SnD Games

The End... Until we meet again!

2021-03-24T11:53:00.002-04:00

PTD Servers Shutting Down

The end is here.. PTD servers will be shutting down in the next few days and with that PTD (1/2/3) logging in/saving will no longer work.

The reality is that with Flash being disabled on most computers the small player base that was left was cut dramatically and so it cost more to keep the servers running than the game generates via ads/sales.

Another reality is that my own reality and the indie game environment has evolved throughout these years.

When I started PTD, I was a college dropout living in my parent's house. I had a girlfriend and I worked in a warehouse and while things were going okay, I longed to do more with my life to make something that many people would really like and that I could be proud of.

Along the way I meet Dan and we wanted to make games together.. that didn't really work out and we got burnt out after our first release (a game called eTheater). After that I still wanted to make games so I made a small mobile game and then I did PTD. I released it on the Android store (which was a lot smaller and less restrictions) and the game was a overnight hit.

I got kicked out of the Android store but PTD found life in the Web, as Flash game portals were a big thing at the time. I managed to quit my job and spend full time working on PTD and other games.

Along the way I tried to make many original games but never quite found success in that and so I kept coming back to PTD, making PTD2.

While all this was happening, the revenue of flash games was dropping dramatically and each year the game would make about half of what it did the year before. This forced me to get back into the corporate world and get an office job as a Software Developer. (Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE programming so having an office job is something I did enjoy and still do.)

So as the revenue in my games was going down, my success in my Developer career was going up and up.

I got married, some years later I had my son Caleb, I've gotten older and with that the need to create something that people would like and I could be proud of has been fulfilled.

I now need to focus on my family and my career which leave little to no time for making games.

On the subject of indie games I believe the quality of indie has risen a lot! What players expect for games to provide as far as graphics, music, story, features and gameplay is very challenging to create without a robust budget and team. While I can program as good as any of them out there (imo), I do fall short in all these other areas. I digress.

I'm glad we went on this journey together so... until we meet again! And as always.. let me know what you think!

P.S. I worked on one last game that I will release here shortly, a short time travel puzzle game that I hope you all can enjoy as my last present!

Cosmoids TD Prototype finished! Try it out!

2019-12-30T21:28:00.002-05:00

We did it! Prototype out now!

I'm very excited to present to you the Cosmoids TD prototype, Marie (our artist) and I have been hard at work to bring this prototype to you.

Prototype Normal Level

I do want to say that the purpose of this prototype is to give you a taste of what the gameplay and graphics will be like in this game. The levels are really short and in the final games levels will last a bit longer. Also missing from the prototype are item drops, experience gains and leveling up, also recruiting (the equivalent of capturing pokemon in ptd) is also missing from the prototype. Those are things that I will be adding going forward.

So with that out of the way I hope you enjoy this look below and please please please tell me what you think. The next steps will be taking this prototype to kickstarter and try to fund the game as well as funding adding even more cosmoids (right now we are set for 15 unique cosmoids but we would like to add many more!)

You can play it below or go to this link to play it in full screen https://simmer.io/@samSndGames/cosmoids-td-prototype

Instructions:

Drag your cosmoids to any position across the 3 lanes (those facing right)
Press on Special abilities to use them (on the lower right side)

Some require you to select an enemy or ally after pressing

Press on unselected basic ability to change it

For example Buffaflow has a healing spell ability you can switch to.

Meet the Cosmoids: Vol 4 Fire Koala Blitzupial

2019-11-30T10:36:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the 4th installment of Meet the Cosmoids!

Sorry about the delay, I've been working very hard on the game as well as handling my life responsibilities. Sometimes I choose to work on the game rather than work on the blog as I think this will be more beneficial in the long run. Do you agree? let me know! Anyways on to the show! I'm very excited about this next Cosmoids, he is the great fire Koala Blitzupial!

Blitzupial is angry.. you won't like him when he is angry!

"Content with just spending his days eating and sleeping without a care in the world. However due to the recent drought and fires the majority his food supply has been lost. Filled with anger over his lost, Blitzupial now takes his stand against those responsible."

Blitzupial is a Fire Cosmoid, his main role is Damage and his secondary role is Tank. Marie and I had a lot of fun animating this character, he is very serious about his cause but since he has been mostly inactive and eating a lot his body doesn't react like he is used to as you can see in the animation below he slightly loses his balance when doing his basic attacks.

One of his Special abilities is a spinning kick that will damage and stun nearby enemy units, this ability will be useful when tanking to stop enemies from attacking and moving for a few precious seconds.

He will also be one of the starters you can pick at the beginning of the game. The other two starters will be Chameleaf and Buffaflow! It is a good balance, if you want a tank character you can get Blitzupial, if you want more utility and range spell damage you can get Chameleaf, and if you want healing and sturdy physical damage you can choose Buffaflow. Who will you choose?

Speaking of the game.. I know you have been waiting to check it out, my plan is to release a tiny alpha prototype with a easy and a hard level. It will give you a taste of what the game will be like. This will be out before the end of the year.

As always let me know what you think and which starter will you choose!
-Sam

Meet the Cosmoids: Vol 3 Fire Hyena

2019-09-21T12:31:00.002-04:00

Welcome to another installment of Meet the Cosmoids!

I'm sorry about the delay on this one, my goal would be to do one of these at least once a month or even every 2 weeks.

Quick Game Dev Update

Just a quick update on the progress of the game. We have all 15 Cosmoid Character concept designs done. I have the inital ability design done for all the Cosmoids (2 active, 2 basic and 2 passive abilities per Cosmoid). Now we are working on the actual game assets. About 6 Cosmoids have their animations completed (minus some special animations for active abilities). We have stopped the character animations to focus on attack graphic effects to give abilities visuals feedback that will make them flashier and intuitive to understand what is going on. On the programming side I have completed all abilities for the Wishmaker and Chameleaf. Currently I'm working on the Fire Hyena's abilities. Speaking of the Fire Hyena...

Vol 3 Fire Hyena

This week we want to spotlight the Fire Hyena! (Yes, he needs a name and you can help with that!)

Fire Hyena concept art

The Hyena is a Fire Type Cosmoids that specializes in melee physical combat. He is a savage warrior that will put himself at a defensive disadvantage to gain an offensive advantage. He is a mercenary and only has loyalty to those who will offer him the highest prize.

With the great drought happening he joins the ranks of the Disruptor (our antagonist) in order to get food to feed his pack. He feels this is the only way for him and his pack to survive.

Level Paths

For Cosmoids TD I've really been thinking about what are the essentials of this game. What is it that will make it interesting and focusing on that. Originally I planned to have intricate maps that maybe forced you to have to scroll the map to be able to see all the action, but as time went on I realized I really wanted everything to fit on one screen regardless if you were playing on a PC or a mobile device. So I decided to have my paths be more like Plants vs Zombies. Even then since you can move your Cosmoids around as much as you want I have only added 3 paths. I tried having more paths but it can make things overly complicated since you would have to be constantly moving your Cosmoids. I'm pretty happy with the 3 path set up. The enemies will be coming from the right side and you have to prevent them from reaching the left side. You will have a set number of lives, if too many enemies pass then you lose the level. Here is a glimpse at a work in progress background for the game.

Work in progress level map with our 3 paths

Give Fire Hyena a name!

As you have noticed I don't have a name for the fire Hyena, I think this would be a great opportunity to involve you in the process. After reading his description in the top, what do you think would be a good name to fit this character? If I pick your name I will send you 50 SndCoins as a prize!

As always let me know what you think and see you next time!

Meet the Cosmoids: Vol 2 Buffaflow

2019-07-31T22:32:00.001-04:00

Hi friend! Welcome to another installment of Meet the Cosmoids!

If you don't know, Cosmoids is the next game I'm working on. It is a spiritual successor to the Pokemon Tower Defense series and it feature 15 new characters called Cosmoids. They are similar to Pokemon but they are more human like, they wear clothes, use tools and weapons, can use magic and have a shared language this is common to many races in the known universe.

