Hi all,
Long time no see!
I’ve been secretly working on something I’m really excited about—and soon I’ll be able to share it with you.
In the meantime, let’s talk about Towers.
In Rogue Kingdoms, towers work differently from typical TD games. Instead of having dozens of shallow options, you only start with 4 base towers. Each of these towers has its own upgrade tree with 4 levels, and at every level you choose a different aspect to evolve. This system leads to multiple possible “end towers,” giving you a ton of flexibility depending on your build.
Soo, how does the upgrade system work?
Base level - 4 towers:
Archer Tower: Great for single-target damage and strong enemies.
Mortar: Area-of-effect damage focused on specific zones.
Barbarian Spawner: Distracts enemies, keeps them in place, and deals ranged damage.
Valkyrie Spawner: Distracts and tanks enemies while holding the line.
Level 2 — Branching Paths (usually 2 per tower)
In this level we upgrade the tower base, changing significantly their base stats making them effectively completely different towers. Examples / typical branches:
Faster attack speed or multiple projectiles (or faster summon rate for spawners).
Increased range and attack power (or stronger summons with more reach).
Level 3 — Projectile/Summon Specialization (3–4 branches):
Each tower gains unique effects:
Archer Tower: Poison, Break (armor-piercing), Healing, or Strong arrows/axes.
Mortar: Burning, Freezing, Healing, or Strong stones.
Barbarian Spawner: Poison, Burning, or Strong barbarians.
Valkyrie Spawner: Freezing, Break, or Strong valkyries.
Level 4 — The “Blue Pill / Red Pill” Choice:
Double Shooter: Doubles archers / dwarves / cannons / summons.
Berserker Shooter: Greatly boosts all stats of shooters.
In total, this system allows for 96 unique tower variations, each visually distinct. Below you can see an example of the Mortar’s upgrade tree (the final Berserker versions aren’t shown yet since they require a special shader generated during gameplay).
I believe this approach adds much more depth and replayability to the tower defense genre—and I’d love to hear what you think!
Anna & Alex
