Tuesday, November 30, 2010

New Tower Paths

After planning some new towers i decided to make a new tower path

Which i am thinking of naming the tech path. or maybe science, alien, i dont know.. something scientific sounding

so when im all finished there will be

basic which will upgrade into
army ( with 3 more options(each with another upgrade))
nature (ditto)
and that science one (ditto)

the science one will have things like freeze/slow tower. Gaussian Beam, Repeater Beam, Focus Beam, and other stuff similar to that. (so scientific sounding, isnt it? ;)

I also plan on moving the Orbital tower into the nature path and renaming it Planet
It will then be upgraded into Galaxy. It will still have things orbiting around it just different theme.

Im planning to then fill the empty space in the Army path with a Splash Tower.
Im not yet sure how i will go about doing that, but not knowing how to approach a new idea has never
got in my way before!

The Tech path will have the options of
Freeze ---> Time Warp
Plasma Repeater --> Ion Repeater
Focus Beam --> Gaussian Beam

I will post a complete path tree soon with more "official" names and descriptions.

When i am done with all my towers i WIll have a total of... DRUMROLL....

22 TOWERS!!!!
RAHHHHH!!! MEGA TOWER POWER!!! TO THE MAX!@#!@$@#^O&!$&%!&$%!

Beam towers

These use a new targeting type that i have been working on.
They dont shoot a projectile
they shoot a beam towards the target which instantly hits and deals damage



heres a screenshot


They are not done yet but I will soon have them up and running.

I plan on making a whole path of towers centered around this type of targeting.

It should be about 7 more towers total

Reference Sources

http://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/rect.html
and other pygame documentation

pygame irc #pygame on Freenode.net

These are the sources i use most.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Volcano Towers!

these guys are pretty awesome

They:
shoot in completely random directions
shoot about 15 shots per second
shoots explosive shots
the shots travel slowly and self destruct after they get to the end of the range (which is about 2.5 tiles i believe)
are under the nature path (which adds more options and makes the nature path more awesome)

Yeah thats it
heres a picture


yeah, they are awesome

Updated Priority list

After, what 3 weeks? or so since my last posting of my priority list, there have been a lot of changes.
My last posting of this was before my submission to the IGF student competition.
I was able to get a lot of the stuff done between the last posting and have added some new things to the list.

THIS THING SAVED MY LIFE




PRIORITY 1- Urgent!
    balancing (not too hard but still a challenge, no "best" way to play) CURRENT
    EXE creation -JoshC

    better bee towers (more attack) FIXED
    handle all maps completed (game won) - Josh C FIXED
    load game menu buttons(delete/save file buttons) - Josh C FIXED
    scaling (making new basic towers cost more after bought/ making enemies exponentially increase difficuilty) FIXED
    handle single map completed (map complete screen) -FIXED
    save game function (auto) -Josh C FIXED
    load game function displays after main menu -Josh C FIXED
  
PRIORITY 2-
    info box displays not enough money/ other errors... -Josh C
    different variety of enemies (colors) -Josh C
    orbital shots respawn time -Josh C
    tower replacement mode -Josh C

    fade out and into game -Josh C FIXED
    fly tower image -Tyler/Chris? FIXED
    fix in game menu buttons -JoshC FIXED
    fix pause screen image -Chris FIXED
    towers more spread out in tower paths (redo paths? too little in nature) -FIXED
    shrink tower placement info box FIXED
    orbital shots auto destruct after orbital is destroyed -Josh C FIXED
    orbital shots maximun number -Josh C FIXED
    orbital shots range issues -Josh C FIXED
    raise shot kill boarders (homing disapear -Josh C FIXED
    get rid of prints -Josh FIXED
    hotkeys -Josh C FIXED
    new homingII image (just more flashy homingI) -Tyler/Chris? FIXED

PRIORITY 3- Would be nice
    center and crop all of the tower images -Josh C
    rotate towers towards target -Josh C
    make map.draw, HUDs.draw go faster (performace speed) -JoshC
    change question marks in select map menu to locks -JoshC
    toggle sound button (ON/OFF) -Josh C
    flamethrower tower -Josh C/Tyler
    in game sounds -Tyler/Josh C
    new shot colors - Josh C

    change wave font - FIXED
    fix in game buttons to be python generated instead of photoshop images -FIXED
    fix while loop lag in mad_cloud_games startup -Josh C FIXED
    nicer bee tower image (outline/shading?) -Tyler/Chris? FIXED
    machine gun tower shoots faster, weaker, and more inaccurate -Josh C FIXED

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Download Color Tower Defense

If you have a PC running windows, then you can

download the game here

Theres no version for Mac right now but im working on it!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

100% CLEAN" Softpedia award

I gave my site an nice shiny award thanks to Softpedia

Check it out

Email from Softpedia Editorial Team

Heres an email that the Softpedia Editorial Team sent me.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations,

Color Tower Defense, one of your products, has been added to Softpedia's
database of software programs for Mac OS. It is featured with a description
text, screenshots, download links and technical details on this page:
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Games/Color-Tower-Defense.shtml

The description text was created by our editors, using sources such as text
from your product's homepage, information from its help system, the PAD
file (if available) and the editor's own opinions on the program itself.


