Drain Defense (playable and open to collaboration)
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If player immediately builds a narrow zigzag strait it easy for shishkebabs to get completely stuck in there, even if the flow through the strait is fast. The level is basically beaten there.
Yesterday I spent the whole day getting Wombo to create flora for me. I integrated it into a system that mirrors the terrain system visible here.
xyz Yes! I am counting the player doing exactly that. Of course I have not yet implemented negative consequences for clogs because I have been waiting for you to advise me on how to best implement a 2D grime and muck shader. I guess just noise right? And a passing in information on where grime exists through the image as you illustrated previously.
Looking neat with the flora elements.
As for muck etc, yeah, I'd use a sliding noise texture ramped with some "muck density" value packed into the flow texture.
Today I sat down and gleefully implemented my first set of punishments for the intuitive "just clog everything" strategy. Excited for your feedback and curious how long you xyz are able to hold on before the flow takes over =D. See the grime here!
xyz Haha I’m so glad you gave it a try and persevered! I also started having fun especially with the muck and submarining, and I haven’t even made any of my own towers yet so that’s probably next, you can tell now there’s a lot of potential directions.
I ended up making a shader I really liked for the muck but it won’t be visible until *drum roll the pool can get drained.
I'm not smart enough to code a real time fluid simulation. Too bad I did it anyway watch out 4 pp.
Have you uploaded the fluid version to itch? Has to be seen to be believed
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xyz A version with fluid is here:
https://stactory.itch.io/drain-defense-061
I figured I'd spend the morning throwing together a chlorine pump in case you got tired of how gross it looks. It's just a visual element atm.
Edit: Also I had to get my fluid stuff off of a thread which html5 doesn't support.
I think that is the last version of the game you’ll see where it’s still a tower defense. Over the last month it has become very evident that I and everyone else involved is more interested in making a novel simulation than a tower defense. That’s too bad because the fluids do seem to add a lot to a typical tower defense game.
Fluids look nice.
Coffee to the tower guys but also explain them to zero in on a single floater until it is destroyed.
I remember back in the day I thought "I'd better stick to 3D cause 2D won't have confusing enough math". Yeah, wish past me had any idea how much of a challenge it is to stack donuts on a cone all in 2D.
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I briefly thought it wise to switch the entire game concept to a Lazy River water park simulation- the work load there caught me off guard and led to me getting burned out and a month later I had stopped working on the project. I have a lot of silly fun ideas for a lazy river sim (shocking the bad kids who pee in the pool ect..) but I have been wising up and returning to finishing this water treatment plant themed tower defense game.
In this new upload for version 0.73 here, the game is somewhat in a sandbox like state. I have the fluid system working just about as good as it needs to get and I am happy with the idea that if clean water is exiting the plant you get bonus money- a goal perhaps for later plays when you've mastered the fecal challenges.
I was told one bigger downsides to tower defenses is that you lose by getting behind on kills. I hope to solve this issue by paying the player for all debris that enters the map instead of debris that the player destroys. I will still maintain limiting factors such as time limits, lives, or both for the necessary stress, but I am also allowing the player to just close off the sewage drain if they feel swamped.
I've tried it and I think it's an ambitious and refined game despite dealing with actually shit.
As casual player I was initially confused, i think such a game needs an initial tutorial
More description on turrets info also can help.
As a reward method, a tower defence usually offers upgrades to the towers.
These are my thoughts, well done!
I really like your tower defense style of this game!
from a marketing perspective, i would recommend considering putting humor on the elements for the game vs real life names and shapes...
example:
gummy worms
donuts with a byte out of them
fancy donuts with various styles of icing, chips, ect
maybe also a gameplay mechanic with
potato chips or tortia chips that float and you can navigate various things on them to cross a path. they wouldnt have turrets target them except in some later levels with some turrets
maybe some special weapons that the player can target a screen-wide laser beam to blast a few in a crowded spot. this might make for a thing you could micro-transaction sell to players or offer as bonus perks.
hth
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fatalox I've tried it and I think it's an ambitious and refined game despite dealing with actually shit.
Hey now, this is serious business. Important too.
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fatalox "As a reward method, a tower defence usually offers upgrades to the towers."
Yes tower upgrades are very important and fun. I have no excuse for delaying their implementation, so I went ahead and used the weekend to make upgrades possible for the enzyme sprayer turret- which turned out to be quite more enjoyable than trying to mix digital fluids.
If you want to toy with them- pressing m gives free credits. Version 0.73c
ucmRich Thanks for your encouraging words! (Fatalox too). I am indeed going to add a lot of humorous stuff. I feel the best way to introduce some sillier elements is to first convince the player the game lives within the bounds of waste water treatment only- so that later when muck spawns algae that evolves into little evil creatures the player will be quite surprised. There are also as you mentioned plenty of strange things people flush so there's a lot of room for silly enemies.
I actually love the idea of spawning little floating units that help.
@Megalomaniak You have no idea how many hours of similar content I have watched. I have even interviewed plant control operators XD.