TCD - Tablet Castle Defense

Let's make a prototype

Definitions:

• Main Wall - A wall that contains your Lord. Concentric rings count. Small towers not connected to any walls that contain your Lord do not count.
• Ancillary Wall - A wall that does not contain your Lord. Any non-Main Wall. Enemies generally will ignore these except for pathfinding purposes.

Large scale tunable parameters:

• Map size (tilesXtiles)
• Quantity of Rocks on map
• Quantity of Trees on map
• Stone resource gained from harvesting a Rock
• Wood resource gained from harvesting a Tree
• Time to harvest a Tree. Time to harvest a Rock.
• Cost for a wall in Rock.
• Cost for manpower on top of wall in Tree.
• Starting Stone resources
• Starting Wood resources

• LadderSpeedMultiplier

How to play:

• Draw walls with stylus when applied to areas not enclosed by castle or covered with wall. Walls are placed in 1x1 tiles at a time. You cannot place a wall atop an enemy.
• Draw units with stylus when applied to areas of wall without units.
• (future) Upgrade a unit when tapped on
• (future) Activate a building
• Tap on a ladder with no enemies on it to destroy it
• Tap on any enemy to make units in range attack it instead of anything else in their range (after killing it, they will go back to whatever they would normally attack) This clicked on enemy needs a target reticle on it to show it is your current target. You can only have one target at a time.
• Tap a Rock or Tree to start harvesting resources from it.
• Each time an enemy reaches your Lord, it does one damage to your Lord and then dies. 10 damage and your Lord is dead. You lose. Your Lord begins on a 3x3 section of wall with four 1x1 wall stubs jutting out from it (with stonethrowers)

Automated stuff player doesn't need to think about:

• Defensive units that have targets within range will attack those targets, preferring targets that are closer to targets.

Enemies:

• Fodder - These guys run up to a main wall looking for a way in. They will randomly either walk to the left or right when they hit a wall until they find a way to your Lord. They will use ladders or holes in the wall if they come to one.

• Ladder guys - These guys go towards the nearest main wall section without a ladder on it. When they get there, they spend (time to finish ability) time putting up a ladder. Once the ladder is up, they climb the ladder at LadderspeedMultiplier*MovementSpeed. Consider the ladder one tile space for this purpose.

• Sappers - These guys go towards the nearest main wall section without a ladder on it. When they get there, they spend (time to finish ability) time detonating the wall. When the wall is detonated, they die. The wall is now gone but can be built again.
• Once any unit reaches the top of your wall, he will attack any units between him and the Lord. He will otherwise attempt to get to the Lord.
• Tunable enemy parameters
  • size, movement speed, HP, armor, time to finish ability, rate of fire, damage, desirability as target

Defenses:

• Stonethrowers - These guys are what you get when you click on a wall space that can only fit a 1x1 character.
• Archers - These guys are what you get when you click on a wall space that can only fit a 2x1 character.
• Tunable defender parameters
  • size, HP, armor, rate of fire, damage, desirability as target

Ideas for expansion

== Attackers: ==

• Ladder guys - These guys bring ladders to your walls. When a ladder is empty of enemies, you can click it to destroy it.
• Tower guys - These are tougher than ladder guys because they have shelter. You need catapults to destroy these.
• Battering ram guys
• Catapult guys
• Sappers

== Defenses: ==

• 1x1 wall (blank on either side) = Stone throwers
• 2x1 wall (blank on either side) = Archer wall
• 3x3 wall (blank on either side) = Ballista wall
• 2x2 empty space surrounded by wall = Barracks (generates guards)
• 3x3 empty space surrounded by wall = Armory (stronger weaponry)
• 4x4 empty space surrounded by wall = Stable (send out guards as cavalry)
• 5x5 empty space surrounded by wall = Farm (extra health)
• 4x4 wall = Catapult
• Gates
• 2x2 wall surrounded by space = Boiling Oil

== Resources: ==

• Stone tiles
• Trees

== Specs: ==

• Screen Resolution: We should be aiming to work with resolutions from 640x480 up to 1280x1024/1366x768. This may mean two resolutions of art.

