Objective - In JW1NC's Tower Advance players use Worker units to build Walls and a variety of Towers. These Towers and Walls are used to advance forward in the players lane. As you advance forward towards the end of your lane you will be required to destroy a number of enemy towers and gates in order to do so. Destroying the second Barrier Gate will result in your defeating the game. As players build and advance against the opposing towers they will also have to fight off waves of creeps which spawn at the top of the lane.
Game Info
-10 Lanes for 1-10player games.
-Players start with 2 Workers to build and harvest lumber, additional Workers can be purchased for a hefty sum
-4 difficulty settings
Easy = 40 second creep spawns
Normal = 35 second creep spawns
Hard = 30 second creep spawns
Insane = 25 second creep spawns
-Towers and Walls can be upgraded numerous times
-Sell Towers and Walls once you have advanced beyond their reach
-Leaderboard displays the Player Name and Time (in seconds) it took the player to win after defeating the game. In the future fastest times for each difficulty setting will be displayed on the website
This is an overview of all 10 lanes
Looking down some of the lanes
1. Farm house, this is where you purchase more Workers. If this is destroyed by creeps you lose.
2. Sentinel Towers. Enemy controlled, must be destroyed in order to advance past them.
3. First Barrier Gate. Invulnerable until its 2 Gate Keepers are destroyed. First Barrier Gate must be destroyed in order to advance over the river.
4. Second Barrier Gate. Invulnerable until its 2 Main Gate Keepers are destroyed. Destroy this Gate to win.
5. Gate Keepers. More powerful and harder to kill than Sentinels. These towers guard the Gates and must be destroyed in order to attack their corresponding Gate.
Once you have mastered your advancing stategy and used it successfully in all difficulty settings JW1NC's Tower Advance retains its excitement as you race against other players to be the first to succeed.
Easy Mode takes 15+ mins for a pro.
Normal Mode takes 20+ mins for a pro.
Hard Mode takes 30+ mins for a pro.
Insane Mode hasnt been beaten yet.
I look forward to all your feedback and improving on the core concept in future releases and eventually new maps using the Tower Advance idea.
I have attached the map here for DLing convenience.
This map has undergone extensive Beta testing but I understand that small issues and bugs will show themselves and I ask anyone who finds one to please email me at jwinc19@hotmail.com with the problem and a screenshot if possible.
~JW1NC
Here is the link to download version 1.11
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/atta...6&d=1187807747|||Interesting idea. I don't think the attachment feature is working, though, so it will be pretty hard for people to test and give feedback. I'd recommend attaching/uploading it somewhere else and providing a link.
Not that you asked for advice about it, but I'm not sure about the name you've chosen. It seems more like you should call it Tower Siege (or something like that), from the description. Tower Advance makes it sound a bit like you mean to say that the towers are "advanced" (like a space shuttle is advanced, ie the adj) not "advanced" (in the sense that chess pieces are advanced, ie the past participle). In any case, the towers don't actually advance (move, in other words), do they? You build forward and the towers stay where they are. Also, I have a personal bias against map titles where the author's name is part of the map name - it always seems like the map-maker is either making a big deal about themselves or they weren't creative enough to come up with anything interesting. Why not name it after the barriers gates somehow - given that they are a pivotal part of winning - or maybe just call it a TD, because it sounds like it follows most of the same concepts as a TD. I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it, but the game name can actually be important for drawing in fan base for something where the gameplay is different.
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Destroying the second Barrier Gate will result in your defeating the game.
You mean it will result in you winning the game? That just seems like an odd way to say it (the game is not playing the game, you are, right? :P ); the first time I read it, I thought it meant you would be defeated.|||Thanks for your feedback. I will add a link to the first post so people can download.
As for the name...
In a TD you simply defend with towers. In this, a TA, you advance with towers. In a TD you dont defend towers, you defend with towers. In a TA you dont advance towers, you advance with towers. Hope that makes sense :)
As for my name being in the name...
Originally it was called Endless Woods: Tower Advance but I found that I wasnt really interested in making a theme to this game, just an objective. This map has no story line, it just has an objective and you race other players. So I got rid of that name but that just left me with Tower Advance, and since I plan on making more maps with this core concept (the idea of advancing down a path against a computer or other players (PvP Tower Advance coming soon) I didnt want to have the name of one map be in the names of all my others.
