Showing posts with label Mystery Gift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mystery Gift. Show all posts

Saturday, June 16, 2018

The power of feedback and more changes! plus PTD3 Mystery Gift!

Hail!

The power of feedback

So last week I released the first prototype for you to play with and take a look at how my initial ideas for Cosmoids TD have been taking shape. While I didn't get a huge amount of feedback, I did get some key ones that will actually impact and change the game.

The change I'm going to make is that instead of having your Avatar have to go to spots to place the cosmoids. The cosmoids will instead go from the Avatar to their spots. So the speed at which your units will move to and from spots will always be based on your cosmoids speed. This always allows you to quickly place your units on the map, instead of having to wait for your avatar.

However, even though your avatar will no longer be moving to place cosmoids I still plan to have your avatar move for things like healing or buffing your cosmoids.

More changes

Lately I've been focusing on how Cosmoids TD will be different from the PTD series. It's a mix of seeing what worked and what didn't work for PTD in my eyes and trying to change things up to make them more interested or require a little more planning. One of the first changes I thought about was about how your Cosmoids will level up.

Leveling Up

First a small history lesson, in PTD1 your towers would gain experience by battling, very similar to the original Pokemon games. Your tower had to be a part of the battle for it to gain experience. Once they gathered enough experience you could use your PokeDollars to level them up. This was pretty interesting to me because it made you have to make a choice in which tower you wanted to level up first. However as you played the game, the amount of dollars you got was so high that leveling up was no longer a problem and so there was no longer a choice.

So much so that in PTD2 and 3 I no longer had leveling up cost anything. Looking back I think Tower Defense games are very much about choosing what you do with your resources so this is something that I want to bring back for Cosmoids, with a twist.

My current idea is that when you defeat an enemy cosmoid you will earn what I'm calling "Meteor Dust", this dust is essentially your resource to do many things in the game including leveling up.

The change is that your Cosmoids doesn't have to see battle to level up, you can simple "give" it some Meteor Dust to make them level up. So you will still be battling to get dust and then once you have enough to level up your Cosmoids the game will let you know and then you can make your choice whether you want to use it to level up or to purchase an item etc. You can also choose which of your Cosmoids will get the dust. The challenge will be to keep the dust as a somewhat more limited resource compared to PTD1 where money was plentiful after a certain point in the game removing any choice.

Single and Active Attacks

As I'm designing Cosmoids I'm going through all the areas of PTD and seeing what I want to change and what I want to keep the same. So lately I've been looking at Attacks. In PTD your towers have 4 attacks to mirror what exist on the pokemon games. For Cosmoids I may be rethinking this, some of the ideas I have are towards lowering the amount of attack switching that can currently exist in the PTD series and focus more on interactive active attacks similar to Champions! The Last Defense, where you would have a more active role in attacking your waves.

As with everything, the design can change and evolve over time when creating a game so these can be subject to change.

PTD3 Mystery Gift!

For PTD3 while I'm no longer developing new content for it, like new levels etc. I will still be doing mystery gifts as I can do those relatively quickly.

This week's Mystery Gift is... Qwilfish!



I still have plenty of task for the Prototype v2, I've added the change in Tower placement as part of my list. You can play v1 of the Prototype by clicking here.

Prototype v2 Task:
  • Design - How will leveling up and experience work? (100% Completed)
  • Programming - Scrolling the map (100% Completed)
  • Programming - Avatar no longer has to place Cosmoids in their spots (100% Completed)
  • Design - Incoming Wave Alert System (100% Completed)
  • Design - How much enemy unit information will you have in level? Before the level? (100% Completed)
  • Art - Incoming Wave Alert Icon Placeholder Graphic (100% Completed)
  • Art - Unit UI Graphics Used for buttons or menus (100% Completed)
  • Programming - Incoming Wave Alert Location Tracking (0% Active)
  • Programming - Incoming Wave Alert UI Popup and Confirmation (0% Not Started)
  • Design - How to view friendly unit information? leveling up? targeting options?
As always let me know what you think in the comments below or email me at sam@sndgames.com or on my twitter!

Thanks for your support, and see you next week!

Monday, September 16, 2013

Arriving at Goldenrod City!

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog!

Sam and Dan Games: Fundraiser! Phase 3
Help us keep making games and earn awesome prizes like Shiny Rayquaza, Cosmoid Starters for PTD 2 and Shiny Heatran!  
Our Goal: $50,000

Arriving at Goldenrod City
Now that the soft cap is 100 and over 500 moves are in the game I'm ready to keep going with the story. Our hero might think that the past is pretty calm but he will soon find out that is not the case. Goldenrod is a big city so it will be done in two different updates. I look forward to bringing my ideas for the story to life.

PTD Fan Saga Episode 6 is now out!
Joel has been making great PTD fan videos on youtube showcasing his interpretation of the PTD1 story. He recently released episode 6 of his series and I encourage you to check it out if you haven't already. Check it out here.

Mystery Gift
We have over 370 pokemon in the game already! So this week we will add even more! Like every week, you vote and I listen. Both a Mystery Gift and Giveaway will be added. Looks like Grass is winning so far, looks like you guys are hoping for more starters :)

Weekly Progress
    PTD2 v1.53 Released!
      • Goldenrod City (100%)
        • Map Background (100%)
        • Map Objects (100%)
        • Map Triggers (100%)
        • Add NPCs and Dialog for them (100%)
        • New NPC Graphics (100%)
        • Gym Fight (100%)
          • Battle Background (100%)
          • Battle Layout (100%)
          • Battle Waves (100%)
          • Miltank Boss (100%)
            • Graphics (100%)
            • Stats (100%)
            • New Attacks (100%)
              • Miltank's Rollout (100%)
              • Miltank's Defense Curl (100%)
      • Bug Fix 1(100%) - Human characters that are in battles will no longer have health bars, level or gender stats displayed on them.
      • Bug Fix 2 (100%) - Fixed a bug that could potentially crash the game after the Lugia or Faulkner fights.
      • Bug Fix 3 (100%) - Fixed a bug with the attack Stored Power.
      • Added some dialog to Lugia while in the Lugia fight (100%) - Similar to Mewthree talking on his fight.
        As always let me know what you think!

