When we sent the link of our pre-pre beta release to several friends that were not into Tower Games, the first feedback was always the same : "cool...but well, a bit static...".In that version of the game, towers were being built automatically on click (Build Tower button - Choose position - Click - Tower built and fully working). While this is quite traditional for TD players, i get it that somehow seems unnatural for people otherwise used to RTS games.We want to keep with us all the traditional TD followers, but why not making a game that can make more people happy?So approx ten days ago, i backed up all the code, and went for a deep refactoring of the building system. What i decided to add was the following :
A limited amount of workers will be available on the map (their number depending on the skills of the player. They will leave from the castle (or from the workers tent when this building is available due to research and closer to the construction site than the castle) and walk until the construction site.There they will build the tower in a certain amount of time (progress shown by the building bar beneath the tower) and then come back to the castle.Construction sites are queued when the amount of builders available is smaller than the amount of sites.But then we decided to add some spice to it. Builders can be killed by passing too close to incoming enemies, therefore they try to avoid paths as much as possible, and in case of death, they will respawn in a certain time (unless the player spends some resources to make it instantaneous). The builders stats can be increased through research and skills.
Now, what do you think of this concept? So far in the test it performed beautifully. We think it gives much more importance to the time between waves (so sometimes now skipping that time for money ain't worth anymore), it forces the player to develop a much more interesting building plan, and brings somehow the game to a level of vitality that was missed before.
Additionally, unlocking the builders tent becomes a very important achievement of the game, and increasing the number of workers and their skills (hp, speed and working time), gives additional interesting features for the research.
Any comment on it?
