[Game] Sketch Defense, Tower Defense Game

Hey guys, just wanted to announce my game for windows phone called Sketch Defense. Its the first game I've ever made (I just started programming this summer). It's a fixed path tower defense game that I think is pretty fun. Sorry there is no trial and no way to give out free codes for downloads.

If you feel like spending a buck to check it out I would love to get some feedback from you guys! I also look forward to the dev community and seeing what they can come up with! Hopefully with my limited knowledge of C# I'll be able to participate a bit more than on other platforms!


Update 1/14/2011 - New version has been released with a new account. Working on fixing some bugs and re-coding the particle system. New version should be out in a few weeks. Hope you all are enjoying the game!

ekw said:

i remember seeing this on youtube a while back. playing it now, looks fun!

haha i dumped 2 hours into this thing. really addictive. will there be updates?

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Did you play the unlimited stages or just the normal levels? There is actually an update I'm uploading right now that just fixed a few bugs. Do you think it's too easy? On the emulator it seemed more difficult, on the device its easier. I also may need to tweak the stars... on the device I dont seem to get nearly as many points as on the emulator. The game ran horribly on the emulator for some reason, but runs really well on the device thank goodness.

Got any suggestions? Like I said, this is my first game ever (just started programming a few months ago) so any suggestions are very welcome!

ekw said:

I think it was quite difficult, until I bought the boost tower. After that it was smooth sailing.

Suggestions:
-Have an offset when dragging the tower, so that the finger doesn't cover the tower during placement. makes it much easier! (may require additional logic for edges)
-Maybe in the future allow a maze mode! I think it would require a snap-to-grid layout, which i don't think the current implementation implements.
-Air units and air towers/invisible units and invisible sensing towers.
-Races, each race has different towers and different special effects.
-Individual upgrades to damage/range (perhaps after the max upgrade?)
-Description of towers would be nice
-Space the towers a little bit, i tend to always grab the wrong tower. (perhaps there could be a build-tower button that opens up a scrollable menu that gives tower selection (can also place descriptions here).
-Ability to pause the game (for tower placement)
-Trial mode (would probably bring you the most cash)


Bugs:
-For some reason all my lightning buffs disappear
-When reloading the game, the boost tower disappears
-Can't upgrade the boost tower, had 15K gold and it still didn't work.
-That ice map didn't follow that pathing, is that intentional for the "slipping"?



I am quite impressed on your first project, did you use game studio when implementing this? or you did it straight up in c#? If so do you have any links that helped get you started (so i can take a look at them )?

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Offset when dragging towers: There should be an offset of over 100 pixels already, at least there is on my copies and I've tested it on a couple different phones.

Maze mode: What do you mean?

Other suggestions: I'll take them into account. I do plan on making some changes eventually to give it more depth, but the hardest part of making this game was "balancing" the different towers so that one wasn't way too powerful or really weak. As it is, the arc tower needs a strength or range upgrade I think, albeit slight.

Bugs: The lighting buff only lasts a few seconds and it is global, so if you use it on one tower, it will take away from your global pool. The normal levels only have one lightning boost, the unlimited levels have 20. I'll add some better descriptions to the help screen about this.

I'll look into the boost towers, they must not be getting re-loaded correctly. Not sure why you arent being allowed to upgrade them.

Ice map "slipping" is intentional, a friend did the map and it was his idea.

How I got started: I used XNA game studio which makes things really easy (compared to doing everything on your own). I started by reading a few C# tutorial books, then once I had a decent grasp of object oriented programming and C# syntax I started doing xna tutorials. After a few weeks of tutorials I started working on the game and just worked on one thing at a time. Each day I could typically work out one thing and eventually got a working game. Like I say though, the hardest part was balancing everything out.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions and bug reports. There is already a new version being validated that fixes a few bugs you didn't mention (levels not loading after coming back into the game). I'll try and get a new update out this week with some other bug fixes. I'll also be adding another level this week or next and maybe a trial mode. The reason it doesn't already have one is because people were having problems with it before windows phone was released and I just didn't want to mess around with it.

Edit: new build submitted. boost towers can now be upgraded and will persist on load. Rocket tower range now properly indicates when being dragged. Offset from fingers has increased when dragging a tower. Arc tower names have been changed.

Revaric said:

Since 1.5, I noticed that once I place a tower, I can't place other towers. Any attempted to "grab" a different tower results in that first tower being selected.

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Thanks, working on a new version now. Strange how bugs pop up when you don't even touch areas of code that they deal with!

Hey guys, new version was released a while ago but I've pulled it due to problems with Microsoft. I've had to create an entirely new developer account and my apps will be moving to that account. I've already talked to Microsoft and essentially, anyone that already bought this app won't be able to receive further updates.

With the new account, and the new apps that I'll be releasing, this won't happen.

Raptor550 said:

Hi, i am an artist, Your game is pretty neat. I was going to offer if you wanted I could help you with art for this game or a re-theme under a different title. Or if you have something new in the works I can make it look slick. Basically I have been looking to developers because I want to bring life to my art. You can see some of my art by looking at the latest thread I started.

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I have my little brother working on art for me. I am working on a new game, its a tower defense again, but you play as a ship and you fly around the level using dual thumbsticks. Your ship has lasers and you can also fly to different "dock" zones and build towers for defense. Graphics in this new game are going to be glow style, all black backgrounds.

CyiDev said:

Great game, just purchased. How are your sales doing on the app?

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I've had a few hundred sales. Hopefully when WP7 takes off more, sales will go up a bit so I can justify spending more time on development. Currently I only have a few hours a couple nights a week.

capsloc said:

Hah this game is pretty fun, going to recommend to my friends

Played during lunch at work and had me going the whole time lol. Good stuff, but need to work on touchability a little bit down when you select the defense weapon, sometimes it chooses the weapon to the right of what you are actually trying to click.

Other than that, fun game!

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That's really strange because when I play, it tends to select the tower to the left... I wonder if I modified the touch zones too much in favor of me playing. I'll look into it and hopefully fix it in future releases. Thanks for the report as well. As I mentioned, this is my first game ever (started programming a few months ago) and all the feedback is very nice to hear. Makes it much easier to get rid of bugs and enhance gameplay.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've completed a new update for Sketch Defense. I'll be uploading the new version either tonight or tomorrow. Assuming MS has no problems with it, it should be available later this week to download.

Changes:

I've re-written the particle engine so that it should be a bit quicker now, and the particles will be more random.

I've changed how the disc tower's "bullets" work. Hopefully you won't notice a difference, but it eliminates a bug with calculating damage inflicted upon nearby enemies.

Also, concerning the problems selecting the towers... I'm open to suggestions on making that better. Currently, the selection area for the towers are as big as I can make them without having them overlap.

And...
If you find that by next week there isn't an update available for you, please let me know by PM!

teoami said:

that sucks to hear about having to create a new account.

I paid for it before and it was pretty good. Not sure if I want to buy it again for updates.

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Check your PM.