"Color Tower Defense" has been tested in the Softpedia labs using several
industry-leading security solutions and found to be completely clean of
adware/spyware components. We are impressed with the quality of your
product and encourage you to keep these high standards in the future.

To assure our visitors that Color Tower Defense is clean, we have granted
it with the "100% CLEAN" Softpedia award. To let your users know about this
certification, you may display this award on your website, on software
boxes or inside your product.

More information about your product's certification and the award is
available on this page:
http://mac.softpedia.com/progClean/Color-Tower-Defense-Clean-88286.html

Feel free to link to us using the URLs above. If you choose to link to the
clean award page for your product, you may use the award graphic or a text
link: "100% CLEAN award granted by Softpedia".


If you feel that having your product listed on Softpedia is not a benefit
for you or simply need something changed or updated, please contact us via
email at webmaster@softpedia.com and we will work with you to fix any
problem you may have found with the product's listing.

--
Sincerely,
The Softpedia Team

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Softpedia is a library of over 400,000 free and free-to-try software
programs for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, games and gaming tools, Windows
device drivers, mobile devices and IT-related articles.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Softpedia - the encyclopedia of free software downloads
http://www.softpedia.com/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
this is pretty exciting for me because it allows a bigger audience to get access to my game.
And also, Softpedia costs money to get products uploaded. But they did it for free for me :)

Thursday, November 4, 2010

IGF Game Submitted! Part 1

I got my game all submitted to IGF this week. But it wasn't easy.
For starters, i must have spent 5-10 hours every day trying to finish things up. Pretty much most of the stuff on that list that i posted got finished or canceled.

THE LIST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For IGF game competition:

PRIORITY 1- Urgent! (MUST be done before game is submitted)
balancing (not too hard but still a challenge, no "best" way to play) CURRENT
load game menu buttons(delete/save file buttons) - Josh C FIXED
scaling (making new basic towers cost more after bought/ making enemies exponentially increase difficuilty) FIXED
handle all maps completed (game won) - Josh C
better bee towers (more attack)
handle single map completed (map complete screen) -FIXED
save game function (auto) -Josh C FIXED
load game function displays after main menu -Josh C FIXED
EXE creation -JoshC FIXED

PRIORITY 2- Needs (should be done before game is submitted)
info box displays not enough money/ other errors... -Josh C
fly tower image -Tyler/Chris?
fix in game menu buttons -JoshC FIXED
fix pause screen image -Chris FIXED
towers more spread out in tower paths (redo paths? too little in nature) -FIXED
shrink tower placement info box FIXED
orbital shots auto destruct after orbital is destroyed -Josh C FIXED
orbital shots maximun number -Josh C FIXED
orbital shots range issues -Josh C FIXED
raise shot kill boarders (homing disapear -Josh C FIXED
get rid of prints -Josh FIXED
hotkeys -Josh C FIXED
new homingII image (just more flashy homingI) -Tyler/Chris? FIXED
fade out and into game -Josh C CANCELED
info box displays not enough money/ other errors... -Josh C CANCELED
different variety of enemies (colors) -Josh C CANCELED

PRIORITY 3- Would be nice (should not be worked on unless priority 1 & 2 are clear)
center and crop all of the tower images -Chris CANCELED
rotate towers towards target -Josh C CANCELED
make map.draw, HUDs.draw go faster (performace speed) -JoshC CANCELED
change question marks in select map menu to locks -Chris CANCELED
toggle sound button (ON/OFF) -Josh C CANCELED
change wave font - FIXED
fix in game buttons to be python generated instead of photoshop images -FIXED
fix while loop lag in mad_cloud_games startup -Josh C FIXED
nicer bee tower image (outline/shading?) -Tyler/Chris? FIXED
machine gun tower shoots faster, weaker, and more inaccurate -Josh C FIXED
flamethrower tower -Josh C/Tyler CANCELED
in game sounds -Tyler? CANCELED
new shot colors - Josh C CANCELED

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks list! i couldn't have done it without you!


-the story of monday night-
The submission time was Monday night at 11:59
and i had been working on balancing/submission applications/fixing critical bugs ALL day.
I was feeling pretty good about myself and was all like "Hey i could actually do this."

so things were looking pretty good and it was 40 minutes till the deadline. So i submitted my application and it went to the next screen when i got a prompt saying: please upload your game to our FTP server.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?@#%$#@^&$%&@$^#%&@%$&*@$%&^#$%

first of all, ive never heard of FTP.
second, I have a half an hour.

half an hour.

I assumed that you needed to upload your game to a project hosting website, and then
you would send them the link. This is exactly what i had done in preparation; I uploaded my game to code.google.com. and sent them a link.

after some stressful research, I downloaded a FTP client...

-------------------------------------------------
Important information-
FTP stands for file transfer protocol.
posting something on an FTP server involves
downloading a FTP client and using it to transfer
the data from your computer to their server.
-------------------------------------------------


After getting an FTP client. I then went through the process of uploading my game.
Then the errors started rolling in. Were talking:

critical file transfer errors
login errors
write privilege errors
... just to name a few.

Remember that this was now less than 30 minutes before the deadline.

What was the spectacularly amazing helpful thing that happened to come along and save me?

part two coming soon