Vol 2. Buffaflow

This series of blogs will spotlight all the Cosmoids, this week we will showcase Buffaflow, the gentle giant!

Buffaflow, the water type Cosmoid

Buffaflow is single minded and generally peaceful Cosmoids, that is until an ally suffers unjustly. It feels incredible guilt over not being able to stop the great fire, he now dedicates his life to atone for what he feels is his greatest mistake.

I asked our artist, Marie, how she would describe Buffalow and she wrote me this:

The water bull is a gentle and peaceful race, as they have water as the center of their culture. Like water, they flow, heal, and protect life around them. But when fighting time comes they are as the storm, strong as big waves and destructive to things that get in their way. They have a very deep connection with plants and nature, and try to protect it at all costs.

If you played a lot of PTD2 you might recognize the name Buffaflow, in fact as you might have guessed this Cosmoids was very influenced by that original design.

Original water buffalo cosmoids family

Basic, Passive and Active Abilities

As Cosmoids level up they will learn different abilities. All Cosmoids will learn 2 Basic, 2Passive, and 2 Active Abilities.

Buffaflow is a Water type which is strong against: Fire, Light and Stone and weak against: Plant, Electric, and Shadow.

Water types main role is Healing so Buffaflow is primary type healer and secondary type damage. Physical damage.

Buffaflow abilities are the following:

Basic Abiltities:

Basic abilities will be like the attacks that pokemon learn. You will set the basic ability you want your Cosmoid to do and they will perform that ability against their targets.

Charge - A water physical damage move that can also Douse it's target.
Healing Orb - A healing spell that heals it's target, it can also Douse it's target.

Charge animation

Healing Orb animation

Marie did an amazing job on these animations, right?!

Active Abilities:

Active Abilities are abilities will long cooldowns that need to be used manually by you the player. Some you will have to target a cosmoids or target a location in the level, some you just activate. Let's see what are Buffaflow's active abilities.

Rain Shower - target a location, rain will fall on that location, healing allies and dousing any unit hit by the rain.
Hydro Beam - Shoot a beam of water in your lane, healing allies and damaging enemies, will douse any units hit by it.

Passive Abilities:

Are like "Abilities" in pokemon. They just exist in the background, and just like pokemon you can only have one passive assigned to your Cosmoid at a time, pick the one that will lead you to victory.

Rage - Chance when an ally takes damage to increase Buffaflow's strength.
Rain Dance - Chance when an ally takes damage to summon a Rain Shower.

So there you have it! Hope you liked this blog, these moves are also subject to change, would love to hear what you think! Until next time, remember "We are better together!"

-Sam

Meet the Cosmoids: Vol 1. Chameleaf

2019-07-13T14:18:00.000-04:00

Hi friend! It's been quite a while since the last post but I have been working in the background on the game, coming up with Cosmoids designs and working with Marie on the concept art. The initial version of Cosmoids TD will include 15 unique Cosmoids. (The plan is to add more and we will be doing a Kickstarter at some point to get funding for more.)

This series will introduce the 15 Cosmoids and give some details about their roles and types. We will also cover other parts of the game.

Vol 1. Chameleaf

The first Cosmoids I will cover is a familiar one. Our friend Chameleaf!

Plant Cosmoids Chameleaf

Chameleaf used to live in a tree hut in a lush magical forest. Due to the long drought a fire broke out on the forest and Chameleaf was separated from her family. She was forced to live the life of a nomad. Being able to adapt to any environment Chameleaf roams the land looking for her lost family.

Types and Roles

Cosmoids have types, similar to Pokemon. We have Plant, Water, Fire, Electric, Stone, Light and Shadow types. Also like Pokemon types have advantages and disadvantages to each other.

Chameleaf is a Plant type Cosmoids. Plant types are strong against: Water, Light, Electric and weak against: Fire, Shadow, Stone.

Chameleaf in-game

Cosmoids have certain roles that they specialize in and we have 4 roles: Damage, Healer, Tank and Utility. Each Cosmoids has a primary role and a secondary role. Their primary roles are tied with their type and their secondary can be any of the other roles.

Plant type's primary role is Utility. Utility role units will be able to weaken enemies and enhance allies.

In Chameleaf's case her secondary role is Damage. Magical damage in the form of powerful spells and poison debuffs.

Chameleaf dealing damage

She is able to poison her enemies, dealing damage over time. Also most of her attacks will deal more damage if the enemy is already poisoned.

She might be small but she can quickly poison her enemies and start blasting them out of existence!

I hope you likes this edition of Meet the Cosmoids, please let me know what you think, do you want to see more of these and what information would you like to know about the comoids?

Thanks and see you next time!
-Sam

Animations and working with freelancers

2019-02-23T15:57:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! It's been a little bit since my last blog post but I don't plan on taking 6 month between post like before... Having a kid takes up a lot of your time but he is 6 months old and it gets easier and I'm able to work on the blog and on the game.

The good news is that I've been working with some freelance artist and mainly that is just communicating back and forth so I'm able to do it quickly and on the go.

Working with an artist, one of the most important things to do is make sure you are on the same page and communication is key for this.

So what I want to do is show you some of the process that I went through with my artist to create Hyena's death animation. Here is the final result.

Final Animation

It all started with my artist suggesting that the Hyena's hair should turn brown when he dies to symbolize that his fire has gone out. I totally loved this idea, it reminded me of when a super saiyan is defeated, they go from blonde hair to black.

After this I brought up that I think he should have the pose of a dog playing dead as I thought it would be kinda cute and would fit the game's sort of humor and I sent her this reference picture.

Reference image for animation

So with these ideas in mind, the artist came back with the basic keyframes of the animation for me to review and see if we are on the right track.

Keyframe test

Overall I liked the direction but I wanted to see the Hyena more in the last frame. I asked the artist to send me a couple of different version of the last frame that would show the Hyena more, especially his face and paws.

Once I picked the one I liked she send me a revised keyframe test and we moved to the final animation with the inbetween frames and we were almost done!

Final Animation lines.. almost final

So this was really close but there was one final detail that I wanted to add... I wanted him to have a frame that he looks surprised like "wow you got me!", I was a little picky at this point haha.

Final animation, with surprised look!

With the animation done, the artist went ahead and did the color.

V1 with color

I really liked it but after I showed my wife, she made a suggestion that his hair should maybe look more burnt like charcoal with ash on top. The artist thought it was a good idea and went for it. And so we got our final animation fully colored!

Final Animation!

I hope you like this behind the scenes look at the art process for Cosmoids TD, if you want more like this let me know in the comments or on Twitter! I also could do a blog about how I found my artist and my experience working with different freelance artist.

Thanks and see you soon!

Cosmoids TD - A reintroduction

2019-02-04T22:32:00.002-05:00

Hi all!

Happy 2019! The last 5 months have been a blur! Having a baby is serious business and takes a lot of time. But we love our baby Caleb and wouldn't change anything for the world.

It's been so long that I wanted to start fresh. I wanted to reintroduce myself. So..

Hi, my name is Samuel Otero and I'm a game developer by night, by day I'm a Software Developer, Husband, Father, Friend, Brother, Son.. everything.. and once upon a time I made a game called Pokemon Tower Defense, which you might have heard of.. (okay it's the real reason why you are here, who are we kidding!) and a lot of things happened and now we are here and I'm making a game called Cosmoids TD.

Very similarly to Pokemon Tower Defense (PTD), Cosmoids TD is a Tower Defense Game with Creature Collecting elements mixed in, let's just called it a Creature Collecting Tower Defense. In this game you play as the Wishmaker.

The Wishmaker!

The Wishmaker is the prince of the Makers, an immortal race that create and oversee galaxies across the universe. He is the creator of the Cosmoids, which are a group of creatures that live in the planet Eden. Unlike Pokemon, Cosmoids can all speak the common language and some wear clothes and use tools and weapons.

Chamleaf, a Nature Type Cosmoids

Planet Eden is in danger and the Wishmaker is weakened, so he must recruit the Cosmoids to help save the planet.