        Monday, April 29, 2013

        Legendary Transfers, Adopt now Trades, Shadow Moves and more!

        Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

        Welcome to the Sam and Dan Games Developer Blog! Making you feel at home, every week!

        Sam and Dan Games: Fundraiser! Phase 3
        Help us keep making games and earn awesome prizes like Shiny Rayquaza and Shiny Heatran!  
        Our Goal: $50,000

        No blog post last week
        Sometimes the week starts to pass and you haven't written the blog post and before you know it you say okay I'm focusing on making an update rather than write a blog post. That's what happened. But this week it's Monday I have a game plan for the week so I'm here writing the blog post. All rejoice!

        Last week's update
        The week before I had set out to make the second level for Cosmoids and due to server issues I wasn't able to do that. So I took last week to focus most of my time on making the level. I'm really happy with the results and would love to hear what you guys and gals think so far of Cosmoids. I'm also considering bringing it out to the public so that you can play it even if you haven't contributed to the fundraiser (as easy as that is) so that more people can have access to it and I can get more feedback. What do you guys think of that?

        On top of the second level for Cosmoids, I also added Meinfoo and Timburr into the game and they will be distributed as giveaways and mystery gifts for this week.

        I also made a lot of adjustments to the server code to speed things up and I'm pretty happy with the results so far. Some people tend to mention that the "new" server is not good. The thing is we never switched servers or got a new server. We are still in the same one, I've been making changes to the way things work to speed things up.

        This week's update

        New Story Level
        This week my focus is to advance the story in PTD2. I'm really excited about this next part and hopefully I will have enough time to make it as good as it can be.

        Shadow Moves
        I will be adding some shadow moves from Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness that your shadow pokemon will be able to relearn. Right now I'm not sure how many, who will learn what, and what type of effectiveness the moves will have against other types but I will keep you posted throughout the week.

        Mystery Gift and Giveaway
        Like most weeks, there will be a Mystery Gift and Giveaway. I've been pondering about giving out both shiny and shadow versions of each on different days as something that I could do. Either way vote on the polls to decide what you will get next.

        PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers - Legendary Pokemon Arrive!
        A much requested transfer is that of legendary pokemon from PTD 1 to PTD2 and it is finally time! I will be adding Articune, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo and Mew to the transfer list this week!

        Adopt Now for Trades
        A feature I been wanting to try out for a while is for you guys to be able to put your pokemon up for adoption. Pretty much the way I'm seeing it now is that you can set an SnD coin price to your trade. A player that has SnD coins can either request a trade or straight up adopt your pokemon by paying your SnD price. You receive the coins and the other player receives the pokemon. With everything else that I have for this week I'm not sure if this will make it in time. Also you might be wondering why I don't use daily coins with this. The reason for that is the only way daily coins can exist is if they are hard to get or you can only get them at a certain rate per day. Allowing players to transfer daily coins from one account to another will open all sorts of exploits that I wish to avoid. I think this can be a great feature, what do you think?

        Cosmoids
        I try to move Cosmoids forward every week. I feel the more I work on it the more I want to keep working on it. I had a lot of fun just focusing on the second level. There are a few things that still need to be tweaked but I'm very excited for the future of the game. As the game becomes more developed over time, we will be talking about it more and more. For now you can play it at the funding rewards page in the PTD2 Trading Center. For this week we are tweaking the character graphic, making changes to level 1 to make it more compact and to the point, I will be figuring out ways to make the tutorial parts more understandable and easier to follow, and start work on level 3.

        Weekly Progress

        My Status: Not Working. Not Streaming. http://www.justin.tv/samsndgames

        Cosmoids Released!
        • New character graphic tweaks (100%) - adding gloves, changing hat style, different side angles
        • Making level 1 more compact and to the point (100%)
        • Added more details to emphasize that you are protecting your house on level 1 (100%)
        • Making tutorials more easier to follow (100%)
        Future PTD2 udpate Released!

        • Adopt Now for Trades (100%)
        PTD2 v1.43.1 Released!
        • Mystery Gift (100%)
        • New Pokemon (100%) - Tropius, Ferroseed, Ferrothorn
          • Graphics (100%)
          • Stats (100%)
          • New Abilities (100%)
            • Iron Barbs (100%)
            • Harvest (100%)
          • New Attacks (100%)
            • Ingrain (100%)
          • Evolutions (100%)
            • Add to Trading Center (100%)
            • Add to Breeding Center (100%)
            PTD2 v1.43 Released!
            • PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers (100%) - Legendary Pokemon!
            • New Story Level (100%) - Gary makes a discovery, but is it too late?
              • Intro Scene (100%)
              • Battle (100%)
                • Battle Layout (100%)
                • Battle Wave (100%)
                • Battle Attacks (100%)
                  • Target Takedown (100%)
                  • Return to Pokeballs (100%)
                  • Target Bomb (100%)
              • Ending Dialog (100%)
            • New Pokemon (100%) - , Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo, and Mew
              • Graphics (100%)
              • Stats (100%)
              • New Abilities (100%)
              • New Attacks (100%)
                • Ice Shard (100%)
                • Mind Reader (100%) - Now last for 10 charges
                • Psych Up (100%)
                • Reflect Type (100%)
              • Add to Trading Center (100%)
            • Shadow Moves (100%) - More will be added in the future
              • Shadow Blitz (100%)
              • Shadow Wave (100%)
            • Bug Fixes (100%)
              • Shadow Unown will now stay as Shadow when you save (100%) - If you previously caught one you must catch a new one.
            Thanks for visiting! As always let me know what you think! Comments below or Twitter or at support@sndgames.com (both Dan and I read that email) Thanks!