Discussion

Paw notes that we are #4 on google's search for "Tablet Games".

Paw purrs, "So I was thinking... we should make some simple games that make good use of tablet tech and put them up on STG for sale."

Paw purrs, "Like some puzzle games."

Paw purrs, "We could even get some extra mileage out of our tech..."

Paw purrs, "The CQ tool is essentially a tile drawing tool."

Paw purrs, "So maybe we could make a castle defense game where you draw the walls, and do gestures for fixtures, like drawing a quick circle will build a tower with a catapult, and drawing a quick square makes a ballista."

says Cal, "Biggest problem I'm having is getting libraries built for strict license compliance."

Paw purrs, "What about for XP as opposed to PPC? Tablet PCs are XP or Vista."

says Cal, "desktop I should be good."

Paw purrs, "Might want to also compile it for PPC so you can test the drawing feel."

Paw shrugs.

Akili has reconnected.

says Cal, "I'll need to go through and make sure we have source-binary matches for a couple libraries."

Paw purrs, "So here's how I figure we get some extra mileage from the tech."

Cal waves.

Paw purrs, "Howdy."

Akili rumbles lightly, "G'morning."

Paw purrs, "The castle wall drawing game will have to have algorithmic tile placement... so when you place a wall section, you check the adjacent 8 cells to see if you need to modify them, then place the tile based on what surrounding 8 tiles are filled."

Paw purrs, "And maybe different wall configurations would automatically generate certain kinds of defenses."

Paw purrs, "You get a 2x4 section of wall, and it fills with archers."

The hushed stillness falls across the hot training ground.

Paw purrs, "You build a 3x3 section of wall and you get some stone throwers."

Paw purrs, "Or something."

Paw purrs, "Anyway, we could reuse the tech for CQ's editor to make it easier to draw maps."

says Cal, "similar to tower defense, but different."

Paw nods, "Yeah, a rather unique style of Tower Defense."

Paw purrs, "You'd probably have the enemies trying to breach your walls."

Paw purrs, "So different kinds of enemies could include guys with ladders, catapults, sappers, battering rams, etc."

says Cal, "you place the walls and ramparts, troops fill in."

Paw purrs, "Right."

Paw purrs, "You'd probably want ... like a minimap at the bottom. So you can quickly look around the battlefield to see what's coming."

Paw purrs, "And as you get farther in the game, your castle may not fit on the screen without scrolling."

Cal muses, "a sloping earth face repels siege towers and sappers, but makes it easier for other enemy troops to climb the face of the wall."

Paw purrs, "We already have a bunch of art we can use from CQ for the walls and stuff. I'll probably have to make some modifications."

says Cal, "catapult emplacement behind the wall can attack distant forces, but doesn't do so well against moving targets or anything too close."

Paw purrs, "Which you'd want the boiling oil for stuff near your wall."

Paw purrs, "Cool. I'm stoked."

Paw asks, "Think we could pull this off in maybe a couple of months?"

says Cal, "Of course the castle must have a front gate, from which calvary charges can emerge."

Paw purrs, "Right."

says Cal, "for desktop primary? I think I can have this and dPlenty in that time frame."

Paw purrs, "Hadn't thought of that. And wherever a gate is, that's where the battering ram folks go."

says Cal, "Gate can have defenses behind, like holes to pour hot oil, arrow slots, a second gate."

Paw asks, "Awesome. I'll see about getting you some art to use. For now... we can use the town tiles map for CQ. See if you can get a nice random foresty area generator done?"

Cal will need a design doc.

Paw nods, "Alrighty. I will get cracking on that."

says Cal, "Based on your neat tree tiles? can do."

Paw purrs, "So I think part of the game will be using up stuff on the map. Like trees and rocky bits."

Paw purrs, "Tapping those areas to 'mine' them."

says Cal, "hm, forest hit by catapult takes damage. hit by lighter weapons trees survive."

Paw purrs, "Getting you resources to build your castle."

Paw purrs, "Heh, cool."

says Cal, "elements from warcraft 1,2 or the like."