On a mission

Some trouble nearby?!

Like in PTD you will be able to recruit enemy Cosmoids into your party. You can level up your party and they learn new moves and even evolve!

But I really cannot do this without all of you, I want to make a game that we can all enjoy and have fun playing just like PTD. This time it's harder because everything is being made from scratch, while we can be inspired by Pokemon we cannot copy Pokemon. And so I want to make this game openly in front of all of you, so we can go on this journey together. I would love to hear your feedback about what you would like this game to have. I will post really early and buggy version of the game so you can play while it's still being made. In fact here is a screenshot of the current work in progress.

Work In Progress Level, with Fire Hyena and Stick figures guys..

So what do you say, are you in?

As always, let me know what you think!

A new story direction!

2018-07-22T21:36:00.000-04:00

Greetings!

Let's get right to it! But first...

Baby Update

A little bit less than a month is left before Caleb is born, we are very excited we have all the things ready for him and can't wait!

A new story direction!

When playing games I have found that personally for me having a story makes me more likely to finish a game. Even if the game wasn't that good, if I got invested in the story (even if wasn't that good) I felt more compelled to finish it.

This was the reason I choose to add a story element to PTD. I notice no tower defense games had a big story and I thought it would be a great addition.

So naturally for Cosmoids TD I also wanted to have a story. Originally I envisioned Cosmoids as something very similar to Pokemon. Over the years I've thought about the origin story of Cosmoids and it has changed here and there but some of the same elements have remained the same.

The story started with a powerful alien being known as the Wishmaker that encounters a young boy and grants his wish to bring these Cosmoids to Earth. I was pretty committed to this story line until a freelance artist that I hired made a concept art for the Wishmaker. I thought it looked so cool that I decided to make the Wishmaker the main character.

The Wishmaker

Along with changing the main character it was more interesting to also have the game take place in the Cosmoids original planet. This will allow for some creative environments that you wouldn't find on earth.

The next major change that I wanted to make is that in pokemon, while the pokemon are smarter than your average animal they mostly co-existed with humans the way pets do. For Cosmoids now that we are exploring their planet. I thought it would be very interesting if the Cosmoids were more humanoid like. They could speak a language, they used tools, clothing, communities. So instead of capturing them as beloved pets. You will recruit them for your cause. Below is a small preview of how a cosmoids like Chameleaf will look like. Keep in mind this is an early work in progress.

Chameleaf - Creature like (left) to Humanoid (right)

I've been mostly focused these past few weeks to working with my artist, trying to nail down the new direction so I haven't work a lot of the prototype but next week I will talk about how to focus on features and task that are needed versus wanted.

As always let me know what you think about the new story direction in the comments below, or twitter or by email at sam@sndgames.com

Have a great week and thanks for your continued support!

The power of feedback and more changes! plus PTD3 Mystery Gift!

2018-06-17T00:56:00.000-04:00

Hail!

The power of feedback

So last week I released the first prototype for you to play with and take a look at how my initial ideas for Cosmoids TD have been taking shape. While I didn't get a huge amount of feedback, I did get some key ones that will actually impact and change the game.

The change I'm going to make is that instead of having your Avatar have to go to spots to place the cosmoids. The cosmoids will instead go from the Avatar to their spots. So the speed at which your units will move to and from spots will always be based on your cosmoids speed. This always allows you to quickly place your units on the map, instead of having to wait for your avatar.

However, even though your avatar will no longer be moving to place cosmoids I still plan to have your avatar move for things like healing or buffing your cosmoids.

More changes

Lately I've been focusing on how Cosmoids TD will be different from the PTD series. It's a mix of seeing what worked and what didn't work for PTD in my eyes and trying to change things up to make them more interested or require a little more planning. One of the first changes I thought about was about how your Cosmoids will level up.

Leveling Up

First a small history lesson, in PTD1 your towers would gain experience by battling, very similar to the original Pokemon games. Your tower had to be a part of the battle for it to gain experience. Once they gathered enough experience you could use your PokeDollars to level them up. This was pretty interesting to me because it made you have to make a choice in which tower you wanted to level up first. However as you played the game, the amount of dollars you got was so high that leveling up was no longer a problem and so there was no longer a choice.

So much so that in PTD2 and 3 I no longer had leveling up cost anything. Looking back I think Tower Defense games are very much about choosing what you do with your resources so this is something that I want to bring back for Cosmoids, with a twist.

My current idea is that when you defeat an enemy cosmoid you will earn what I'm calling "Meteor Dust", this dust is essentially your resource to do many things in the game including leveling up.

The change is that your Cosmoids doesn't have to see battle to level up, you can simple "give" it some Meteor Dust to make them level up. So you will still be battling to get dust and then once you have enough to level up your Cosmoids the game will let you know and then you can make your choice whether you want to use it to level up or to purchase an item etc. You can also choose which of your Cosmoids will get the dust. The challenge will be to keep the dust as a somewhat more limited resource compared to PTD1 where money was plentiful after a certain point in the game removing any choice.

Single and Active Attacks

As I'm designing Cosmoids I'm going through all the areas of PTD and seeing what I want to change and what I want to keep the same. So lately I've been looking at Attacks. In PTD your towers have 4 attacks to mirror what exist on the pokemon games. For Cosmoids I may be rethinking this, some of the ideas I have are towards lowering the amount of attack switching that can currently exist in the PTD series and focus more on interactive active attacks similar to Champions! The Last Defense, where you would have a more active role in attacking your waves.

As with everything, the design can change and evolve over time when creating a game so these can be subject to change.

PTD3 Mystery Gift!

For PTD3 while I'm no longer developing new content for it, like new levels etc. I will still be doing mystery gifts as I can do those relatively quickly.

This week's Mystery Gift is... Qwilfish!

I still have plenty of task for the Prototype v2, I've added the change in Tower placement as part of my list. You can play v1 of the Prototype by clicking here.

Prototype v2 Task:

Design - How will leveling up and experience work? (100% Completed)
Programming - Scrolling the map (100% Completed)
Programming - Avatar no longer has to place Cosmoids in their spots (100% Completed)
Design - Incoming Wave Alert System (100% Completed)
Design - How much enemy unit information will you have in level? Before the level? (100% Completed)
Art - Incoming Wave Alert Icon Placeholder Graphic (100% Completed)
Art - Unit UI Graphics Used for buttons or menus (100% Completed)
Programming - Incoming Wave Alert Location Tracking (0% Active)
Programming - Incoming Wave Alert UI Popup and Confirmation (0% Not Started)
Design - How to view friendly unit information? leveling up? targeting options?

As always let me know what you think in the comments below or email me at sam@sndgames.com or on my twitter!

Thanks for your support, and see you next week!

Basic Prototype Completed! What's next?

2018-06-09T12:30:00.001-04:00

Greeting trainers!

I'm glad to announced that I have completed the first prototype! Huzzah! I've embedded the prototype below and as you will soon find out, there isn't much to do at all beside placing your cosmoids into different spots and moving them around.

You can do that by click on the orange spots and selecting pressing one of the 6 buttons. Once the Cosmoids are weak with the red bar you can click on them to "Capture" them. Also if you hover your mouse towards the bottom of the prototype you can full screen the game to get a better view of the characters.

So we have the most basic idea of our game here, it may not look like much but a lot of thought went into everything you see there. It's pretty mind blogging to see the big AAA games out there when you think about every little decisions they have to make. Everything you see in a game or a movie was something somebody thought about and wanted to be there. Nothing is be chance.

An example of this is when I was doing the new tower positioning system. Normally you place a cosmoids in a spot, the avatar walks there and places it. If you select the same cosmoid for another spot then that cosmoid will walk to that spot. Seems pretty simple right?

Well then you run into odd scenarios, what if we are trying to place a Cosmoid in a spot where another Cosmoid is already there, what if we assign two cosmoids to the same empty spot? All these combinations must be thought about and handled in the programming. As you play the prototype, try these different scenarios and see what kind of solutions I came up with.