            Monday, March 4, 2013

            The latest ptd2 update, the amazing breeder, story level and cosmoids UI and move types!

            Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

            Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

            Welcome to the Sam & Dan Games Developer Blog! Another week of updates and long blog post! Woohoo!


            Sam & Dan Games: Fundraiser! Phase 3
            Help us keep making games and earn awesome prizes like Shiny Rayquaza!  
            Our Goal: $50,000
            Raised so far: $3,822.70
            Percentage so far: 7.645%
            Total Funders so far: 4,241
            Last updated: 3/4/13 (3:51 PM EST)

            Latest PTD2 Update
            The last PTD2 update v1.36 and 1.36.1 brought a whole lot of new things. I want to quickly go over them. Last week we added 4 new families to transfer from PTD1 over to PTD2. The Pikachu, Sandshrew, Nidoran Female, and Nidoran Male families. A really great side effect of bringing over the Pikachu Family is that you can now breed Pikachus to get your very own Pichu! If you don't know how to transfer from PTD1 to PTD2 visit our FAQ page for more information. We also added 2 new evolution items. The Dusk Stone and the Reaper Cloth. These items will evolve the Ghost Pokemon we recently had for the mystery gift. Speaking of Mystery Gift we added the Steel pokemon week Shiny Aron as the Mystery Gift for this week. A new tradition I started is to give away the runner up from the Mystery Gift pool in a series of giveaways during the week. This week we gave out shiny Beldum. Today I will do another giveaway after 10PM Eastern Time for more Shiny Beldum so stay tuned on my twitter to find out when. Last but not least we increased the Soft Level Cap to 25! This added 37 new moves to the game that your pokemon can now relearn!

            The Amazing Breeder, Rock Solid and Slice and Dice!
            So the next update v1.37 will bring in more PTD1 to PTD2 transfers this time one of the most requested pokemon will show up. That pokemon is Ditto! The reason people want Ditto is that Ditto is able to breed with most pokemon especially those that don't have gender like Beldum and Golett. The other pokemon that I'm bringing over is the rock solid Onix and the slice and dicer Scyther! Why those two? Well I think you can figure that out. They both evolve by trading them with the item Metal Coat. Which means the Metal Coat will be available in the game. This time it will be different, instead of it just showing up in the item store you will have to find them hidden in the game then once you find the item, they will be unlocked to buy in the item store.

            Story Level
            I have been recently been focusing on  adding new pokemon to the game and adding new attacks. That is still my focus but I have to agree that it has been a while since we had some story action. This level will have the gang finally head over to the Ruins of Alph after your encounter with the Unown. What secrets will you discover and why where the Unown grabbing the stones away? Maybe we will find out!

            Mystery Gift
            Like every week we will have a Mystery Gift. So far it looks like Ice type is winning but let's see if somehow things change. Like last week we will also have the runner up pokemon giveaways. I'm aware that people that created multiple accounts can receive a giveaway pokemon for each account. I'm going to look into ways where I can limit that. Also I'll try to do the giveaways at different times so that people in different time zones can have a chance at getting them. Some have mentioned to have the giveaway available for a whole day but I think that will greatly reduce the value of the giveaway. Lastly some of you have mentioned adding the giveaways in the adoption center and I believe I will slowly add them starting this week with Luvdisc.

            Cosmoids UI and Move Types
            Didn't get a whole lot of work done on Cosmoids. The soft level cap increase took a lot longer than I expected so I didn't get that much time. This week I'm going to focus on smaller more specific goals so that I can tackle them much easier. A big thing about Cosmoids that we are planning to do is to only allow you to have one creature out at a time. Meaning you will always have your characters tower plus one creature. You can swap at any time to a different creature. So this week I will be setting up that functionality in the early alpha and seeing how it plays out. Sometimes when you are making games you really have to build your idea out before you can say for sure if it is good or not and I think this is one of those cases. The other thing I want to work on for Cosmoids this week is a new type of move type. This move type will have you dragging the attack to the spot you want the attack to happen. Your character will have an attack like this with a long cooldown.

            Weekly Progress
            Now that we have looked at what we will be working on this week, let's take a look at the specifics. I will be updating this during the week as I work on it all week.

            Status: Not Working.

            Cosmoids
            • Swap Mechanic UI and Functionality (100%)
            • New Move Type (0%) - Targeted move
            PTD2 v1.37.1 Released!
            • Mystery Gift (100%)
            PTD2 v1.37 Released!
            • PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers (100%)
            • Story Level (100%)
              • Intro (100%)
              • Level Layout (100%)
              • Waves (100%)
              • Ending (100%)
              • New Attack (100%) - Fireball
              • New Enemy Pokemon (100%) 
            • Made it easier for big pokemon to fit into spots that are close to other spots (100%)
              • Fixed a bug that would not allow you to transform into an Unown either by Illusion, Transform or Imposter (100%)
              • Metal Coat (100%) - You have to find the item in one of the maps before it is unlocked in the Pokemon Center's Item Store.
              • Fix how Genderless is shown in game (100%) 
              • Testing new attacks and abilities (100%)
              • Ditto Breeding Rules (100%)
              • New Pokemon (100%)
                • Graphics (100%)
                • New Abilities (100%)
                  • Thick Fat (100%)
                  • Oblivious (100%)
                  • Moody (100%)
                  • Technician (100%)
                  • Limber (100%)
                  • Impostor (100%)
                • New Attacks (100%)
                  • Powder Snow (100%)
                  • Encore (100%)
                  • Ice Ball (100%)
                  • Body Slam (100%)
                  • Aurora Beam (100%)
                  • Vacuum Wave (100%)
                  • Bullet Punch (100%)
                  • Transform (100%) 
                • Stats (100%)
                • Evolutions (100%)
                • Add to Trading Center (100%)
                • Add to Breeding Center (100%)
              That's what we have for you this week. As always let me know what you think in the comments below or toss me an email at sam@sndgames.com or if you want to message Dan email dan@sndgames.com!