Paw purrs, "Well, we would want to keep it as simple as possible."

Paw purrs, "So no sending out dudes to mine it. You just tap on it."

says Cal, "but light forges can move through forest, remaining partly hidden."

Paw purrs, "And you get a little marker on it showing that you're mining it. Then eventually the tiles would vanish when you're done mining."

- s/forges/forces/

Paw purrs, "Totally. So you want to clear out forest next to your castle. Otherwise your archers have a harder time hitting incoming enemies"

says Cal, "but the enemy might capture/destroy your harvesting operation."

says Cal, "So, no workers running around, no training of forces, but your forces need an emplacement to fight from."

Paw purrs, "Right. You build an emplacement, and it automatically spawns forces for you."

Cal puzzles, "figured how we're going to be selling software?"

Paw purrs, "Suitable for the emplacement."

The warm calm settles over the grass.

Paw purrs, "We can do mailed CDs or downloads. I like downloads."

Paw purrs, "I don't really want to focus too much on stopping piracy. Just put up rudimentary defenses so they can't just download the game and start playing super easily."

says Cal, "with CDs we'd handle license requirements by putting library source on the CD. for downloads making the library source a separate download is likely prefered."

Paw asks, "Maybe a license key based on an email address?"

Paw purrs, "We send the key to the email address."

says Cal, "Show me a practical anti-piracy measure that isn't a pain and I'll use it."

Cal puzzles, "license keys such that any valid key works for any copy?"

Paw purrs, "What about the key/email address thing? I'd call that a simple non-annnoying method."

Paw purrs, "Yeah."

says Cal, "Enter the key once on first run and it saves the key."

Paw purrs, "Because if we key it to the copy, there's nothing to keep them from redistributing the key + install."

says Cal, "should it get a bad key it asks again."

Paw purrs, "So no reason to have different installs for each key."

Paw purrs, "Right. And probably provides a link to purchase a key"

says Cal, "so I need to work out a system where we can easily generate keys, but random keys won't work."

Paw purrs, "Heck, we could just put the install up on the site as demoware. Unlock the full game with a key."

Paw purrs, "One hour of play free, after that, purchase the game."

says Cal, "limited version playable without key."

Paw purrs, "Right... well the key would be tied to the email. You have to enter the email + key."

says Cal, "Ah, key generated from the email, as a hash function."

Paw purrs, "so the key is really some sort of encrypted form of the email. And if they don't match, then ... yeah."

Paw purrs, "Probably should make sure it is NOT case-sensitive. Just in case."

says Cal, "right, easy enough."

Paw purrs, "Makes it slightly less secure, but close enough."

says Cal, "what if a customer mis-enters their email when buying? wrong key sent to wrong address."

Paw purrs, "..."

Paw purrs, "PEBKAC"

says Cal, "This computer stuff would be much easier if we could ignore users."

Paw asks, "Well... jeez. What if they give us the wrong shipping address?"

Paw asks, "When ordering Dungeon Escape!, am I supposed to send out another copy?"

Paw purrumbles, "Customer Service says yes. Annoyed Salesperson says gah!"

says Cal, "Right. need to make very clear that we need a valid email."

says Cal, "I've seen a lot of sites that make you enter your email twice."

says Cal, "probably want to include the product code in making the key, so the same key doesn't work for out entire software line."

The warm stillness falls on the plants.

Paw purrs, "Right. Or use a different hash for each software. But yeah, having a special added code for each product would help."

Paw purrs, "We could even assume that the base password is always 64 characters long, then have a 64 character code that their email is superimposed onto before generating the code."

says Cal, "truncating the email if too long."

Paw purrs, "Maybe do 32 characters, where the first 24 could be overlaid with their email... Don't want them to do a 32 character email that works for every product. =D"

Paw purrs, "Right, truncate."

Cal considers using the standard crypt function.

Cal goes Away From Keyboard. (AFK)

Paw purrs, "Yeah, in less than 2 days, we got 6 google hits from 'Tablet Games'"

Paw purrs, "We really need to get a few cheap games designed for tablet pcs up there."