So, since this is my first map ever and the beginning of a series and im proud of it, if only because I was able to make something somewhat fun and playable, I put my name on it. Its a matter of pride, not being boa****l :)
Lastly 'winning" vs "defeating". You are playing against the computer in the sense that they are your enemy. You are playing against other players in a race to the finish. If you won the game by reaching the end then that would mean everyone else lost, which of course isnt the case. If I reach the end first I defeated the game and won the race, but all the other players can still defeat the game.
Thanks for your input, all comments are appreciated :)|||Quote:
In a TD you simply defend with towers. In this, a TA, you advance with towers. In a TD you dont defend towers, you defend with towers. In a TA you dont advance towers, you advance with towers. Hope that makes sense
I would contend that there is no defending at all in most TDs, and often they have many more elements than just towers. To defend, you must be attacked (by definition), but TDs rarely have attacking units, and when they do attack, it usually is because you've blocked their path. There are a few exceptions, but they are, indeed, exceptions. Many games that aren't strictly defensive or strictly towers have been labeled a TD. If you'd like, I can provide you with a fairly extensive list of maps that have attacking units or have towers that you maze plus some other objectives and they are STILL referred to as a TD. That's not to say that your map concept isn't unique - it has elements arranged in a way that aren't common in TDs, and it does have an offensive objective to accompany the 'defensive' objective - but that wasn't my point. My point was that people who play TDs are your target audience and they are the people most likely to become your map's fan base and by naming it something like JW1NC TA, you've signaled to that audience that your map isn't a TD - despite the fact that the one of the primary objectives and most of the gameplay is essentially that of a TD. You still lose the game by leaking units, you still build towers and defend against spawned computer-controlled opponents; the difference is that you win the game in a different fashion. I'm just warning you that by naming it something that isn't exactly clear, you are likely to turn away potential fans of the map - and what you might have gained is a little bit of pride over your new conceptual arrangement of elements.
It's your map, do what you like, but if it were me and it came down to having my map reach a wider audience or having my map named something to signal the accomplishment of my innovative design, I'd probably go with the audience. That's all I was getting at.
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This map has no story line, it just has an objective and you race other players.
I can count the number of TDs that I've played with a story line on one hand; the objective is the theme for most TDs - storylines are just window dressing. That still doesn't mean you can't give it a creative name.
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Lastly 'winning" vs "defeating". You are playing against the computer in the sense that they are your enemy. You are playing against other players in a race to the finish. If you won the game by reaching the end then that would mean everyone else lost, which of course isnt the case. If I reach the end first I defeated the game and won the race, but all the other players can still defeat the game.
I disagree completely. If you are "racing to the finish" (your words), you win by finishing first (by definition). Everyone else in the race lost - but unless the race only has 2 people, no one ever refers to the other contestants as losing the race; the other contestants are referred to by the rank at which they finished (1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, etc). In any case, the objective in a race is to finish first, not to 'defeat the course'. Again, my point isn't to argue semantics or writing style, it was mainly to point out that your language was confusing. You are welcome to disagree, but I thought I should point it out to you that I found it awkward, stilted, and confusing and I'm one of your audience members, so you might want to consider revising it.
Edit: I see you added a link. I will give it a run in a couple hours with some people and try and give you some serious feedback.|||Ive had players just build defensively in an attempt to survive the waves and never advance until I inform them that the waves are endless and they need to start pushing forward. Of course I wont always be the one hosting and there to correct players, and I dont want people having a miserable first time through. Im cautious to refer to this as a TD so if you have any suggestions that you think might communicate the real objective I would love to hear them.
Even with the name I still get a ton of people joining just because it says Tower in the name, which is great. And a lot of them immediately ask "Is this a TD" to which I respond "its a TA, you advance instead of defend" and people have responded well to that.
Like I said, my name is on it because Tower Advance was too generic and I didnt want to give it a fancy name that didnt have anything to do with the game, so it got my name :)
Im open to any name suggestions that improve interest in the map.
