Preview of Helix Defense 2
Hello friends.
For August I was working on a simple Tower Defense game as my monthly game, but as I was moving that month I didn’t get to finish it in time. So I decided to spruce it up and turn it into a full-fledged game, complete with (gasp) polish and features and all that good stuff!
Here are a few screenshots and some words about how the game is going to work.
Here’s the title screen. Right now the logo says “Helix Defense 2″ but that’s just a working title. Most likely the game will be called Helix Defense with a wanky subtitle. These pictures were taken at 640×480 but the game will support any resolution (within reason – 200×200 might not work too well :p).
This is the level select screen, showing a few sample levels (mostly in place for testing purposes at the moment). Clicking a level shows the detailed view at the top, including your objectives and a bit of narrative text explaining a bit of backstory for the mission. Objectives will usually include “defeat x number of waves” but can also include things like “end with x number of resources” or “defeat x number of enemies” (for levels where enemies can escape).
Completing a level will give you a certain amount of points, with additional points earned by doing well in the level.
Here’s a typical level:
There’s a path clearly obvious in the level leading up to the reactor sat in the middle. Enemies will travel along this path to the end then begin to attack the reactor, which will be destroyed after taking enough damage, making you lose the level. To defend your reactor, you must build towers!
Towers can be built using the buttons in the lower right corner of the screen. There are three towers for this level: the Gatling Tower, the Slowing Tower and the Mini-Reactor. These towers cost resources to build, which can be obtained from your reactor (and any mini-reactors you have), which will constantly be generating resources. Some levels may also reward resources in other ways, such as destroying enemies.
Towers can be placed down anywhere near the path (but not on the path itself) and will automatically attack any enemies within range.
(Enemy graphics are currently a placeholder!)
Here’s another level. This one allows you to manipulate how enemies move throughout the level, with their initial path shown below:
The enemies will always take the shortest path they can towards your reactor, which isn’t very good! To remedy this, you’ll be able to build at certain key points to force the enemies to take a longer route (giving you more time to shoot at them!). Here’s the same level with two towers built:
For this level, eventually you’ll force the enemies to travel around the entire spiral, giving your towers the maximum amount of opportunity to blast them out of the sky. Some levels will have dangerous lava tiles that will do damage to enemies, whereas some might have tiles where enemies are protected from certain kinds of attacks. It’s up to you to manipulate your enemies to your advantage!
There will, of course, be levels with large open areas, letting you create mazes for enemies to move through! With this variety in how levels are built, along with the different objectives and a drizzle of story, I’m hoping to have quite a diverse set of levels for players to go through!
All in all, development is going pretty well. At the current rate I’m going at, I’m hoping to be mostly finished with the game at some point during October. Distribution channels are yet to be decided but expect some more news here soon!
Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/kylerodgers
