• Gave Curse a different effect if a ghost pokemon uses i
• Fixed the move description for Outrage, the cooldown is off
• You guys voted! Speed will slow down to x1 when a shiny or legendary popup shows up.
• Fixed bug that the speed text would not change back to x1 when a shiny shows up.
  
• Security Fixes to prevent shiny hacking.

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

Well that was a long list! How are you guys? It's been a week since I've posted something here.I traded my Mew yesterday and I put up an Entei up for trade this week. My trade account name is samO so give me an offer. I can pretty much get any pokemon in the game instantly so don't ask for what I want specifically just think about making me a unique offer.

My brother is still hard at work on the next PTD video episode two. Check out his blog and show him your support for the videos. Aperture Eye Films.

Dan is also hard at work on the next Ninja-ja Update. Not sure when he will be done but he is working at it. He is also working on the game design for Hero Tower Defense and it's coming along great. I've been working more and more on HTD and I'm very excited to finally reach a point that we can finally let you guys play.

In a more personal level, I've decided to focus more on College and on creating games so I ended up resigning my job. It was kinda crazy how it all happened but now the dust is settled and I'm ready to move forward.

Speaking of moving forward I have totally failed on even starting the Avatar Chat, that 0% is completely true. To get it done I have to dedicate the whole week to it. So again this week we will take it a bit slow, yet providing you with new things to do. I want to implement a new feature but I'm not sure which of the two I will implement. Help decide which one, but before you vote read the descriptions below.

Option 1:
Held Items - Your pokemon will be able to hold on to different items like the everstone, charcoal, etc. Items will be found in the wild when you defeat a pokemon, in the daily code, the game corner, and by using snd coins to get them.

Option 2: Winner!
Pokemon Abilities - Each pokemon will have their passive abilities like in the game, pokemon might randomly be assigned one of their abilities when you capture it. There will also be some unique abilities pokemon offered in the daily code, the game corner and by using snd coins to get them.

So think about which of these you like to see first (The "loser" will be added in a later date to the game) and vote today!

Okay so here is the list so far!

v4.6 is now out in the blog, the official release along with the Goldeen Mystery Gift will be available by Monday.

Avatar Chat (100%) - Done! Go check it out! *points at new tab on the blog
Pokedex Remembering what you catch even if you release or trade away (100%) - You must first save your game on v4.6 for this to take effect.
New Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - This pokemon is shiny, bright, expensive and heavy! Or is that just his name...it's Goldeen!

• Graphics (100%)
• Shiny Graphic (100%)
• Add this pokemon's stats into the game (100%)
• New Moves (2) (100%)
• Waterfall (100%)
• Soak (100%)

New Evolution (100%)

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

New Feature (100%) - Abilities - More abilities will be added each week. The reason for this is things like evasion and accuracy attacks are not properly implemented yet and some of the abilities are related to these stats. So I need to add those before I add those abilities.

• Added Abilities for the starter pokemon (100%)
• Overgrow - Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venusaur - Increased damage by x1.5 on Grass attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Green when this ability is activated.
• Blaze - Charmander,Charmeleon, Charizard - Increased damage by x1.5 on Fire attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Orange when this ability is activated.
• Torrent - Squirtle, Wartortle, Blastoise - Increased damage by x1.5 on Water attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Blue when this ability is activated.

Trading Center - trades will last a max of 10 days before being taken down (100%) - Logging into the trading center will refresh the days left of your trades back to 10 days.
Trading Center - Sort the pokemon when you are offering a trade by number (100%)
The move Spark now correctly shows the right attack color when attacking (100%) 
Slow down speed to x1 when an achievement shiny pokemon shows up (100%)

Weekly Questions from the Forums!


1. Hypermania/Samzy: Do you plan to be FINISHED with the game after Mewthree? Will there be any post-game things to do, so after the main story is completed?

Sam: The main story will be finished, things to do after are playing multiplayer and trying to catch them all.


2. mudemude12: Will more legends from other regions help in the game? (e.g. Celebi, Entei, Raikou, Suicune)

Sam: Since Generation 1 has a limited amount of legendaries, I will introduce some from other generations.

3. JohtoTrainer: Why do you recolor the walking sprites with shiny colors from battle sprites instead of simply using the shiny walking sprites?
Sam: When I first looking for the sprite I didn't find the shiny ones so I had a friend (Haplo) create them. For a possible sequel I will just grab them from there :D

4. JohtoTrainer: Have you considered adding, in some way, Pokemon with event-only moves? (e.g. Surfing Pikachu and Flying Pikachu)
Sam: Yeah, I do think about that, it's more about finding a good timing for it.

5. NinjaGod: Can we possibly get some type of ignore function for the trade center? (I get a lot of spam/lowball requests from the same users and I'd like to be able to auto ignore them.)
Sam: Yes! When will it happen I don't know yet.

6. Marth: When we beat the game will there be a challenge mode where you implement yourself in to the game as the game creator and send every pokemon out one by one shiny and non-shiny until you have sent out every pokemon in shiny and non shiny form and then give us a special avatar? o.o to show we beat the game and the really hard challenge mode

Sam: Sounds interesting, I might do something like that after the game is done.

7. ninja_trainer: Are you going to make challenge mode versions of every gym?

Sam: Not necessarily, but when the story is over I might go back and add more challenge levels.

8. ninja_trainer: Are you going to use some of the Fan-made levels in the game as story levels?
Sam: Probably not, most fan made suggestions are for challenge levels. I enjoy making the story levels myself :)
9. Ace: If, by any chance, Nintendo takes a sudden liking to PTD and would give you tons of dollars to buy it off of you, would you accept and why?
Sam: I think I would accept, one because it's their property and two because they have a lot more resources than me and the game can be a lot more polished and appear on the DS.
10. NinjaGod: Will there be mini-games in PTD for various prizes? (e.g. Duck Hunt -> Pidgey Hunt)
Sam: Sure, this is more about finding the time to create the mini games. There is a lot to be done in the game before I can think about adding mini games.

11. yamamitai: Will we have another chance to catch the weekly code only Pokemon like regular Staryu and Tentacool?
Sam: Yea! Once we get to the spots where they show up in the game or when you get a better rod you will be able to catch them like any other pokemon.

12. gogogogo99: Will you add more things to buy at the game corner?

Sam: Yes! Held items and pokemon with different abilities will show up in the game corner.

13: aleony: Will you ever do special holiday events and give out a special pokemon for that reason?

 Sam: Yes, I think people enjoy things like that :)

14: Crazymerio: If this company ever expands, will you consider hiring another programer in order to decrease the work load and get more done in a week, or however long you plan on programming something? If this company does get larger, do you still plan on trying to listen to your fans to the best of your ability?

Sam: Programmers are really hard to hire because it's hard to really measure how skilled they are. The ideal candidate is somebody who has made a game in flash before in Action Script 3 and that their game is popular and played by many people. Also it is hard because PTD has tens of thousands lines of code so just hiring a programmer and expecting them to start working right away is not realistic. It would take months before they could work on it without much hand holding. But having said that we are always in the look out for talent and plan to expand more in the future. Also we would always try to listen to feedback and make the creation of our games be something kind of like a journey between us the developers and you the fans :)
As I get more done I will add more to the list, as always let me know what you think!

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

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! 


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.