This is something you can also do in any game you play, as you play try different things and keep in mind that a designer had to think about and make decisions as to what should happen in that scenario.

So now that the prototype is done, we clearly see that there are many thing that are still missing. So we will now start the Prototype version 2, for version 2 I will be focusing more on the User Interface, the menus for capturing Cosmoids, for leveling up, for seeing when the next wave of enemies will come. Over the years I have always proclaimed that I hated working on the UI but it is so vital for games because it shows the correct information to the player. It is a fine balance between showing the right information and not having too much on the screen.

You will also notice that I have started to add design task as well as art task to the list. When you develop you need to assign time into design. I imagine in bigger companies you would have a person assigned for design and a different one for programming, in our case I'm handling both. Next week I will talk about the changes I have for level up and experience and how they will be different from the PTD series.

Prototype v2 Task:

Design - How will leveling up and experience work? (100% Completed)
Programming - Scrolling the map (30% See next blog post)
Design - Incoming Wave Alert System (See next blog post)
Design - How much enemy unit information will you have in level? Before the level? (See next blog post)
Art - Incoming Wave Alert Icon Placeholder Graphic (See next blog post)
Art - Unit UI Graphics Used for buttons or menus (See next blog post)
Programming - Incoming Wave Alert Location Tracking (See next blog post)
Programming - Incoming Wave Alert UI Popup and Confirmation (See next blog post)
Design - How to view friendly unit information? leveling up? targeting options? (See next blog post)

As I work on these task I will update the blog, as always play the prototype, play with the positioning system and tell me what you like about it, and what you don't like about it, also how would you improve it!

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Path to Prototype: Changing it up

2018-06-02T18:53:00.002-04:00

Hi again!

Welcome to the Cosmoids TD weekly update. Last week we talked about creating a game and how you should create a prototype to test out your ideas for the game.

This past week I've been chopping away at the different task I had set up for our first prototype and while I didn't get to finish the whole list I was happy with my progress.

It's been my experience when developing games that momentum is your biggest friend. Even if you can't spend that much time working on something just by getting even the simplest of task done can fuel you to complete the next one and then the next one.

Another thing I have learned is that you can't be hard on yourself when you don't complete all your task or when you don't even get any done at all. I believe you should be satisfied with what you could get done or couldn't get done, however, you should learn from your experiences.

Most of the task for the Prototype are done! Here is a 3D view of the game so far.

For example, if I'm not happy that I couldn't finish my task instead of being mad at myself or feeling guilty/disappointed I should look at what were the things that held me back. Did I end up playing video games or watching Twitch streams instead of working? If that is the case then you have to be conscious of your decisions and really ask yourself do I want to entertain myself or do I want to develop a game. So the next time you face the same decision you should go back and think of which outcome would make you happier.

The other case is you are doing something of equal value. So for example if I wasn't able to get the task done because I was spending time helping my wife around the house. Then I should value that time with her and know that it was not a waste.

So back to Cosmoids TD. Some people have asked me if the game is going to be similar to the PTD series and the answer is yes! It will be very similar but as I have looked at the prototype I've been getting the new ideas for how to give the game an extra layer of gameplay/strategy.

The first of such ideas is that in PTD you can place and move your Tower Units instantly. This is of course a very convenient mechanic. In most Tower Defense game putting or moving a unit in the map often comes at a cost and that is something I wanted to explore in Cosmoids.

So as you can see in the GIF below (kinda hard to see) there is a human avatar in the level and when you want to place a cosmoid on a spot your avatar has to move to that spot before your cosmoids will be active on the level.

New Mechanic: Adding/moving towers is no longer instant.

The same thing will happen if you want to move a unit from one spot to another. This adds an extra layer of strategy that I can play with when designing levels. Also the speed of your avatar and the speed of your cosmoids will matter. For example some Cosmoids may be faster and so they can move from one spot to another quickly. While there may be some slow Cosmoids that take longer to move from spot to spot.

If I wanted to take it farther then the terrain in the map may affect the speed in which units can move, or even have terrain that only certain cosmoids can travel.

It really opens up some fun opportunities that I hope to explore.

So I only have a few more task left for the first prototype, after that I will start planning for the next one.

Prototype v1 Task:

Be able to change a unit's spot on the map (100% Completed)
Be able to swap two units from one spot to another (100% Completed)
Be able to capture a weak enemy unit (100% Completed)

Prototype v2 Task:

To be determined

As I work on the game I will update this page, on my next blog post I talk about more changes from PTD as well as what to do after your first Prototype.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below!

Path to Cosmoids TD Prototype

2018-05-26T22:09:00.004-04:00

Hello again,

With Cosmoids TD I want to return to writing weekly blog post to give you a glimpse of the development process. So here we go.

The first step of making a game is to choose a genre or multiple genres that you want your game to be. For Cosmoids TD that genre is obviously Tower Defense with a mix of "Pokemon" which is a Role Playing Game.

This provides a sort of guideline for building your game. After you have figured this out you can have a good idea of what are the different components that your game will need. These components will be a part of your first prototype.

Your first prototype should give you an early glimpse of how your game will play. At this point you shouldn't care too much about graphics since you are still figuring out the controls and feel that you want.

Prototype Work In Progress

So here are the first items I have for the Cosmoid TD Prototype and my progress on them:

Create new project in Unity (100% Completed)
Create Player Avatar Graphic (100% Completed)
Put Player Avatar on Level (100% Completed)
Player Avatar must be able to move to different spots on the map (100% Completed)
Create Cosmoid Starter Graphic (100% Completed)
Put Cosmoid Unit on Level (100% Completed)
Enemy Units must be able to travel down a path (100% Completed)
Create UI for showing the player's Cosmoids (100% Completed)
Be able to place your Cosmoids into a spot in the map (100% Completed)
Add a basic Attack (100% Completed)
Enemy units can take damage and have a life bar (100% Completed)
Be able to change a units spot on the map (See next blog for more progress)
Be able to capture a weak enemy unit (See next blog for more progress)

As I work on the game I will update this page, on my next blog post I will post about some ideas I have that will make Cosmoids TD different from Pokemon Tower Defense.

Thanks for reading and playing my games! See you next time! As always, let me know what you think!

The path to a new Journey!

2018-05-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone,

It's been over a year since my last blog post and I have to admit it feels a little weird, and nerve wracking, but at the same time exciting. So much has happened between then and now that changed and in some way liberated me. So I wanted to share some of that with all of you as well as talk about this new journey that I want to take. So let's get started!

I'm not one to tell a long story so I will cut this pretty short. In the middle of last year I had some medical complications that restricted me from sitting down for long periods of time, and that really impacted the amount of time I could work on games. It was a frustrating period as my full time job is also programming and so that required a lot of sitting. (A standing desk was not an option at the time for my office but has since become an option.)

After trying many solutions that didn't end up working, I ended up getting an out patient surgery that solved my problem. I was relieved and was ready to keep working on games again, but suddenly I got a big news announcement from my wife. We were expecting a baby!

This is Caleb! Our baby boy!

Now it wasn't a complete surprise as we were trying to have a baby but we just didn't expect it so quickly! A lot of time has passed since then, 6 months to be more exact, and we know that we will have a boy and name him Caleb. Many of you might be a long way from having a child or might not be wanting to have kids (and that's perfectly fine) but for me having a child has actually been a dream of mine, and I'm looking forward to it.

The thing about having a child is that it really makes you think about your future and what kind of legacy you want to leave behind. This brings me to my decision and new path which I want for us to go in.

For a long time I've wanted to do an original game using Cosmoids. Cosmoids are pokemon like creatures that a group of artist and I came up with a while ago. The whole point was to make an original game using these creatures but for some reason or another it never happened. I always felt a responsibility to PTD, and it honestly felt like an obligation. Having a child has reminded me that this is not an obligation but something I do out of passion. Something that I should enjoy doing. I know that it may make some people disappointed or mad but I just can't work on PTD3 any more. The main issue with PTD is that I can't really share it with the world. It has to exist in sort of a shadow and that's not something that I want. I want to make a game and share it with everybody, have it be on different platforms (Flash has been slowly dying for years now, which is sad).

