Mars Tower Defense will be a pretty normal tower defense game with swarms of bugs, upgrades, resource collection... but with some added wrinkles like open terrain, and the ability to place your towers and path wherever you want.
The Idea
The original idea was a tower defense game from the point-of-view of the teeming mobs, so from the beginning I wondered what powers I could give to them besides "Make Mob". Resource-salvage from destroying a tower and the ability to change your path came to mind. The movement, waypoint-seeking, and collision code for the bugs (tanks at that time) came encouragingly easy.
Look at them go, they actually look like they're stopping and thinking! But the code is exceedingly simple.
I no longer know if the gimmick of "Tower Offense" is going to be worth seeing through (I can switch sides back and forth at this point), but I still want to make a Tower Defense game. Merely watching swarms of green bugs run into your blazing guns is satisfying to me even though there are no resources, strategy or gameplay yet!
Some things that bug me (not intended) about other tower defense games are the locked-down path, which I talked about, and the pre-ordained building sites. I'm going to try to keep both open as I develop. Put the path wherever you want, build a gun wherever you want. This raises certain complications, like building a gun that blocks the path, but maybe I can turn that into a gameplay mechanic, who knows?
Why the setting on Mars? Well, I like space, and I like the vermilion and hot green color combo.
