Welcome to the first monthly preview for Axon TD: Uprising! In today's topic, we're going to show off some of the UI. Compared to our last game, Element TD 2, the UI here is much cleaner, more optimized, and sports some fancy new features!
Towers on the bottom; life, resources, and everything else up top. All good to go!
Path Manipulation
As you know, Axon TD is a mazing tower defense, meaning the towers you place will directly influence the route that the enemies take to reach the end.
In most cases, if you can extend the path, it's a good idea.
Adding Tiles
But in addition to that, you can place down Tiles, and in a multitude of ways. Behold:
While this illustrates the idea, this is actually a terrible placement.
You can even use it to place towers where you couldn't before.
Connect to islands and add more space!
Choices
At the end of each wave, you have a choice to select between more Credits (money/gold) or more Add Tiles. Do you want more towers, or do you extend the map itself?
Sometimes, there's even a third choice with some more wild options.
These are just some of the possibilities you can do with Adding Tiles. There's also Recycling Tiles, and in a particular mode, adding full Expansions.
Range Indicators
Up next, we thought we'd show you a few towers. Specifically, their Range Indicators.
360 Firing Arc
This is the most common type. Most towers shoot at a specific target within their range.
360 Firing Arc, the most common range indicator.
A few towers shoot in this arc, but have caveats. For example, Sniper Tower has a minimum range and thus uses a ring indicator.
That's a pretty big range. What if I told you it could be even bigger?
There's also Seeker Drone, which launches a drone separate from the launchpad.
On the left, the hub is selected, and on the right, you can see the drone's range!
Directional Towers
Some towers are directional. Either they can shoot something in a limited firing arc, or they hit everything in a line. And before placing them, you can press R to rotate them.
This one hits everything in a line. Try to set up open lines 4 Spaces long for it.
It's important to get as much as you can in that firing arc.
Hits Everything
There's also a few towers that hit everything around them. To distinguish them from the 360 Firing Arc, this one is tile based, as you can see below:
In theory, you can cover a path of up to 15 Tiles long with this tower.
Temporal Mine
In addition to towers, we also have Traps and Mines. These can be placed directly on the path, and they'll get triggered when an enemy walks over them.
One in particular, Temporal Mine, will send an enemy back 15 spaces. However, you don't need to guess where that is. When you're placing it, it'll show you the space it teleports back to:
Pretty nifty, huh?
Buffs
Lastly, some towers buff towers placed adjacent to it. As you're placing a tower, a green highlight will appear, indicating that it'll get buffed here.
It's receiving a 25% damage buff from that Damage Aura Tower. Green numbers are better!
Damage Graph
Not sure which of your towers is doing the most damage? Just turn on the handy dandy Damage Graph! It's a button located in the bottom-right corner. Toggle it on, and watch as the bars grow on your towers!
This is with the graph off. Looks like a solid defense setup.
Each tower has its own bar, showing you how effective it was last wave. Well, in terms of damage.
Active vs. All
You can also toggle it between the Active Wave and All Waves.
Believe it or not, 14000 damage is not the highest we've seen from one tower in this game.
Co-op UI
In Co-op, you and up to three others defend a much larger map. Most of these maps are cordoned off into "zones", with the intention that each player gets their own zone. Of course, you're not solely limited to that space, and the game gives you options to help communicate.
Pings
Want to tell someone to build a tower in a specific spot? Or a particular tower needs to be sold? Then ping it! Middle-click a location, and it'll pull up a little menu. Choose your option and wah-lah, everyone will see what you're saying!
Check it out, my teammate built a tower where I pinged!
Do note, if you spam the pings too much, you will be temporarily locked out. Try not to spam it too much, folks.
Sending Resources
Got some excess resources? Then look up to the player board in the top-left and send Credits or Power!
Ignore the incredible spelling and grammar of the dialogue box on the right. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Mini-Map
Of course, there's a mini-map in the game, and in Co-op it's especially helpful for seeing what's happening on a larger scale.
You can even see the damage bars of allied towers!
Dev Stream
Curious in seeing more Co-op? Then look no further, because tomorrow, we'll be running a Dev Stream where we show off 3 Player Co-op!
Stream will start on Sunday, May 20th, at 12:30pm PDT / 3:30pm EST
That's all for the preview this time! We've got more UI features we're working on, both in-game and in the Main Menu itself, which will make the game far more accessible and convenient than our previous title. To keep up to date with the latest news, join our Discord!
But before we sign off, we've got one more announcement...
Public Demo
Axon TD will be taking part in the Steam Next Fest in June! This is a weeklong event from June 19th-26th featuring a ton of upcoming games. However, our demo will actually be available before then...
You'll be able to play Axon TD as soon as June 8th, and it'll remain open all the way to June 26th! This demo will limit you on the number of towers you can access, as well as the content. However, even with the limitations, it's easily 1-2 hours of content, or even more should you try to maximize everything.
More details will be provided when the demo becomes available!