As for winning vs defeating I think we just need to agree to disagree :) One last example I will give is I have had people, when seeing me advance faster than them, say "well im out, red is gonna win anyways" and leave.
Keep the thoughts and ideas coming :)|||Quote:
I have had people, when seeing me advance faster than them, say "well im out, red is gonna win anyways" and leave.
If you don't win by reaching the end first, then you shouldn't refer to it as a race. That's not something that is debatable; you win a race by getting to the finish line first - that is an intrinsic character of races (they are defined as a contest of speed).
However, I understand what you are saying - people will quit because they didn't finish first - but if the map isn't a competition, the players shouldn't be slotted against each other in such a way to suggest that it is. If the only reason they are playing the map together is to have some company while they play through the game, then maybe you should refer to it a "challenge" or "puzzle" or something similar that doesn't imply that there is competition between players.
Once I've had a chance to play it a bit, I will probably have some recommendations - but I think that from the description, part of the problem will be that once you've "solved the puzzle" (or whatever you want to call winning) there's not going to be much incentive to play it again - the course is always the same, the tower choices are always the same, and if it isn't a race, there's no point in improving your time.
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After playing it, I think perhaps it shouldn't be called a TD, but I still don't know that I would call it a "tower advance", which is pretty ambiguous, if you ask me - even after playing it. What you really are attempting to do in the game is what I would call a "tower siege". I think that would give players the idea that it isn't about just hanging back and defending your base, but that you are required to move your siege forward to win.
Complaints about the map: All of the structures seem pathetically low on health. By that I mean that by the time you get to the gates, the walls are completely useless and the even the medium and upper tier towers are destroyed easily, but you have no structures that can stand up to the sorts of damage the spawns are doing.
From a strategic perspective, what this means is that players who take down towers early have a huge advantage, because they face dramatically-weaker spawns when they take on the more difficult towers - also, I think (I obviously didn't try every strategy) it also means that at some point if you haven't gotten to the gate yet, you won't ever be able to make it. While you might not think this is a big deal, it leads to uneven (and actually somewhat unfair) gameplay.
Perhaps a better way to deal with it would be to advance the types of spawns based on the progress that players have made, rather than basing it on how long the game has gone on. I think this would lead to much more even gameplay, because then everyone faces the same types of creeps when they are in a similar situation and it might allow players to develop more interesting strategies (for example, bank lumber and gold and then make a big push to get past certain elements or to catch up with players who moved ahead faster). As it stands, if you get behind, you probably will never catch up and it will eventually just mean that you lose (not lose the "race lose" we discussed earlier, but actually get crushed because the spawns get too difficult to fend off).
Of course, if you did use this system, you would probably need to find some way to compensate players who advanced earlier - for example, give the creeps a lumber bounty so that players are rewarded for taking on upper level creeps sooner (if they can manage it). As things stand there is no reward for turtling in your base early and there are probably not very many viable strategies for players.
For me, the game eventually became pretty tedious because the cost to repair is so much cheaper than the cost to build/rebuild, and all of the structures are so easy for the creeps to destroy that you end up spending most of the game micromanaging the repair ability on the builder. I'd recommend making the repair a bit pricier and making the towers capable of taking more damage so your strategy isn't just tediously repairing damage all of the time. If you don't want to mess with the balance of the current towers, at least consider adding some elements that cost more and can take much more damage or maybe make the wall structures a lot more durable than they are.
From a design level:
If the game isn't a race, as you suggested earlier when you said it isn't meant to be competitive, then the suggested players should say 1 - 10, not 2 - 10, because obviously if you are "playing to defeat the game", you shouldn't really need anyone else to be playing with you. Therefore, it should be an equally-rewarding experience to play as a single-player map.
Also, please set the player slots to fixed positions and fill them with the appropriate player types. The primary reason why you should do this is that one of the slots (I think the last one?) shows up as a player slot but if you fill it, the player? takes over control of the spawn/tower units. Presumably you mean for that slot to always be computer controlled, not player controlled, so you should have the slot position fixed and set to computer. When I was testing it out on bnet, I couldn't play without setting the slot to a computer player and the computuer player assumed the slot for the spawner player (blue?).
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