And so I've decided that I want to make a Tower Defense game like PTD but with Cosmoids. I believe that Tower Defense games can still be fresh and fun.

So in closing I want to say "Thank You". Whether you just started playing PTD or you've been around for a while. Thanks! If you are interested in being a part of this new journey I would love to have you, your feedback is invaluable to me and I would love to hear it.

So as always.. let me know what you think!

Sincerely,
Sam

New changes to Elemental Pokemon

2017-05-13T22:08:00.002-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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 everyone, it's been a while since I did a new blog post but I really wanted to talk about the changes I did for Elemental Pokemon for this new update.

Since PTD3 came out there has been a lot of confusion around Elemental Pokemon and how they work. They way they previously worked (prior to version 1.19) is that the pokemon would lose its type and become the type of the elemental. With this new change the pokemon will keep its typing but instead add the new elemental type.

Here you can see a Water elemental Geodudce now has three types instead of just being Water

Elementals will now gain a type instead of replacing them.

A cool addition, and something that was suggested on twitter, is that if a pokemon gains an elemental type that it already has that it should power up that type even more. So it will work that way!

Here we have a Water Elemental Seaking, you will notice its type is Water/Water. What this means is that it will get double Stab power increase on its water type attacks!

Water elemental water pokemon will get double the STAB power up from Water attacks!

Along with this change, an elemental pokemon's attacks will no longer get turned into the elemental type. Instead elemental pokemon will be able to learn/relearn moves related to that type.

Here you can see that this Geodude can relearn a number of Water attacks.

Elemental pokemon can now learn/relearn elemental moves.

As you level your pokemon the number of elemental attacks they can learn increases. All the way up to 100. Also some elemental types, like Normal Type, can relearn more moves in general than other types.

That's all I have for the new elemental changes. As always let me know what you think in the comments below. Happy training!

Pokemon Tower Defense 3 in full swing! Special Birthday Elemental giveaway for the rest of the year!

2016-11-25T18:08:00.002-05:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Pokemon Tower Defense 3 in full swing!
Hey everyone!

Sam here, it's been a long time since I posted something on the blog and I think it's about time we started updating here.

If you haven't already be sure to follow me on twitter as I constantly post my progress and answer questions on there. You can find that on the left top side of this blog.

So PTD3 is out and in full swing. I just recently finished the basic Trading Center section for PTD3 and the reason it took so long is that I did a new layout for it that is mobile friendly. So you are able to access that on your phones a lot easier and it will look great. I don't plan to update the other sections of the trading center to the new layout since I want to focus on PTD3 levels etc.

For PTD3 I do have some cool updates and features on the way. I plan to add different pokeballs and special pokemon (like the Kyogre in level 6) that will be catchable only with the different pokeballs.

I also plan to add secrets to each level that will unlock special pokemon. For example getting Alola Rattata in level one.

Also I will have something similar to the Hall of Fame in PTD2 for PTD3. Instead it will focus on collecting all the different elemental versions or having a set amount of elementals to unlock certain pokemon or items/avatars for your account.

Elemental giveaway for the rest of the year!

So every year I do a special giveaway and this year is no different. Elemental Mew is the first mystery gift for PTD3! Everyday there will be a new elemental type of Mew given away until the end of the year. In January we will have a new mystery gift but I'm not sure if all the elements will be available for it. It may only be some or just one.

So that's all I have for now, thanks for your support as always and I do plan to update the blog more often with cool behind the scenes as well as any other announcements I make.

Cheers!

A Special Message from Hacked Arcade Games.com

2015-10-27T16:19:00.004-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Pokémon Tower Defense

Released some time ago, this title quickly built up momentum and now with over 18 million plays, it’s the most popular game available on the legendary Hacked Arcade Games site. Sam and Dan have outdone themselves with this awesome take on the epic Pokémon experience. It encapsulates the original game play and goal of catching all the creatures in a hybrid Tower Defence / RPG format. You get to follow awesome stories, evolve, trade and collect cool mystery gifts and many other incredible bonuses. Gotta catch ‘em all!

You start the adventure by following the guidance of a very familiar figure, Professor Oak. He’ll help you set up your game play and provide you with your first Pokémon to get the ball rolling. While this is happening the incredible story will start to slowly unfold and you’ll be drawn into the cool twists and turns from the outset, starting by protecting the professor’s rare candy but quickly moving out of Pallet Town and on to more dangerous tasks out in the wilds of a mystical land!

As you progress through the game and watch the mysteries unfold, you gain new and powerful Pokémon to help you in your quest. You’ll soon come to realise that each of the awesome Pokémon have their own unique powers that work best in certain situations, so pay some thought to when and where to deploy your little dudes to maximise their effectiveness, defeat your enemies swiftly and protect the prize at all costs!

The game play itself is a seamless cross between the typical RPG format of exploring new lands and the cool TD experience of defending your ground and stopping invading forces. The defensive towers in this game are the Pokémon team members, but the objects and characters you must defend depend on the particular situation and point in the game you’re at. Before you start each stage you must select your Pokémon defensive line-up that you’ll strategically deploy to defend yourself during the game, but you can also get more versatile and select other Pokémon on the fly to help out in a scrape.

During each stage, you can click and drag the Pokémon in your line-up and place them into the path of the attacking Pokémon to stop them in their tracks and prevent them from carrying out their evil masters’ wishes. Once deployed your little Pokémon dudes can pretty much stand their own and fight by themselves but you’ll need to keep looking back on them frequently to check their health and help them evolve to become faster and stronger fighting critters! Keep your team evolving to increase their fighting powers and make them a formidable force to be reckoned with!

To truly become a Pokémon master and catch them all, you’ll need to take the time to understand each of their powers. This will help you to recognise the most effective place to station them so they can inflict the most damage to your opponents and prevent the baddies from carrying out their dastardly plans for world domination!

The storyline and game play for this classic are really quite entertaining and you can easily find yourself caught up in things, spending a lot of fun-filled hours building your team and trying to catch every last one of the Pokémon! Sam and Dave have put in a lot of effort to beef out the story and it has paid off in the form of a cohesive game play melded well with a great storyline.

If you enjoyed this classic and would like to see other cool games from this amazing series then why not take the time to explore the HAG Pokémon archives! And check our Pokemon Tower Defense 2 at hacked arcade games.

A wild Champions game has appeared! Champions! The Last Defense revealed at last! Also... a new Egg has appeared... Cosmoids TD begins anew!

2015-10-12T20:47:00.001-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

What you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one extra visit instead of 2, essentially breed something every other day!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

A wild Champions game has appeared!

Champions! The Last Defense revealed at last!

So I've been secretly (sorta) working on a whole new game that uses Champions TD's graphics and is set in the same "universe", if that is even a thing for Champions, and it is called Champions! The Last Defense. The best way I can describe it is that it's an Infinite Defend game.

It's a mix of infinite runners with the tower defense found in Champions TD. Like any infinite runner game, if you lose you start over. So in this game you defeat enemies with your 3 champions and collect armor that will make your Champions better for that run. You also fight bosses that give you weapons. You have 10 lives to see how many waves you can defeat. Along the way you also get gold from completing different quest and beating bosses.

You can use this gold to buy permanent upgrades for your Champions. Over time you should be able to beat your high score as you keep buying upgrades for your different stats.

You can also unlock new Champions (so far you can only unlock the Hunter Champion) by completing different objectives. For example to unlock the Hunter you need to beat 100 waves or more on your high score.

I'll be adding a new Champion every week, and they will have different ways of unlocking them since beating 500 waves seems kinda hard!

Here are some pictures of the game. (These are from an older version.)

Talents are still there.

Boss battle!

Got a new weapon! Do I like that stats?

Cave Level

Something unique about this game compared to other infinite games is that you can save your game between levels so if you have a real high score or you only have a few minutes to play you can save your progress and not worry about losing it.

