Tower Defense Games

From FMMC0282
Jump to navigationJump to search

Tower Defense Games or TD Games are essentially a sub-genre of strategy games. The TD Game genre is generally comprised of a human player who allocates resources to build 'Towers' in order to prevent enemies (commonly referred to as 'creeps') from passing through the human players map. In order to succeed in the TD Game genre, human players have to allocate resources in order to build defensive towers. These towers have the ability to shoot, damage, halt, and eliminate creeps from the map. Each eliminated creep results in gained resources, these resources are then stockpiled by the human player to buy more towers, or upgrade current ones. Winning is usually defined as surviving the onslaught of creeps (The human's towers eliminate all (or a sizable portion) of the creeps) and losing is defined as the creeps reaching the end of the map before your towers have a chance to take them out.[1] TD Games are usually very easy to pick up however hard to master.

TD Games can be simple or complex, turn-based or real-time and they all involve some sort of strategic approach.[2]

Gameplay Elements

Phillipa Avery describes the 5 elements that combine to comprise an example of the TD Game in his text, "Computational Intellegence and Tower Defense Games".

Terrain

The map. Users can strategically place their towers on any part of the map. This map is usually comprised of two elements, the path and the area surrounding the path. Creeps travel along the path through the map. Towers can be placed anywhere on the terrain that is not on the path. Maps can change through different levels.

Towers

Towers are the human player's defense against the invading creeps. Normally towers can be placed anywhere on the map except directly on the path. Towers can be upgraded with resources. Towers have many different abilities, costs, and uses. They cover different ranges and have specific targets. Towers can differ in cost, range, power, firing rate, effect on creeps and more.

Creeps

Creeps are defined as the enemy. Creeps move along the path at varying speeds trying to reach the end of the path. Creeps usually have different attributes such as size, speed and defense. Usually in TD Games, the creeps that follow the path in the beginning levels are relatively low strength and low speed. As your progress through the game, these creeps increase in armor, speed and size and typically take multiple upgraded towers to kill. Some creeps are unaffected by certain towers, thus the human player is best served to diversify his arsenal of towers.

Reward Systems

These reward systems are created to, as Avery states, "...increase the interest and lengevity of TD games..." As the creeps pass though the map, the towers destroy them. As each creep is destroyed, typically, the human player is rewarded with some sort of resource. These resources can be used to purchase tower upgrades, new towers, and more. These resources function as a way for the users to increase the power of their tower defense in order to sufficiently withstand the next levels creeps.

Single or Multi-player

The majority of TD games involve a singe player strategizing the use of his tower defense against the computer-controlled creeps. However there are examples of multi-player TD games such as Rampart as well as others that function to have humans work as a team to withhold the onslaught of creeps.

History

Early Beginnings

The Tower Defense Game genre is relatively young in the world of gaming. The TD Game genre finds its beginnings in 1990, with an arcade game released by Atari Games titled Rampart. The large success of Rampart caused the game to be released on a wide variety of platforms including Game Boy, Super NES, Playstation, Xbox, and more. [3]

Increase in Popularity

The success of the Tower Defense model generated significant buzz in the gaming community and eventually influenced the creation of custom maps that adopted the TD Game Model for mainstream computer games such as Starcraft, Age of Empires II, and Warcraft III. [4] Fans utilized the free map creation tools in Starcraft and Warcraft III to create custom TD style maps. These Tower Defense maps became so popular that the game developers themselves included TD style levels in further releases of the game as well as in expansion packs.[5] As noted in Phillipa Avery's text, Computational Intelligence and Tower Defense Games, "One of the most popular versions of these [tower defense model-based maps], and arguably the original true TD style game was the Tower Defense maps for the Warcraft III expansion The Frozen Throne." This addition in the Warcraft III expansion signaled the TD Game genre's entrance into the mainstream and sparked a growth in the genre's awareness on a larger level.

