Here we go with Ludum Dare #25!

This round I’m not going to be using Slick2D.  We’re going a bit lower level and I’ll be using the 2D engine I’ve been working on using vanZeben’s tutorials linked here.  The engine he’s building didn’t have all the components I need for this LD, so I’ve been working a little on getting my own StateHandler.  I also need a SoundHandler, but we’ll see how much I can get done between work and the start of Ludum tonight.  It’s just the game engine, no game code in here yet I promise!  If anyone wants to see an example of my StateHandler before the LD, just post a comment here.

The king of all TDs

This time I’m shooting for some sort of tower defense map.  I think to avoid too much feature creep, I’m going to start by first getting the map rendered, and a player on the screen.  Then, I’ll add in a few block types (the Base, a wall, and a spawner block).  Then, I’ll give the player the ability to edit the tiles on the map using some sort of limiting factor (like gold or something).  After that, I’ll add in enemy entities that walk straight at the Base tile.  And if I get THAT far, I’ll have to make a decision.  From there I could allow enemies to attack the walls and towers, slowly eating their way to the base.  This would mean me adding extra towers (fences, stairs, cannons, spikes, etc) and ignoring the pathing algorithms.  The other option is working on an A* pathing algorithm so we can have a true tower defense map.  This would put a heavy load on development toward the middle-end, but if it gets done it would leave some fun fast development near the end (new towers and blocks!).  We’ll see how far I get by the time I’m ready to make that decision, but I’m hoping I can learn some A* pathing this weekend.

There’s a cool A* pathing article here if anyone’s interested.  If anyone has better links for me it would help out a lot!

Pathing in a Tower Defence game? Probably optional.