I haven't released the game to you guys because I'm looking for a possible sponsorship as that will help us financially.

If you have an Android you can join the Beta. Just email me at sam@sndgames.com with your google play email and I'll add you right in.

I've had a player in the beta express that he really wanted to see Champions TD live on and I agree with him for the most part but what we need to understand is that this is something completely new and doesn't take Champions TD's place.

The reason I made this game is that I wanted a game to finish in only a few months and so I came up with this idea that would condense what Champions TD was into a much smaller repeatable experience. I still love Champions TD and I hope that one day I can revisit it in it's full glory.

Champions TD is put on hold for the time being because I want to focus on another game...

Also... a new Egg has appeared...

Cosmoids TD begins anew!

Cosmoids! Oh how I longed to make Cosmoids! How it got lost and now is found! Okay okay I'll come down. These is so much that could be said about Cosmoids (For those who don't know Cosmoids is Sam and Dan Games' version of pokemon) We had about 5 artist coming up with ideas for creatures and they came out fantastic. Along the way things didn't quite work out and we had to put the idea on hold for some time...

Work In Progress Water Starter

Work in Progress Water Starter

Work In Progress 3rd Stage Grass Starter

Work In Progress Grass Starter

Work In Progress Fire Starter

Now I'm bringing it back! Cosmoids TD is taking the simplicity of PTD1 and adding a whole new story and a new set of creatures to capture, trade and collect.

The biggest thing is that I'm going to be doing it all in front of you guys and gals. I want you guys to be a part of the making of this game, whether you just want to watch and enjoy the show, show up now and then and see how it is going or provide feedback and ideas every step of the way. I personally want you to be a part of it.

I hope to start streaming my development of it. Something that will be very different from past games that I've made is that I'll be drawing all the graphics myself on this project! I'm excited to draw again, I'm not an expert by any means but I will do my best. I hope to stream every day for at least an hour or so while I get used to it. Then I'll possibly stream even more. During the stream I might do SnD Coin giveaways and also I'll be showing off Champions! The Last Stand for you guys.

I know a lot of you will be asking about PTD3 so I'll talk about it a little here.

I do have some ideas for PTD3 that would shake up the formula yet again, I'm not however in a place to start the game right away. I'm more excited for Cosmoids TD since it basically is a PTD type game but with original creatures that we can put on the Android and Apple Stores.

As always and forever more let me know what you think about all this! -Sam out

Champions TD 2.0 - Meet the Druid

2015-05-21T21:48:00.003-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

What you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one extra visit instead of 2, essentially breed something every other day!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Champions TD 2.0

I hit a point in Champions that the game wasn't going in the direction that I liked. I wanted units to stand out more and play more of an individual role, rather than have a massive zerg/army.

This lead to a big overhaul of the game that is currently underway. I still need more time to show you guys the fruits of this overhaul but I wanted to start presenting you guys with some of the content that I had finished this past week.

One of the biggest changes is the way the units in the game will work now. The current model is that units would gain attacks and specs as you leveled them up. Similar to Pokemon, where you gain attacks and evolve as your level up. While this model can work, I wanted to try something different for this game. With a name like Champions every unit must feel complete like a Champion even when it is low leveled. Also I have been playing some Heroes of the Storm and I had previously played some League of Legends (not very much) and I really enjoyed the setup of their abilities.

Each unit in those games has a clear role. I thought this was missing and not very emphasized in Champions but that is changing. Now when you pick your class and when you get a new unit it will show you very clearly what is the intended role.

Meet the Druid

This week I worked on and finished the Druid Class and so I will show you using this class as an example.

Descriptions now quickly point to the important details.

Units will now have a passive ability, an ultimate ability and three active abilities that you get from the start. Very similar too Moba games. Let's look at the Druid's abilities.

Druid's abilities

We can see the 5 abilities the Druid class has. Some of them are similar to the ones in the game right now but most are changed in some ways and then you have some completely new ones.

The first 3 are the Active Abilities:

Nature's Fury - A buff to all party members, that increases their strength and intellect.
Bear Form - Transform into a Bear! It also multiplies your armor and stamina x2.
Refresh - An instant heal over time spell that can be used on self and allies.

Then we have the Passive Ability:

Thorn Skin - When ever hit by a physical attack, deal damage back.

Last and definitely not least we have the Ultimate Ability:

Roots - When activated, enemies around the druid will be rooted and damaged every second for 20 seconds.

Roots in action

You may have noticed that the Ultimate Ability is something that is activated. This is something that is true for all Ultimates. You can activate them by pressing on the corresponding button on the bottom right of the screen. You will have to figure out when is the right time to activate such a powerful move.

On top of everything these moves can be upgraded! Using Valor points that you get for beating enemies and clearing waves you can upgrade your unit and its abilities for the duration of the level.

There are three levels of upgrades that you can get with each unit. Each level cost more Valor Points than the last. Let's look at each level for the Druid class.

Level 1 Upgrades for Druid

Pictured above is the menu you get when you press on your unit's profile. You get a quick view of their attacks, their stats and possible upgrades.

Before I get into each upgrade I want to note that on top of upgrading your abilities each upgrade will also boost your stats a decent amount. For Level 1 Upgrades all using will get a +10 or 10% Stamina increase (whichever is better).

As a note in this screenshot I have (505) Valor for testing purposes, in most levels you start with 0 and earn them as you defeat enemies.

Level 1 Upgrades will always upgrade your Passive Ability.

In this case you can read the picture to see the different ways you can upgrade. My hope is that on some stages some upgrades will be better than others. It is up to you to find out what are the best upgrades to get for each stage.

Level 2 Upgrades will always upgrade one of your 3 Activate Abilities.

Level 2 Upgrades for Druid

As we can see the cost of Valor doubles for each level. Sometimes you won't be able to reach level 3. Or you might just want to upgrade all your units Level 1 upgrades. Or maybe upgrade one unit all the way.

The previous (current) design doesn't really allow for such descision which is why I'm excited for these changes!

Level 2 Upgrades will upgrade their your Strength or Intellect (this is based on what is better for the Unit) by + 10 or 10%, whichever is best.

Each Level 2 Upgrade will target one of your 3 Active Abilities.

The first upgrade applies to Nature's Fury making it also boost your Stamina and Armor. Useful for tanking purposes! The second applies to Refresh, making your Refresh instantly heal on top of the over time component. Very useful for healing purposes!

The third choice lets you change your Bear Form ability completely! Instead of a Bear you transform into a Wolf. Instead of Armor your Strength is multiplied by x2 and your auto attacks will deal damage to all nearby enemies! Giving the Druid class to also deal decent damage!

Druid in Human Form (doesn't stay long like this)

Druid in Bear Mode - Your armor will still show when transformed

Druid in Wolf Mode - Available when you upgrade it via Level 2 Upgrades

As you might have guessed Level 3 Upgrades always upgrade your Ultimate Ability!

Not shown in the picture is the fact that Level 3 Upgrades will either increase your Haste, Armor or Magical Armor (depending on your Unit) by +10 or 10% (haste always 10%) whichever is best.

My goal with Level 3 Upgrades was to really make things exciting with the Ultimate and maybe I made things too strong but that's okay! You have to use up a lot of Valor to reach Level 3 so I want it to be rewarding.

Wanted to briefly talk about each on of the upgrades. The first one is one of my favorites because essentially it make the Ultimate be always on for your character yet it's not as predictable as the regular version since it pulses every 10 seconds instead of every second. Seems like it would be good for long fights with many small weak units.

The second one is really fun because for twenty seconds your party becomes REALLY STRONG! Not only are they healed constantly, but their attack stats are doubled and their haste is increased by 50%! This seems really great for waves that have strong enemies that deal a lot of damage but need to be controlled.

The last one is also very fun cause it gives you the ultimate (no pun intended) control! Not only will enemies around your Druid will get rooted but you can put your root power in another lane at the same time!