              Monday, December 17, 2012

              Weekly Update: Shiny Chimchar out now! Bringing the towns to life!

              Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

              Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

              Ho ho ho! Santa Sam here bring you the gifts this holiday season! Today I released v1.28 of PTD2 and it includes the much anticipated Shiny Chimchar Mystery Gift!

              Holidays
              As many of you know the holidays can be extremely busy for everybody. I think one of the biggest challenges a person can deal with when making games is the balance of work and life. For a lot of developers work is their life but this can be a dangerous thing. For me personally I value loved ones a lot and I always try to give them priority when it comes to my time but the reality is that it is you guys that really make paying the bills possible so I value you too. Without you guys I wouldn't be able to do what I love as a living and for that you guys will always have my thanks.

              This Week's Mystery Gift
              I'll be bringing the same poll as last week back to decide the type of the next mystery gift, and then I will do a poll as to which specific pokemon from that type it will be. Go ahead and vote to decide the next mystery gift.

              Bringing the towns to life!
              This week I want to focus on the towns and cities of the game. I want to add violet city along with the bellsprout/onix trade and a harder rematch with Falkner that will be optional. Also Cherrygrove City will finally be restored and the people will be back in their houses. Maybe even a flower shop!

              Creature Universe TD
              Creature Universe is progressing nicely in the concept stage. As far as the game itself I'm still prototyping things so it's far from a release but I hope early next year we can start releasing something. These past weeks we have been trying to finalize names for the creatures we have revealed along with finalizing their colors. I'm also designing the first few levels of the game. The game will have at least 100 different creatures and over 40 different levels to play.


                Alpha v1.29.1 is now released
                • Mystery Gift  - Mystery Gift will be out on by Monday!
                  • Server Code
                  • Game Graphic
                  • Game Link
                  • Blog Links
                • New Pokemon  Oshawott!
                  • New Ability
                    • Shell Armor
                  • New Attacks
                    • Water Sport
                  • Graphics
                  • Stats
                  • Move List
                  • Evolution Info
                  • Evolutions (2)
                  • Breeding Center
                  • Trading Center
                • Fixed Mud Sport to lower Electric damage by 67% instead of 33%
                • Item Store
                  • PokeCenter Page
                • First Badge is now properly given out
                • Violet City - Why are all the cities empty?! 
                  • Map Graphic
                  • City Music
                  • Onix Trade
                  • Falkner Rematch
                • New Pokemon - Onix
                  • Added to Breeding Center
                  • Added to Trading Center
                  Everything below is postponed for future updates! Not enough time this week.
                    • Story Level (0%)
                    • Cherrygrove City (0%)
                      • Flower Shop (0%)
                    • Change the Zapdos Fight to be a more appropriate difficulty (0%)
                      • Day of the Week Spooky Event (0%)- For Tuesdays
                      • Add a graphic for removing a pokemon from the field (0%) - To better tell what is going on when fighting and NPC trainer.
                      • Added which pokemon you will be battling in the next battle in 1v1 mode (0%) 
                      • Make pressing Enter to trigger a lot of the menu buttons (0%) Pressing enter to log in instead of clicking on it.
                      • Top Searchers/Top Request/Latest Trades (0%) 
                      • Harden Sound Still plays while Sound FX set to 0 (0%)
                       That's all I have for you guys this week, as always let me know what you think on the comments below. Happy Holidays!

                        Tuesday, November 13, 2012

                        SnD Weekly 11/13: Creature Universe Back to the basics, Webcomic, limited and more valuable Mystery Gift

                        Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

                        Hello everyone,  pretty interesting week we had last week. By interesting I mean lacking in any updates. I must admit that I've had a rough last couple of weeks and the whole security update really took a lot out of me. After a few days of clearing my head and relaxing I'm ready to get back on the horse. In my days off I really had a chance to think about a couple of things.

                        Creature Universe TD - Back to the basics
                        Do people ever tell you something that triggers something else in your mind? This happens to me quite often. Many times your feedback and suggestions are triggers to other thoughts that help the game grow and evolve over time. In this case Joel, my brother, commented on PTD2 and how complex the game had gotten when compared to PTD1. PTD1 had the element of pick up and play just getting into the action. PTD2 appeals to me because I like to explore and walk around but this comes at a price of having a game that you sit down and play when you have more time. I felt that if I really want to bring CUTD to the mobile market and to save time in development that it would be best to remove the walking around part of the game and stick to a structure similar to PTD1. The focus will then be on making the levels, creatures, attacks, and abilities more interesting to play. Since we already have a Mystery Gift figured out this week the poll will be about which of the two different structures did you like best. PTD1 or PTD2?

