Grab 17.waves NOW for 30% OFF!!
While the game can be played as a singleplayer, it was always envision as something you would play online with some buddies. We wanted to keep the price of the game low to keep the game accessible for groups of friends - and are offering 30% OFF at launch to encourage even more players to give it a try!
View game pageWe are so excited to see you all digging into the game, and putting your skills to the test as you work your way through all 17 levels. That's 289 waves to survive!!
If you want to share feedback, report any bugs, or otherwise connect with ourselves and other fans of the game we recommend joining the Peartree Games Discord!
BUNDLES?
Looking to save a few dollars more? If you own either Paper Planet or Starground (both also galactic sci-fi co-op games from 2 Left Thumbs) then you're eligible for an additional 10% off at checkout!
The Making of 17.waves
The Inspirations
When my now-wife and I first started dating, we used to play PixelJunk Monsters 2. We absolutely loved it, learning every level inside out: the routes, the enemy types in each wave, where and when to drop each tower, when to dance on one to upgrade it or tear it down for a coin refund. We'd pause the game, get up, walk right to the TV and point at build spots and enemy paths, strategizing every move like a couple of colonels drawing up a battle plan, making sure we had a perfect run on every difficulty before moving on. When we finished it, we went straight back to PixelJunk Monsters 1 and did the whole thing again. Then we played Overcooked! the same way, same obsession with efficiency, just a lot more frantic yelling.
The Concept
What stuck with me wasn't how alike the two felt to play, but how different they felt in the moment. Monsters had all this downtime, especially mid-to-late game, dancing on towers, wandering around scooping up coins. Overcooked! never stopped; there was always something to do, always something to run to, right up to the final second. So near the end of that playthrough, right around when I accepted that a third PixelJunk Monsters was never coming, the idea for 17.waves TD clicked: a tower defense game where you don't just place towers and wait, but control a little guy sprinting around the map, fetching and hauling and tossing resources to keep everything humming, to keep that intensity the whole way through.
Development
The hard part was making "always something to do" feel entertaining instead of exhausting in this type of game. Early builds were definitely too hectic and felt you were drowning, or you were standing around waiting for the next wave with nothing to do. So a lot of development was just tuning that loop--how fast resources respawn, how big the levels are so the player can still get to where they need to be, how many enemies per wave, how fast the enemies move, the damage of the towers, etc. When all this is right, though, you hit that perfect state where everyone is moving nonstop and somehow still enjoying it. I hope this is what you experience when playing 17.waves TD.
Getting from that idea to a finished game wasn't a straight shot, but honestly it went smoother than I had any right to expect. Once I had a demo that actually felt good to play, Graeme from 2 Left Thumbs came on as publisher, and his help has been invaluable: game design recommendations, ideas I'd never have landed on alone, and getting the game in front of people, including streamers who actually played it. He's also the one who found Liam, who took all my rough programmer art and rebuilt it with proper 3D models. Watching the game go from washed out placeholder blocks to something that genuinely looks like a bright fun game was one of the best moments. Huge thanks to both of them! And a huge thanks to Sean as well, who made a banger of a soundtrack!
Thank You!
Making a multiplayer game on your own is genuinely hard, there were stretches where the multiplayer code just would not cooperate, so I owe a massive thank you to all my friends and the folks on Discord who playtested, broke things, and gave me feedback. This game doesn't exist without you. And the biggest thank you of all goes to my wife, who started all of this without knowing it, one PixelJunk level at a time (and I guess for making all of the sounds too)!
I hope you enjoy 17.waves TD, and I hope you get to play it with someone you love.
Cheers, bgk
ps. I've been working on a new game called Canopy with a friend of mine. You should go check it out!