So that's the Druid class! The great thing is that all units in the game will have their own set of abilities and upgrades! I'm hoping to have about 60 units in the game all with their own little twist! So far I have designed on paper the abilities and talents for 20+ units and I'm really looking forward to sharing more with you guys and most importantly building it in the game so you guys get a chance to enjoy them for yourselves!

Next week I'll be working on the Rogue class (my class in World of Warcraft that I played in Vanilla!)

Thank you for reading and all your support! Much love! - Sam

The Purge

2015-04-08T12:26:00.000-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

The Purge
Why can't I play the game? What is this purge that Sam keeps talking about in Twitter? Is my account going to be purged? Will you purge my account? Those are the questions on everybody's mind.

I'm here to answer. For years now the PTD1 and 2 database (where all the user accounts, pokemon, trading information are stored) has been pilling up without any sort of maintenance done on them. The result is databases FULL of data that is no longer used and all it does is slow everything down.

A week ago the servers just couldn't handle it anymore and strange problems started occurring in the game. After talking to my webhost's support team. They told me the problem resided in my side, it was not a hardware issue, and so the PURGE started.

Over 6 months ago I created a code that will write down everybody who logged in ptd2 and stored it in a list. The purpose was that after 6 months we would purge out any other inactive accounts. After talking it over with Dan we decided to also save accounts that had bought the trainer pass or had snd coins (even if they hadn't played for 6 months.)

This would ensure that players that are active can have an even faster experience and all server problems can be resolved a lot quicker.

However one does not simply purge millions upon millions of pokemon in one day. It is a process that takes planning and more importantly TIME.

So I set about creating a script that would automate the whole process. My first attempt could only delete 10 accounts every 20 seconds. We have 7 million account! Lets do the math!

First lets figure out how many attempts it would take if you only do 10 at a time. So 7million divided by 10 = 700,000. That's 700,000 attempts at 20 seconds per attempt. How many seconds is that?

700,000 times 20 = 14,000,000 seconds! Now how many days is that? 14,000,000 seconds / 60 (seconds per minute) /60 (minutes per hour)/24 (hours per day) = about 162 days!

So at that rate the whole purge would take about 162 days!!!!!!

So I worked on making the whole thing faster, instead of deleting a whole account at once I would go thru each database and delete each one individually. This turned out to be a much faster method (can handle over 3000 entries per 10 seconds and many times even more!), but it will still take some time.

So what I will do is update you on how many databases are left to purge that way we can keep track and see how close we are getting. Please not that some databases are smaller than others so some will go a lot faster, some might take a whole day.

So please bare with me and give a moment of silence to all the purge pokemon. Thank you!

Until then I will be working on Designing Champions TD, that means figuring the game out so that we have a clear idea of how long it will take to finish. My hope is that we can finish Champions in 6 months! What do you think?

PTD 2 - Trainer VS Complete!

Pick your avatar (100%) - from the ones you have unlocked
See more opponent info (100%) - See their wins and their trainer ID
Win Streak Mechanic (100%) - Win 7 battles before losing 3 to win a random TM from 10!
Win Streak TM Rewards (100%) - Win one of the following Hone Claws, Dragon Claw, Psyshock, Calm Mind, Toxic, Bulk Up, Venoshock, Sunny Day, Rain Dance, Earthquake

Purge Progress Complete!

(Most PTD2 Data is finished, except for trading data which will be last and shouldn't take very long, because all data is held at one server I can't re enable PTD2 until everything is done.)

Complete PTD1 Pokemon Storage Database 5 - about 25 million entries
Complete PTD1 Pokemon Storage Database 6
Complete PTD1 Pokemon Storage Database 7
Complete PTD1 Pokemon Storage Database 8
Complete PTD1 Pokemon Storage Database 9
Complete PTD1 Player's Items Database
Complete PTD1 Player's Achievements Database - about 200k entries
Complete PTD1 Player's Game Corner Database - about 546k entries
Complete PTD1 Player's Daily Codes Database - about 549k entries
Complete PTD1 Player's Pokedex Database - about 4 million entries
Complete PTD Player Account's Database - about 7 million entries
Complete PTD1 Trading Center Database - about 211k entries
Complete PTD2 Trading Center Database - about 600k entries

I'll be updating this during the day as the process moves from database to database. Thank you for your support!

Champions TD is evolving! Trainer VS: Picking your avatar, wins streak!

2015-03-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Champions TD is evolving!

These past few weeks I've been really thinking about what Champions TD is becoming and where it is headed. Game Design is such that it is an evolving living thing. Game change direction all the time. Mostly in secret where only developers see but here at Sam and Dan Games we try to be really open about our process so that you are involved in it.

Also I'm looking at how the game performs in different platforms. We want to release the game for mobile devices and so the performance of the game is important.

In an effort to really focus the game and give more meaning to individual units the game will have some big changes.

New Valor System (Unit Upgrade system) - This Valor system will work like the resources in most Tower Defense game. You start off with some amount of Valor each level and you use it to temporarily upgrade units for that level. As you defeat enemies you will earn more Valor that you can use to further level up your units. Very similar to how you would upgrade a "tower" in most tower defense games.
Only 5 units can be used on a level - Similar to PTD1 and 2 you will only be able to bring in a certain amount of units to a level. This is to increase the strategy involved in who you bring, make each unit much more important and to make performance much better.
Tent will only hold one unit/levels will have more tents - Each tent will only hold one unit and so you will usually have 5 tents each level.
~~You will only have 1 of each class of unit (but can keep the ones you have!)~~ - You will no longer be able to get an infinite amount of Bandits, you will only unlock one unit as you play the levels. For example you can have multiple healers but only one timothy or only one Cave Mystic. In the future I will add different types of healers that you will be able to use. Including some hybrids. After some thought and your feedback I think it will be okay to still have some units be able to be recruited more than once. Thanks for the feedback!
Player Activated Moves - Some units will have attacks that will be player activated and aimed. An example is the Yeti's Avalanche move.
More Skin Selections when creating your character - Finally got around to adding more skin variations for your character.

Due to all these changes most levels will change. You will be able to keep your units and the items you have collected so far.

Trainer VS: Picking your avatar, win streaks!
For Trainer VS I will be adding the ability to pick from avatars that you have unlocked, I will also add a new win streak mechanic. Win a number of fights before losing 3 times. If you lose 3 times then the win amount resets and you start over. If reach the goal then you will win new TMs for your account.

Weekly Progress

Champs TD - Evolving

Valor System (0%)
Only 5 Units per level (0%)
Tent will only hold 1 unit (0%)
Only 1 of each unit/Unlock units by beating levels (0%)
Player Activated Moves (0%)
New starting levels to unlock units and better tutorial (0%)
New Graphics for menus and UI components (50%)
More Skin Variations when creating your character (100%)
More Hair Colors for the existing styles (100%)
Human characters will now have a shirt on when you remove their chest piece (100%)

PTD 2 - Trainer VS Moved to next blog

Pick your avatar (0%)
See more opponent info (0%) - See their wins and their trainer ID
Win Streak Mechanic (0%)
Win Streak TM Rewards (0%)

That's what I'm working on this week if you have any questions or comments please please please contact me by email, twitter or in the blog comments. Thanks!

Still getting it done! Champions TD game fixes!

2015-03-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Auction House and Champions Item Variety

These are coming! Check the last blog for more info on them.

Game Fixes
Thanks to some great fans (who am I kidding you are all great!) we've managed to find some pesky bugs that I want to fix plus some changes to some abilities for units.

Drag Flag Colors - Right now you always see a blue flag when you drag a tent flag. I'm making it so it will show the proper color and remove the massive confusion this causes.

Summoned Units Not Taking Level Lives - The Lacky that the Bandit Boss summons is very weak and so he dies pretty quickly. This change makes it so you won't lose a level life when a summoned minnion like the lacky dies.

Changing attacks to be more viable for player - When I design enemies I make sure their attacks are appropriately strong but slow enough to give you time to dodge the attack. Once you recruit an enemy their attack becomes part of your arsenal, and while very strong they are too slow for actual play and so I will make these slow attacks be faster but only when you play the unit, the enemies themselves will still have their version.