                        Joel & Sam Make Comics
                        I mentioned Joel just a bit ago, he lives only about an hour away from my house so I see him three to four times a week. We talk a lot about projects, games, and movies. Every once in a while we talk about projects that we can work on together but with running Sam and Dan Games, plus school, plus life, my time is very short. With this project I help up with coming up with funny and interesting ideas for comics that cross over famous video games with famous movies. The first crossover is Hunger Games with Fruit Ninja, and Joel came up with Star Wars with Portal. Check them out and comment on the comic blog with what other crossovers you might want to see. http://joelsamcomic.blogspot.com/

                        More Limited and Valuable Mystery Gifts
                        Mystery Gifts are meant to reward players who are following along the development of our games. The first few Mystery Gifts have been regular versions of pokemon that won't show up for a while. These have value in that they won't be available for somebody that didn't get the Mystery Gift but they will be able to get them once the game reaches that stage pretty easily even thought it could be years before that happens. To further increase the value of Mystery Gift the next Mystery Gifts will be shiny version instead! The only major complaint that people have with Mystery Gifts is that since you can enter the code so much there is an over abundance of them. To counter this you will only be able to enter the code once for each account. You will get 3 pairs of male and female so if you wish to trade them later on you will have 2 extra pairs. After this the code will no longer work for your account and yes I know you can make more than one account and get more but I hope that the extra work involve will lower the amount that people get and thus reduce how many are out there and increase their rarity in the future.

                        Weekly Progress
                        For PTD2 I'm still working on the items from last week. During my break I remembered the things that I did wrong with PTD1 and the major one was rushing out content to get it out each week. I still like adding things to the game every week (I'm sure you guys wish there was new content every day!) but I want to make sure that what I make lives up to my expectations and a lot of time to get something out in by the deadline I have to cut things down. So what this means is we still get weekly updates but I will make sure that I get things up to the quality that I want to reach instead of rushing things to get them out on time.

                        Alpha v1.25: Released!
                        • Mystery Gift
                          • Graphics
                          • Stats
                          • New Attacks
                            • Charge
                          • Evolution Information
                          • Add To Trading Center
                          • Change In Game Mystery Gift Link
                          • Change Server Code - To give out the correct mystery gift and limit users that have already used it.
                        • Update Pokedex when you evolve a pokemon
                        • Properly align some pokemon when they are following behind you
                        • Better Map UI - Similar to the Battle UI, it shows time of day and your current money amount.
                        • Pokedex
                          • Implemented in-game
                          • Save and Load Pokedex Data
                        • Saving Pokemon's party and storage position
                        • Add a confirmation popup to the back button on story mode
                        • Check the Forgot Password pages for any errors
                        • Sponsor Versions of the game
                        • Daily Activities - The first activity is to trade with 10 different trainers in the PTD2 Trading Center. 
                          • Letting you buy adoption pokemon from ptd2 with Daily Coins 
                          • Creating Daily Activity page 
                          • Creating first daily activity 
                        • Pokemon Researcher
                        That's what we have for you this week, we are still working on all the funding prices and all of that so hopefully that will come out next week. We will really need you guys to chip in and help us continue making you great games. As always let me know what you think, I read all the comments posted on here, twitter and all emails. I don't have enough time to answer them all but I do read them.

                        Tuesday, November 6, 2012

                        SnD Games Weekly: Security Measures, Pokemon Researcher, and CUTD Map Abilities!

                        Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!


                        Hello world! Welcome to another week of Sam and Dan game goodness. Originally we had planned for a big event for this week but we couldn't get all the details sorted out, so it will have to wait until next time. So what is the big event about? Well, basically we will be needing you guys to help us keep developing Ptd2 and Cutd. You can think of it like a kickstarter except it's not really about one project but about the whole company. We are working out some cool prizes for those of you who wish to help us out. Like I said before we won't be starting it this week but I wanted to give you guys the heads up of what is coming.

                        Security Measures
                        Many of you have noticed that there are a lot of hacked pokemon flying around in the trading center. This week I will spend a good amount of time beefing up the security among other things. So that one person that keeps spamming my twitter can finally relax for a chance.

                        Update on Security Measures:
                        There is a lot of misinformation going around (especially on YouTube videos) about what happened and how it happened. So I'm here to tell you what happened, and how it happened straight from the source.

                        First I patched up the game so certain hacks would no longer work. Some hackers will complain about this but really they can only blame themselves for this. If they were to hack for their own personal collection and just stay quiet about it then I wouldn't even notice and would leave them alone. But... they decided to start putting up illegal trades and tried to scam other players. That is not acceptable so I had to step in and add more security.

                        After I did this it was time to remove any illegal pokemon (pokemon that you can't catch in the game yet like Ho-oh for example) from any account that had them. I had a list of all the illegal pokemon and I had the id of who the original owner was (the person who captured/created this pokemon) and who the current owner was (the person who had the pokemon in their account).  Usually for the person who currently had the pokemon I simply removed the pokemon from their account. If the person had multiple illegal pokemon even if he didn't create them I would remove more valuables. You really should know better than to hold multiple illegal pokemon, period.

                        People who created multiple illegal pokemon also had valuables taken. Creating illegal pokemon is not acceptable either. If you created so many illegals and you tried trading other people for them trying to scam them your account was completely reset.

                        The next step was removing any pokemon that had illegal shiny values. For example shadow totodile or shiny vanillite. I followed the same rules as illegal. The more you had the more you lost. Most people only owned 1 and all I did was remove it and move along.

                        The last check was for shiny starters or shiny zorua that the original owner had not paid for.

                        Okay so that was the process, I went and checked each account by hand. This wasn't an automatic thing where bam a bunch of random accounts were deleted. If you lost a lot of things the things you lost were hacked and I couldn't allow them to stay in the system. If you buy a stolen good and the police finds out about it, they won't put you in jail but they will take away the stolen merchandise. 

