Week #030: Gemstone Dwarfs

Promotional concept artwork of Hugo and Trixie, the gemstone dwarf poster children.
Images represent a game currently in development.

Brave and burly, the Gemstone Dwarfs hail from cities of crystal grown on the water's surface. Using their mysterious ability to crystallize liquid matter through touch, they intricately craft their cities, expansive underwater mines, and can even walk on water!

Height roster in the game's discarded pre-alpha hand-drawn graphics style.
Images represent a game currently in development.

My philosophy while designing the dwarfs - as it is with anything these days - was breaking the mold. I feel that it's important for any media today to grab the viewer's attention with original ideas, and while games can also do this through unique mechanics, I feel that it's still important to explore these options from an artistic standpoint. I frequently feel that I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't.

Variations on dwarf appearance including hairstyles.
Images represent a game currently in development.

With the dwarfs, I sought to do this through both visual and character design. Most will still recognize them as the beloved stout warriors at a glance - like several of you did even from the early teasers. But when you dig deeper than that, you'll find that they're different from the usual mountain-dwellers.

Modeling sheet for the gemstone dwarfs.
Images represent a game currently in development.

I hope everyone enjoys this preview of the Gemstone Dwarfs coming soon to HTD! I'm currently looking into other methods of further exploring their background and just who they are as a race, so I hope you look forward to that, too.

Week #017: Multiple Maximus

Due to some personal problems (I can't catch a break, can I?), we unfortunately had to delay the development of a few things, as you may have noticed in last thursday's update. While I'm not comfortable stating an ETA on anything, I can assure you that I'm prioritizing the completion of human males and shadow abilities (surprise?) for their addition to the game as soon as possible.

Many of you wanted to see Maximus geared up in various ways other than full plate armor, so I wanted to be sure to bring that to the blog this week. I've been pleased with the overall reception regarding the new Max so far, and I continue to assure you that if you had something different in mind, that we'll have you covered with the design of future races.

I also wanted to include some development shots of how Maximus' animations are coming along, but thanks to a major speed bump involving the side view, that stuff is a total mess right now and I don't think anyone could make any sense of it. I'll try to get something like that out next week. Unfortunately (I know, I know, this post is kind of a real drag...), that same speed bump will cause the completion of males to be pushed back by at least a week, and that isn't even including the equipment yet. Sorry! I'm doing what I can.

Enough of these downers, let's move on to some fun community impact activities. First of all, I'm sure some of you noticed that I extended the length of CIP#003 to determine the order of the remaining three elements (with shadow obviously being the second). Since I can't edit a poll once it's active, I couldn't modify it to reflect this extension. Just try not to let the title confuse you. Since shadow has already been decided on, feel free to change your votes to help decide on the next three if you wish.

As for our first Community Impact Opportunity (CIO), as I teased last week...

Community Impact Opportunity #001:

Choose Your Own Arsenal #001

What else can we expect to see by the end of the month, you ask? How about some new weapons? What I want to do is get your feedback on what kind of weapons you'd like to see included in HTD. Axes? Maces? Can't get enough of swords? Maybe you have some really wild and unique ideas in mind? As long as it fits the theme of the game, we want to hear it. Here are a few additional guidelines to follow:

• Melee weapons are ideal for this opportunity. Since animations for ranged and casting weapons aren't yet complete, such weapons couldn't be added until a later date. I'll most likely hold a separate CIO when that time comes.
• You do not need to have a visual of your idea. A detailed description is fine (and I cannot stress enough that more detail will increase your chances). Lack of a visual will not hurt your chances, unless your description is just too vague to make sense of.
• While we can't include exact copies of a popular weapon (example: a Buster Sword, the Master Sword, etc.), we can create a reasonable facsimile. Feel free to include such suggestions and we'll see what we can do, but being imaginative and unique could go a long way.
• A poll will not be opened to choose between these weapons. Any weapon that I choose to design will be included in the game!

As always, we're looking forward to seeing what you come up with. While I won't promise to include every idea, I will try to add as many as I can by the time the option of changing your weapons in-game becomes available (no public ETA, you know the drill).

In closing, the last thing I want to mention is I will be moving my weekly blog updates to sunday night. Getting them together for monday nights is just proving to be too difficult for me. This may change again if I find that sundays don't work any better for me, so stay tuned.

Week #011: Sick Stylin'

One day, I will make an HTD boss themed around sinuses just so that I and the rest of the world can have an outlet for our rage. He will do nothing but sit there and take it, just as we are forced to do.

Community Impact Poll #002:

Human Male Hairstyles

Another slow week due to sickness, unfortunately. But I still wanted to get the poll up. CIP#002 will remain active until December 22nd, two weeks after the next post on the main blog. Unfortunately we were only able to decide on seven choices as opposed to the nine the female had, but we felt this was enough.