There are other changes that will happen but these are the ones that I'm focused on this week along with the Auction House and Item Variety.

Weekly Progress

Champions TD - Item Variety and Auction House Released!

Same item but different stats under the new item variety system

Game Fixes (100%)

Drag Flag Colors (100%)
Summoned Units Not Taking Level Lives (100%)
Changing Attacks to be more viable for player minions (100%)

Item Variety (100%)

Creating Item Level System (100%)

Prefixes (100%)

Dealing with current gear (100%)
Apply to Auction House (100%)
Made Selling prices consistent based on item rating (100%)
Item comparison screen will now compare the item's rating to each other (100%)

Auction House (100%)

Add Check Sum for sending and receiving (100%)
Money Text Stuff (100%)
Others (100%)

Transferring Items/Currency over to Auction Box and back to account (100%)

Creating Auctions from Game (100%)
Sending Money from Game (100%)
Receive Items and Money from Auction House Storage (100%)

That's what we have for this week, as always, let me know what you think!

New Multiplayer Feature for PTD2, Trainer VS! Champion Items Variety and Auction House Opening!

2015-03-11T14:30:00.002-04:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Trainer VS!
A much requested feature will make an appearance in Pokemon Tower Defense 2. You will be able to battle other trainers in 1v1 battles! Here is how it works:

Battle other Trainers

In the Story Mode in the game pick 3 pokemon in the order that you want them to come out with the attacks that you want them to have.
Pick from available command styles (This will determine what pattern of attacks your pokemon will use when battling other trainers. The default and only one available when I realease will be to do the first attack once then switch to the second attack. More will be added in the future. Fun fact: This is the behavior of a lot of the enemies you fight in the game.)
Pick Ability for that Pokemon.
After you do that go to your Pokepad and press Trainer VS press the battle button and you will be paired up with another trainer to battle!

Once you get into a battle you won't get to switch out your pokemon or change attacks. You will have to rely on the order that you place them in and the attacks, abilities and command style you picked in order to win the battle.

Eventually there will be different things like different ranks and different avatars you can win for this mode! So look forward to that!

Champions Item Variety

A much needed feature will be added to Champions TD. Item Variety! What does it mean you ask? Well it means that the same item can now have different stats. For example you can get a Sword of the Bear that has stamina and strength or you can get the same Sword but it will be called Sword of the Wolf and instead of stamina it will just have strength but more of it. This will add more variety and more reasons to possibly replay levels to get the loot just the way you want it. If the loot isn't right then you can put it up for Auction or search for the item in the Auction House that has the stats you want.

Auction House Opening!

Speaking of the Auction House, after a looooonggg lonnnggg looonnggg time the Auction House is almost ready to be opened! I look forward to it so I hope you guys do to!

Lots to do this week so keep checking out my progress and cheer me on Twitter!

Weekly Progress

Pokemon Tower Defense 2 - Trainer VS Released!

After setting up your team in PokeStorage go to Trainer VS

You can see your total wins! This is my team at the moment, still need to work on it...

Saving Trainer's Setup (100%)
Saving Trainer's Winning Stats (100%)
Showing your wins (100%)
Screen for selecting and saving your team (100%)
Battle Set up (100%)

Loading Trainer's Pokemon and putting them in battle (100%)
Removing options for selecting pokemon or their attacks (100%)
Putting your pokemon in battle (100%)
Recording your result (100%)

Champions TD - Item Variety and Auction House Moved to Next Week

That's what we have for this week, as always, let me know what you think!

Gym Challenge Heats Up! VS Blaine enter the battle! Auction House progress!

2015-03-03T14:01:00.001-05:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Gym Challenge Heats up! VS Blaine enters the battle!
Late last week I got some great ideas for how I would do the Blaine battle for the Gym Challenge. I've been watching a lot of World of Warcraft on Twitch (while I work), especially guilds trying to beat Mythic Blackrock Foundry (the latest raid dungeon in World of Warcraft). So I think this battle is very influenced by different MMO bosses that I've seen lately. I hope you guys will enjoy! I'll try to make it pretty challenging without making it feel unfair. That is the ultimate goal for game development. I've also added a new poll so that you can vote on what reward you will want for the gym.

Blaine - Cinnabar Gym Leader

Auction House Progress
The Auction House is still in progress, it is slow and steady but things are coming together, I didn't think it would be fair for you guys that I spent another whole week just on it so I'm also doing the gym challenge for PTD2. I'm very excited for the auction house, it won't be super pretty at first but it will be functional.

Work in progress

Weekly Progress

Pokemon Tower Defense 2 - VS Blaine Released!

Background Graphic (100%)
Level Layout (100%)
Blaine Graphic (100%)
Level Menu Setup (100%)
Oak's Helpful dialog (100%)
New Boss Attacks (100%)

Molten Rock Throw (100%) - User focuses on a target for a while then throws a Molten Rock at their last location. The rock hits and creates a lava puddle around the location. The less damage the user has the more molten rocks it will throw at more targets.

Level Waves (100%)
Mega Evolutions Pokemon (100%)

Graphics (100%)
Stats (100%)
New Item (100%)
Server Code (100%)

Made Legendary Dogs less likely (but still pretty available) to show up once you beat the game (100%)

Champions TD Auction House Moved to Next Week

Log In (100%)
Creating/Changing your Auction House Nickname (100%) - This shows up in your auctions and bids.
Pagination for certain pages (100%)
Creating an Auction (100%)
Ending Auctions (100%) - this happens as needed

Sending notifications (100%)
Sending Items (100%)
Sending Money (100%)

Bidding/Buying on Auction (100%)

Buyout (100%)
Bidding (100%)
Return Money to person that was outbid (100%)
Send Notification to person who had bid on item (100%)
Return Money to person that was outbid when somebody else buys out the auction (100%)
Send notification of a successful auction to auction owner (100%)
Send money to auction owner after buyout (100%)
Don't Allow bidding or buyout on your own auctions (100%)
Don't Allow bidding if you are the highest bidder (100%)

Removing an Auction (100%)

Most things (100%)
Sending a notification to person that was bidding (100%)
Returning money to whoever bid (100%)

Auction Notifications System (100%) - You will get messages on the outcome of your bids and auctions in the Auction House Website.

See all notifications page (100%)
Removing Old Notifications (100%)
Delete All (100%)
Other Stuff (100%)

Sell Storage Items (100%)
Searching for an Auction (100%) - more searching options will be added in the near future.
Game Change (100%) - Trogg Leather will now be called Cave Leather.

Have any questions, idea, feedback? Let me know in the comments below or on twitter! Thanks!

Let's Get it Done: Champions TD Auction House v1!

2015-02-25T15:46:00.000-05:00

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny 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!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
No ads while you play the game
Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Let's Get it Done: Champions TD Auction House v1!
It's that time of the month again when things take longer to make that usual and so we need to have a laser focus to finish them. In using the fabulous Flox Game Service and it really is great! It is however a big departure from what I was doing in PTD and so to create this Auction House I have to come up with new ways of doing things. I do love solving these problems, they are like puzzles for me but they do require much time be spent on them to solve properly. I'm also trying to prevent certain exploits to work in the game so more time is needed.

In the end it will be worth it as you will be able to have this great service that will help keep us making great games for all of you.

Weekly Progress

Champions TD Auction House Postponed

Log In (100%)
Creating/Changing your Auction House Nickname (100%) - This shows up in your auctions and bids.
Pagination for certain pages (100%)
Security Stuff (70%)
Transferring Items/Currency over to Auction Box and back to account (50%)
Creating an Auction (50%)
Bidding on Auction (0%)
Removing an Auction (50%)
Auction Notifications System (50%) - You will get messages on the outcome of your bids and auctions in the Auction House Website.
Searching for an Auction (100%) - more searching options will be added in the near future.
Game Change (100%) - Trogg Leather will now be called Cave Leather.

Have any questions, idea, feedback? Let me know in the comments below or on twitter! Thanks!