                        As far as how many accounts were affected by this less than 200 accounts were affected by this. This is out of millions of accounts that exist. So less 1% of all account lost something. Don't for a second think that thousands and thousands of account were affected. Trust me I did this by hand and thousands would have taken me weeks to do. Also like i mentioned before most people only lost 1-2 pokemon and less than 20 actually got their account reset.

                        Well I hope that cleared some things up for you guys. Thanks for understanding, it was actually pretty sad for me when I have to delete pokemon like that... it definitely took a lot of my motivation out from this week.   

                        Getting it done
                        So I've been piling up a bunch of new features and things that I've been wanting to add and it is finally time to get them done. This week I will focus on the things that were left behind from last week without adding too much to it.

                        Pokemon Researcher
                        While making the behaviors for the different wild pokemon I started to test them and I was having a lot of fun just watching what they did. So I thought that it would be pretty fun to have a mode that you could just spawn some pokemon and watch them interact with each other and with you. You can't capture them or battle. You just get to play around and see if anything fun happens. This mode is really easy to add since all the work for it is pretty much done. Just have to make some menus, which I hate >.<

                        Mystery Gift
                        The poll this week will start with asking for what type you want to see this week and then it will move to a list of possible candidates. Let's figure this out together!
                         

                        Weekly Progress

                        My Status: Working on blog!
                        Alpha v1.25 Progress List:
                        Note: The list below is for v1.25 when it is released.
                        • Security Stuff (100%) 
                          • Can no longer log into story mode with an illegal pokemon (pokemon that you can't obtain yet) (100%)
                          • Can no longer save an illegal pokemon (100%)
                          • Removing current illegal pokemon (100%)
                          • Removing hacked shiny starters and shiny zorua and their evolutions (100%)
                        • Add New Pokemon to the Trading Center (100%)  
                        • Make all Golett's Genderless (100%) - Might have to cut out a few body parts, ouch!
                        • Properly align some pokemon when they are following behind you (100%) 
                        • Better Map UI (100%) - Similar to the Battle UI, it shows time of day and your current money amount.
                        • Pokedex (0%)
                        • Saving Pokemon's party and storage position (0%)
                        • Daily Challenges (0%)
                        • Day of the Week Spooky Event (0%)
                        • 1v1 Mode Changes (0%) - As described on the previous blog.
                        • Sponsor Version of the game (0%)
                        • Add a confirmation popup to the back button on story mode if you haven't saved (0%)
                        • Release Pokemon (0%) - Note: You can already release them in the Pokemon Center if you don't want to wait for this to be done.
                        • Pokemon Researcher  (0%)
                        • Add list in the FAQ page on where to find pokemon and at what time, similar to the PTD1 list (0%) 
                        • Fixed bug with the attack Uproar not waking up pokemon in battle (0%)
                        • Add a graphic for removing a pokemon from the field (0%) - To better tell what is going on when fighting and NPC trainer.
                        • Add new Level Item interface graphics for the ui (0%)  
                        • Added which pokemon you will be battling in the next battle in 1v1 mode (0%) 
                        • Make pressing Enter to trigger a lot of the menu buttons (0%) Pressing enter to log in instead of clicking on it.
                        • Check the Forgot Password pages for any errors (0%) 
                        • Top Searchers/Top Request/Latest Trades (0%)
                        Creature Universe: Map Abilities
                        Ptd2 introduced the concept of the map. Creature Universe TD will take it even farther with map abilities. An example of this is very early in Pillar Island, the grass start zone, you will be given some bug bombs to throw at some bugs to clear them out. I made an awesome concept sketch to illustrate this example.
                        Bug Bomb takes out bugs, one of the map abilities you will get
                         So instead of only walking around you will be able to equip items to do different actions. Your creatures don't get left out on the action. Each family of creatures will have their own ability that they can use in the map for different effects. In this example the Grass Starter which is still unnamed has a tongue ability that lets him eat certain bugs. You will be able to switch place with your creature so that you can control it while your trainer avatar follows it. Here is another amazing concept sketch that I made to illustrate this example.
                        Grass starter using his map ability on a bug creature
                          In CUTD your character will perform more functions than the characters have ever had in ptd and ptd2. That's all I have for you this week, keep checking back to see how we are progressing. As always let me know what you think! Sam out.

                        Tuesday, October 30, 2012

                        SnD Weekly 10/30: Spooky Mystery Gift! Day of the Week Events! Meteor Crisis in Creature Universe!

                        Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

                        Hey everyone! I hope all is well for you. Things are running right along here at Sam and Dan Games, and I'm here to bring you the goodies for this week. So let's get started!

                        Mystery Gift
                        This being the last week of October it would be a shame not to have a Ghost pokemon be the mystery gift so I put up a bunch of different Ghost to pick from. Let's the best one win! Golett is the winner!

                        Day Of the Week Events
                        In some Pokemon games you will get trainer battles, contest or some events that only happen during a certain day of the week. This feature is coming to PTD2 and CUTD. The first of such events will be a Spooky one that will only happen a certain day of the week and only at night! Look forward to it and the reward that it will bring.

                        New Route 31
                        I'm also adding a new Route that will come with a few new Pokemon to capture.

                        Pokedex!
                        Finally we will get the Pokedex! The Pokedex will keep track of what you have caught, now that we have evolution I need to add the Pokedex that will more accurately keep track of what you have instead of giving you credit for things just because you have the evolution.

                        Level cap to 100! (Sorta)
                        This one is sort of a bold move, but with the Effective Level mechanic this can work. So you might ask what about moves and evolutions? Well this is where the sorta part of it works out. Getting all the moves done quickly is out of the questions so what will happen is that you will level up but you won't learn any new moves passed the soft level cap (12). Evolutions on the other hand are pretty easy to put in so you will be able to Evolve! I think it's a good trade off. Instead of playing a lot and not gaining exp you will be able to keep leveling up your creature while you try to get the Daily Challenge or just shiny hunting. With the Effective Level mechanic levels will still provide some challenge without me having to make them extremely hard for anybody who doesn't level up or is just starting to play.