The poll itself is, of course, found off to your right right here on the blog (votes left via comments will not be counted). You only get one vote, so make it count!

Images represent a game currently in development.

It should be noted that with the first release of HTD now rapidly approaching, that my posts may continue to be on the quieter side for the next few weeks. This doesn't mean that work is done; far from it! We just don't want to spoil absolutely everything about the game before you even get a chance to play it.

I will still continue to bring you these weekly blog posts, and they'll be sure to pick back up once the new year is upon us!

Week #006: Trick or Treat!

Notice: I've updated the progress lists, but notice that I've narrowed my sights, so that they are no longer symbolizing such an immense scale of content all at once. It could also be identified as an optical illusion to make progress look a bit more explosive... I'll let you see it as you choose!

When I first started this blog, I had already been working with SND for several weeks and had a nice amount of content to show for it. While the speed of content creation hasn't exactly changed (though everyone has their off weeks), the rate at which we're presenting it has, which has caused the unfortunate lull in content lately.

What I would like to do is cut back to showing less content per week, but making the content more meaningful. Instead of seeing minor updates or very early works in progress, you'll see more concept art and completed game assets. With the main blog showing more development screenshots as development progresses, I believe this will round out into a pleasant package.

Something that our spectators should keep in mind is the extraordinary circumstances we're working under. Not only are we making our developmental progress rather public from the word go, which most game developers don't do (most games aren't made public until a year or two after they've entered production!), but there are only three of us! Some of what you've been seeing has even been completed only a day or two prior to being shown. This is something I'd like to resolve with the new pacing of showing content.

This week, I thought I would show the concept design of the introductory epic cloth armor set, modeled by our human female player character along with another of our three winning hairstyles, "Yesterday's Breeze".

Week #005: Winners and Whelps

Tonight's post comes to you a little later than usual, as I wanted to wait for the first Community Impact Poll to officially come to it's end so that I could talk about it (as if the results could have changed that dramatically in just an hour or two, but whatever, play along!).

As stated, these three hairstyles will be made available for any human female player character in the initial release of Hero Tower Defense. I am rather pleased with the results myself, as I believe these three styles offer a nice balance of diversity. Remember that the runner-ups are being placed aside and may still make it into HTD some day, so no complaining!

Be sure to stay tuned, I'm sure the male's hairstyle choices will be decided through a similar fate...

This week I thought it would be nice to take a break from "Cheryl" and take a look back at the little treasure whelp, who we haven't looked at in quite some time. I would actually like to get to introducing his daddy here soon, but I feel like there's still plenty of things to go through before we need to look at new content... and some things might be better left unseen until you have the game in your hands, yeah?

One other thing I really wanted to clarify was a few things about the notes on progression. As you can see (and I'm sure some of you already did), I stuck them up on the right side bar so that they can be more conveniently and regularly seen. However it should be noted that these are a pretty limited view into my world. For example, at the moment they're really only tracking the progress on the human female player character, and just because they aren't being regularly advanced doesn't mean that I'm not getting work done elsewhere (for example, the HTD logo). As such, they should not be considered a countdown to when the game will be released.

Speaking of the HTD logo (which has primarily been shown over on the Sam & Dan Games blog), while keeping in mind that it is still very much subject to change, please feel free to drop your thoughts about it to me here, I am still actively taking notes to refine and improve it!

Week #003: High Heels and Hairstyles

This week I'll be talking more about HTD's starring female lead, codename "Cheryl".

There have been mixed reactions (from both the community and the higher ups) in regards to the human females sporting high heels. In the aftermath of last week I encouraged you to stay tuned for my solution, and I'll go ahead and kick things off with that.

Images represent a game currently in development.

As you can see here, the presence of high heels in the base character sprite design allows for a lot of freedom when it comes to boot design. Along with the previously previewed high heel design, shorter, thicker heels are possible as well as boots with flat soles. Keep in mind that none of these designs are necessarily final. It should also be noted that the base design itself is still up in the air, for example, the thigh-high boots have recently been scrapped.

You might be wondering what we're going to do in the case of, say, an open-toe flat-sole boot design. While I didn't include an example of that above, I assure you that we've already thought of it and have solutions in the works.

Finally, as promised, this week will kick off the first of my Community Impact Polls (CIP), deciding on the girl's initially available hairstyles. Here are the nine potential designs, with some other notes below.

Images represent a game currently in development.

The three top voted designs will be included for use in character customization at game launch, while runner-ups will be referred to for future design inclusions. You can only vote on one, so take your time and choose carefully! Community Impact Poll #001 (which will be found on the bar to the right) will remain open for the next two weeks.

See you next week!