With Fluster finished and submitted into several contests I’ve been thinking about what to work on for my next project. I’ve got several ideas for games but before I jump into a larger project I thought I’d revisit Null Op, a game I made over a weekend a little while ago. Today I wanted to share some of the ideas I have and get some feedback from you guys!
The original prototype only had support for two weapons, a mine and a basic turret. This time around I wanted to expand on that idea by implementing two more weapons. My current idea was to add a laser beam which would of course fire a massive laser beam which would obliterate enemies in a single line. My second weapon idea was a beefier version of the turret which would have more health, fire more bullets, and be more powerful — but if someone has a better idea for a more interesting weapon let me know!
Null Op Mock-up
In addition to expanding on the number of weapons the player can choose from I also wanted to explore some new ways to make the game challenging. One idea I had was to have the red infected area expand over time. I think it might work like so:
- If a square has 2 or more infected neighbors it’s a candidate for infection
- When infected any buildings on that square are inactive
- The player can disinfect squares for some amount of money
- Once disinfected any inactive buildings are operational again
Naturally, if the virus can spread on it’s own power why not have an enemy type which can infect squares, too? This enemy might explode on impact with a building and infect the current square. In addition to this new enemy type I thought it would be interesting to explore some alternatives to A* path finding for the viruses. Specifically, I came across some steering algorithms which might lead to interesting behavior. For instance, some viruses could be designated as “leaders” with the rest set as followers. I think it could be very entertaining to see what happens when a leader is destroyed by your turrets!
Finally, I’ve been thinking about level design. Should there only be a single level which just gets progressively harder as more and more waves are unleashed? Or should I have a more standard setup with some number of levels you progress through? If the later option is picked what makes each level different and interesting? And what controls the flow between levels? I’d love to hear any ideas you might have!
Anyway, thanks for listening and I look forward to your thoughts. In the meantime I’ll get to work porting things over to Flash and getting the core of the game up and running!
Hello, my name is Alex Schearer. I grew up in New York and currently live in Seattle.
3 Comments
Alex, if you want to create a zerg-like creep system, then go ahead and give the player creep towers! Towers that will prevent red tiles from spreading within a 3-tile radius of them (not allowing diagonal movement, of course), and maybe if you level it up it’ll increase the power of your towers.
The other two weapons should offer variety, and value–you made them a lot more expensive, so they better do something special. The laser probably has its place, but maybe a “shield” tower would be good, one which projects a circle in whose radius all entering creeps are killed, and goes down temporarily after too many have come through (to give the creeps a chance to take it down)?
Hey JJ, I like your ideas. Someone else also suggested to me towers which just act as barriers so maybe they could serve a dual purpose? My only concern now, though, is that the game will have more than 4 types of towers meaning that I’ll have to create a more sophisticated interface for the player. Or perhaps the solution is to have 3 weapon types and 1 defense type. I think a second problem would be explaining all of this to the player through game play but maybe an in-game tutorial would address that.
When it comes to TD games, the number of diverse towers tends to be a feature and not a constraint, so I would definitely be in favor of more kinds of towers, but as it stands I think turret, creep (does damage over time I guess), laser, shield would be a good combination. Given the lack of firepower from most towers, making their protection a little less vital, you could also think about things like turret, pulse (a shield that sends pulses instead of a continuous barrier), power/creep, and laser. I’m a little surprised you haven’t decided to make missile towers, as well as, say, long-range explosion towers which lock and trigger radius explosions in the distance.