                        Daily Challenge and Other things..
                        You can read last week's blog post to find out more about Daily Challenges. I will also be working on these to get them out as soon as I can.

                        Okay so now that we talked about what I'm working on, let's look at the weekly progress list.

                        Alpha v1.24.1: Released!
                        • Golett Mystery Gift should only give out one pokemon and it should be genderless
                        • Geodude in Swarm battles should not have the attack Take Down
                        • Fixed a bug with not being able to pick your starter when starting a new game
                        • Fixed a bug with certain pokemon's TM list
                        • Bug with Jigglypuff's swarm battle
                        • Problem with Gastly learning curse
                        Alpha v1.24:  Released!
                        • Give Metapod and Kakuna Relearn moves so they can level up
                        • Fix issue with a Shiny or Shadow Evolving and losing it's shininess if you save after evolving and not before
                        • Fix issue with the map not scrolling when you walk around while being caught in Spinarak's Web
                        • Display Force Palm's Damage in the info box
                        • Level 100 cap
                        • New Evolutions from Current Pokemon Added to the game (19)
                          • Graphics
                          • Stats/Info
                          • Attack Info
                          • Evolution Info
                        • New Pokemon Added to the game (5)
                          • Graphics
                          • Stats/Info
                          • Attack Info
                          • Evolution Info
                        • New Evolutions Added to the game (12)
                          • Graphics
                          • Stats/Info
                          • Attack Info
                          • Evolution Info
                        • Route 31
                          • Map Graphics
                          • Map Triggers
                          • Map Spawn Locations
                          • Map Spawns
                        • Dark Cave
                          • Map Graphics
                          • Map Triggers
                          • Map Spawn Locations
                          • Map Spawns
                        • Route 46
                          • Map Graphics
                          • Map Triggers
                          • Map Spawn Locations
                          • Map Spawns
                        • New Map Behaviors (7)
                          • Zubat
                          • Bellsprout
                          • Gastly
                          • Phanpy
                          • Geodude
                          • Spearow
                          • Jigglypuff
                        • New Wild Pokemon Battles (7)
                          • Swarm Style
                          • 1v1 Style
                        • New Abilities Added to the game
                          • Iron Fist
                          • Klutz
                          • No Guard
                          • Pickup
                          • Levitate
                          • Gluttony
                        • New Attacks Added to the game
                          • Rollout
                          • Odor Sleuth
                          • Flail
                          • Take Down
                          • Lick
                          • Spite
                          • Curse
                          • Growth
                          • Mean Look
                        • Fixed a bug when trying to check your items when you didn't have any in 1v1 mode
                        • Mystery Gift
                          • Add Pokemon and Evolutions
                          • Change Server Code
                          • Change Client Code and Graphic
                        Meteor Crisis in Creature Universe!
                        I always like to end the blog post with a little bit of Creature Universe. A few weeks ago I had a meeting with the crew and we came up with this idea, and this week we developed it some more. When you start playing Creature Universe a big event will happen that will shake the planet and affect everybody that lives there. A great Meteor has crashed into the planet, but didn't destroy it!!! Everybody is overjoyed that they are still alive but in a few days strange events start happening all throughout the world. The grass starter island called "Pillar Island" is now swarming with bugs! Will you help in this hour of need? Check out one of the bugs that you will face on Pillar Island.
                        Work In Progress Toxic Creature
                        I hope you guys enjoyed that little preview and that you keep coming back every day to check out my progress on the update. As Always let me know what you think!

                        Tuesday, October 23, 2012

                        SnD Weekly 10/23: Daily Challenges! Creature Universe Electric, Ground, and Mythical Revealed!

                        Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

                        Welcome again! Let's get to it! We've got some great things coming out this week, so let's talk about them.

                        New Mystery Gift
                        Again we will put it up for vote on the poll. Some of you commented that I shouldn't put such popular pokemon such as Riolu on it since it would obviously win the poll. Note taken! I took one of the commenter's suggestion for the poll this week. Let's see what happens! The options will be Klink, Trubbish, Vanillite, and Foongus. (Thanks Missingno. Master!)

                        New Story Level
                        The new level will have the conclusion to the events of the last level and introduce Route 30. Meaning new pokemon to capture!

                        New Pokemon Center Feature: Daily Challenge!
                        For PTD1 we had something called the daily code. For a certain amount of pokedollars you could get some nice prizes. This was fine and dandy but we are taking it to the next level in PTD2. Introducing Daily Challenges!

                        Okay so first of all we will have a new type of coin called "daily coins" that you will get by completing Daily Challenges. These coins will let you purchase shiny pokemon! For people who will complain that it's not fair for those who bought snd coins it is good to note that it won't be easy to collect enough coins to get a rare shiny pokemon. But for everybody who can't or won't want to buy SnD coins there is now a way to slowly build up enough coins to get one.

                        The first challenge will be to capture 30 of a certain pokemon and give them to the old man in the Daily Challenge section (which will come out this week).

                        The first time you do this in the current day you will get 10 daily coins. You can actually repeat the quest as much as you want during that day but you will only get 1 daily coin after doing it once. The next day the quest will reset. So basically first time you do it in that day you get 10 then the rest are 1 and so on every day. This is similar to the Daily Quest in World of Warcraft, except you can repeat them.

                        Some of the prices for the shiny will range from the hundreds to the thousands depending on rarity.

                        Also the quest will change every so often to offer some variety in what you will be doing. Sometimes it will be to capture a bunch of pokemon, other times to level up a specific pokemon, or complete a certain amount of trades with different people, or bringing him shinies.

