I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to play my early access game so far!
If you haven't already, please leave a review.
Early feedback has been phenomenal! I'm honestly surprised how well people seem to like the concept of the game. I appreciate everyone who took the extra time to leave me feedback. I continue to read every comment and encourage anyone who has feedback or ideas to make a community post.
With the latest Leaderboards Update - I have finished implementing the last of the core ideas I wanted to have in the game. Now that everything is implemented in its base form I can switch back to improving and developing new content.
I have taken all of the future concepts/ideas I originally had and combined them with everything the community has suggested so far. I tried my best to include everything but I did prune some suggestions that either: didn't fit the current theme of the game, would have required substantial game engine changes, or ideas that I thought could work but would most likely be added in a future patch after some of the ideas on this list were implemented.
A majority of these ideas I plan to be introduced into the game at some point. This post is for the community to decide what should be given priority.
Please leave a comment with what you would like to see implemented first! If you have a question or a suggestion about one of the ideas below please leave a comment!
Concepts List
Player Abilites
- Room Scale Abilities: Cast spells while you overlook the map table. For instance, you could throw a fireball onto the map dealing AOE damage. This would have a high cooldown of either a certain amount of time or maybe it could only be cast once every X wave depending on the level.
- Room Scale Traps: Add the ability to buy placeable traps for gold that decay over time. These traps would be reliant on implementing the new DOTs system. Traps would either decay base on a timer or the number of monsters that interacted with it. Spike Trap: This trap would deal a small amount of damage to each enemy that walked over it. Slime / Oil Trap: This trap would cause any monster that walked over it to have reduced speed.
- New Arrow Types: There are three optional new arrow types. Each type would be limited in quantity. They will either have to be bought for gold, or a small amount would be given depending on the level. Fire Arrow: When a monster is hit it will do a Fire-based DOT. Ice Arrow: When a monster is hit it will cause a slowing effect. Bomb Arrow: When a monster is hit it will do AOE damage.
Monsters & Abilities
- New Monsters: I have two unique monster designs each with a special ability. Wizard: It would have stats slightly above the orc with high armour and high elemental attribute immunity(DOTs). Its special ability would be to occasionally freeze towers that it passed making them unable to attack. This would make it a major focus of the player. Its high armour value would make it only weak to the player's arrows. Monster Plant: I haven't decided on the stats but it would either be (Fast moving with weak stats or Very Slow with High Stats). Its special ability would be a semi-long range attack that targets the Player and causes them to either - 1. Move / Teleport around much slower, maybe 30-50%. It might just freeze the player in place for X amount of time. 2. Makes the Player unable to fire the Bow, or makes them unable to fire the bow faster than X per second. Both effects would be temporary. Please let me know which one you would prefer!
- Variety Group Spawns: Currently, the game is designed in such a way that each spawned group of monsters can only be of one monster type and can range from 1 to 3 monsters. I could rework the code to allow for a group to contain any variety of 3 monsters. For instance, instead of a group of three slimes, it could spawn 1 Orc in the front with two slimes on the side. It would add a bit of priority to what the player kills. I could also change it so that a group doesn't have to be limited to a size of 1-3. It could be extended to a cap of 5-6. This would require some balance changes, it would probably be a mechanic of new levels.
Gameplay / Mechanics
- Damage Over Time effects: To add another layer of strategy into the game I could implement DOTs into various aspects of the game. For instance, the Poison tower could be given a DOT effect that causes the monsters it hits to take a small amount of poison damage over time. Implementing this would also allow for things such as an Ice Arrow to slow the monster that was hit. Potential DOTs include - Fire, Poison, Stun, and Slowing effects. With this implemented each monster would be given Elemental attributes that determine the effectiveness of each effect.
- Fast Forward Button: I've had a few suggestions that the wave spawns are slow and can get a bit boring. I could implement the ability to speed up the waves. I'm not sure where I would implement this in the GUI. It might be a button you would have to hold on your controller and it would cause the waves to move 1.25x speed. It might also work being added to the edge of the map table. And you could click three different buttons for speed ranging from 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x. If you have a suggestion for this let me know. This could be due to the fact that the default 5-second group spawn timer is too slow. I could reduce this down to 4 seconds and it would speed up the whole game but might make it feel a bit rushed depending on the individual's playstyle.
New Towers & Abilties
- New Towers & Abilities: Along with adding DOTs to the Fire/Poison tower, I have two new potential towers with unique abilities. I would have to redesign my current tower popup to allow for more than 4 choices. Electric Tower: This tower would do low damage chain lighting attacks. Bouncing to each enemy nearby doing some percentage less damage each time. Slowing Tower: This tower would have a slow fire rate but would cast a Slowing DOT on the monster it was hit.
- Tower Target Priority: I could implement a setting that allows the user to pick what target towers should go after. Currently, they target the first monster that enters its range. I'm not sure if I would make this a universal option, or if I would add a setting for each tower. I could add the below options. First: This would be the existing option. Towers would target the first enemy that it enters its range. Weakest: After killing the first target, it would then find the lowest hp monster in its range and target that one. Strongest: Similiar to Weakest, it would target the highest HP monster it can find.
Levels / Maps
- Endless Mode Map: Want to see how long you can survive and compete on the leaderboards? I could create a new map designed with Endless Mode in mind. It would feature extra tower slots and have an infinite number of waves. Each wave would be slightly tougher than the last and would include all available monsters.
- Bonus / Objective Based Maps: Add optional maps between some existing maps. Each map would have some sort of restriction on playstyle or unique waves. For instance, one restriction might only let you build 1 type of tower. Another might not let you use any towers at all.
- Archery Practice Map: Create a new map with the sole purpose of practicing your archery. It would feature a variety of targets at different distances.
- Wave Countdown Timers: Currently the player has to start each wave. I've received many suggestions that I implemented wave countdown timers. I could add in a mechanic that makes certain waves spawn after X amount of seconds. Calling waves early would reward the player with a small amount of gold. This wouldn't be added to every wave, especially the first level or two. It would be a mechanic of the higher levels and some of these higher levels would be based around a limited time to get prepare.
- Variable Player Scaling On Maps: Currently, maps have a fixed scaling ratio. When the player is shrunk onto the map they are 1/16th of the size. This causes a soft cap on level design as there is only so much space for monster paths and tower slots. This would require a good deal of internal rework but would allow for much "larger" maps for the player to explore and would allow for much more variety with monster paths.
- Just more levels: I have plans to add at least one level already with whatever is decided on in this patch but if you would like to forgo new features and instead get 2-3 new levels let me know. I will note that if this is done first, I will have still have to revisit the new levels and olds ones in order to add and balance new features. This will slow down that future patch.
Features
- Monster Guide / Stat Book: Implement a menu that shows each monster you have encountered and its stats(Health, Armour, Speed, Group Size). It could also show the monsters different hit zones after you have discovered them. (Shooting the slime's eye does critical damage. The orc is protected where its shoulder pad is). This would mainly be helpful if DOTs are implemented as it would show the monster's elemental attributes.
- Sound Design: Add more sounds into the game.
Steam Features
- Cloud Game Saves: Make all game data and config settings save via Steam Cloud.
Undecided Concept List
Still needs more design work and feedback
Upgrade System
- Point-Based Upgrade System: I have gotten feedback that players would like to more actively manage and upgrade their towers. I could create a system where you are given points throughout a level. You could spend these points on the different tower stats and they would provide a minor percentage base increase to the chosen stat. These points would either be just for an individual level or they could be given at the end of the stage along with talent points. If given at the end of a stage, the points would be permanent. This might not be needed if I instead just rework the existing talents.