Entrance into the Mainstream Market

The Tower Defense Game genre entered the mainstream market with the boom of flash-based web games. Until 2006, no one really bothered to develop a desktop-based model of the Tower Defense Game. In early 2007, a developer named David Scott launched Flash Element Tower Defense. This game was so successful that within two days, 500,000 users were playing it per day. [6] The success that David Scott achieved with Flash Element TD rubbed off onto one of Scott's close friends, Paul Preece. Preece released Desktop Tower Defense in March of 2007 and within 4 months the game had been played over 15 million times and brought in over $12,000 in revenues. [7] Desktop Tower Defense soared in popularity, garnering awards such as the 2008 Gleemax Award for Strategic Gameplay (“The Gleemie”) at the Independent Games Festival and it's success is credited with the launching of the Tower Defense Game genre into the mainstream. [8]

The Mobile Platform

The Tower Defense Genre continues to be very successful on the mobile platform. Today, Bloons TD5 and Plants vs. Zombies are the leading mobile Tower Defense Games in the Apple App Store.[9]

Examples

Rampart

Developed and released by Atari Games in 1990, Rampart is regarded as the first game that fits the Tower Defense Game Genre. Rampart was an arcade console unit and featured four different game modes, single player, two-player harbor, two-player river, and a three-player mode. Rampart's arcade style console was an upright machine with a horizontal monitor. The control panel features optical trackballs and two buttons (fire and rotate) for as many as three players. Single player mode consisted of a castle defense unit and cannons. The Human player would have to construct his castle defense as well as place the cannons strategically on the map. The cannons could rotate and fire in accordance to the two buttons on the control panel. There were three different types of ships, with the number of shots it takes to sink a ship depending on the size of the ship. In Two-player harbor mode, the area of gameplay is divided into thirds, one third for water and ships, and the other two-thirds for each players castle. Players must sink ships and destroy the other castle to win. In Two-player river mode, the area of gameplay is split down the middle by a river. The players face each other and try to destroy the others castles and ships. Three player mode is identical to two player river mode, the area of play is divided into thirds by a Y-shaped river. [10]

  • An example of the Rampart console. [11]

    • Desktop Tower Defense

    Developed by Paul Preece in 2007, Desktop Tower Defense is widely considered as the game that launched the genre of Tower Defense games into the mainstream. [12] Desktop TD is a simple, easy to pick up, well-designed spin-off of the Real-Time Strategy genre and is speculated to be influenced by Rampart. Desktop TD is a flash-based game that found it's success through it's "short-feedback loop" and "5 levels of addiction as described by Daniel Renkel in his text, Desktop Tower Defense: Perfect Job. Renkel smartly points out that the human player's experience is significantly enhanced by this "short-feedback loop" in which the user can experience his fun and improvement almost instantaneously, feeding the thirst for instant gratification found in the youth of the world today. His description of the 5 levels of addiction is worth noting. The first level, states Renkel, is that as you fend off creeps, the user yields money (resources) that can be used to upgrade or purchase more defenses. The second level is that you can use these resources to buy more towers and make the path in which the creeps travels longer and harder, therefore you accumulate more resources to build more towers. The third level, is the "send next wave" button in the game. Using this, Renkel says, you can allow more creeps to pass through and build a stockpile of even more resources. Level 4 is the fact that instantly, when you lose you can start a new match and access more towers, enemies and upgrades. And finally, level 5 is the high score list, which you can compare and show off. [13] These "5 levels" of addiction, detailed by Renkel, are ultimately what fueled the success of the Tower Defense Genre and illustrate why Desktop Tower Defense is such an important case study when looking at the Tower Defense game genre as a whole.

    Plants vs. Zombies

    Bloons TD

    Significance

    References

    1. ↑ Avery, Phillipa, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, USA, http://julian.togelius.com/Avery2011Computational.pdf
    2. ↑ Avery, Phillipa, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, USA, http://julian.togelius.com/Avery2011Computational.pdf
    3. ↑ Soos, David http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Tower-Defense-Games&id=7241055
    4. ↑ Soos, David http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Tower-Defense-Games&id=7241055
    5. ↑ ctamas http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/03/30/understanding-tower-defense-games/
    6. ↑ http://www.edge-online.com/news/tower-defense-creators-launch-flash-games-portal/
    7. ↑ Rutkoff, Aaron http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117987060189311315-X7F9b2kgxKbL1y0fZbnAHkOurR0_20080619.html
    8. ↑ Simmonds, Nic http://mygaming.co.za/news/features/6341-tower-defense-a-brief-history.html
    9. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?cc=us&genreId=6014&popId=30
    10. ↑ http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9263
    11. ↑ http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9263
    12. ↑ Simmonds, Nic http://mygaming.co.za/news/features/6341-tower-defense-a-brief-history.html
    13. ↑ Renkel, Daniel http://gamedesignreviews.com/reviews/desktop-tower-defense-perfect-job/
    Retrieved from "https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/FMMC0282/index.php?title=Tower_Defense_Games&oldid=241"