                        I want to hear what you guys think about it!

                        And Other Items
                        This one person complained that I had some items in the list for a long time, and while others pretty much explained why this was I wanted to comment on it publicly. Basically I have things in the list that are somewhat high priority but every week I get things that I consider higher in priority so I put them above those other ones. If I ever get a good chance to make them happen then I will but for now they will just keep getting dragged a long as we go. The list helps me a lot to keep track of what I need to be doing so it helps me probably more than it helps you guys.

                          Alpha v1.23 is now out! New Route 30! New Pokemon to capture! Find out what happens after Giovanni shows up!
                        • Give Shadow Hoppip the proper attacks
                        • Changed the way confusion works - Instead of having a 25% chance of doing damage to the target for a period of time. It will be a 25% chance for the target not to do its attack and instead take damage over a period of time.
                        • Increased the cooldown on moves that buff or debuff - If a move only buffs or debuffs by one level it was increased to 2.4 seconds. If it buffs or debuffs by two levels then it was increased to 3.6 seconds.
                        • New Story Level
                          • Intro Scene
                          • NPC Dialog Changes
                          • New Map
                          • New Spawn Locations
                          • New Waves
                        • New Pokemon To Add
                          • New Behaviors
                            • Caterpie
                            • Metapod
                            • Weedle
                            • Kakuna
                            • Ledyba
                            • Spinarak
                          • New Abilities
                            • Early Bird
                            • Rattled
                            • Ice Body
                          • New Attacks
                            • Supersonic
                            • Comet Punch
                            • Constrict
                            • Scary Face
                            • Leech Life
                            • Icicle Spear
                            • Uproar
                          • New Graphics
                          • Add Stats
                          • Evolution Info
                          • Attacks Info
                        • New Mystery Gift
                          • New Graphics
                          • Add Stats
                          • Evolution Info
                          • Attacks Info
                        • Setting up Server Code for Mystery Gift
                        • Updating Mystery Gift on the game
                        • Updating the Blog Mystery Gift Links
                        • Add new Pokemon To Trading Center
                        Creature Universe Starters - Electric, Ground, Mythical Revealed
                        This week I wanted to show you guys some new creatures that we have made. Please note that while most of Creature Universe will be free. Only the Water, Grass, Fire starters will be available for free. All the other starters will be unlocked with a small fee. I will talk more about this next week. These are the current starter we have for Electric, Ground and Mythical!
                        WIP Electric Starter line

                        WIP Ground Starter Line

                        WIP Mythical Starter Line
                        Well that is all that I have for this week, as always let me know what you think! Keep checking back to see how I'm doing to release this update.

                        Tuesday, October 16, 2012

                        Weekly Progress 10/16: New Mystery Gift, Story Level, Creature Universe: Pick your side! Light vs Dark!

                        Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

                        Welcome back guys and gals! Another week to see the evolution of Sam and Dan games has arrived. Sorry about wait for the blog but better late than never. This week I'm pretty excited about what is coming. We will have a new mystery gift, new story level that will actually have a story to it! (Finally! I know right!) I will finish up the 1v1 changes and a few more things. This week I have to meet with the photographer for my wedding and I have class on Wednesday so instead of packing up the week and then not being able to deliver I'm keeping it short but with meaningful content. So let's get into more detail about this update and then talk a little bit about Creature Universe.


                        New Mystery Gift
                        For the first Mystery Gift we made a poll to figure out which Pokemon you guys wanted to have and as we all know Zorua won. This week we will have a new poll! The choices will be: Riolu, Axew, Sandile, or Klink. You will have a couple of days to vote so I have enough time to add it to the game.

                        New Story Level
                        We will finally head to Cherrygrove City but all is not well. There is a report that the Legendary Birds have been spotted but they are causing havoc! I'm pretty excited about this level since it develops the story a little more.  

                        Small Level Cap Increase to 12
                        Increasing the level cap a bit, note that the new level won't require you to be at level 12 to beat the game will be balanced properly for what level you should be at that point. The level will make use of the effective level mechanic that will temporarily delevel your pokemon on that level but they can still earn experience for their actual level and keep their moves and evolutions. 

                        Saving your pokemon's position in storage and party
                        Right now when you move people around in your party or storage that information is not saved when you log back in. This update will now save that position information and hopefully fix the bug that will give your pokemon the wrong moves.

                        Better Map UI
                        Making the Map UI look more like the Battle UI and having information like the current time of the game.   

                        Weekly Progress:
                        Okay so lets look at the list that I have for this week! Keep checking back as I work on these to see my progress and cheer me on.

                        Alpha v1.22.1: Released! Evolution Bug Fixes
                        • Fixed showing the wrong graphic if the pokemon that is following you evolves
                        • Fixed pokemon evolving not getting saved properly
                        Alpha v1.22: Released! Have questions about Effective Leveling? Check the FAQ.
                        • New Story Level -  Panic at Cherrygrove City 
                          • New Map Cherrygrove City
                            • Rip Sprites
                            • Create Map Objects and Hitboxes
                            • Create Map Layout
                          • New Characters
                            • Rip Sprites
                            • Create Character Object
                          • Intro
                            • Movie Scene
                            • NPC Character Dialog Changes
                          • Level Layout
                            • Background
                            • Spots
                          • Level Waves
                            • Set up pokemon
                            • Pokemon Graphics
                            • Pokemon Attacks
                            • Arrangements and timing
                          • Ending
                            • Movie Scene
                            • NPC Character Dialog Changes
                            • Cherrygrove NPCs
                            • Cherrygrove Interactive Objects
                            • Add new pokemon to trading search and request
                        • Level cap to 12
                        • New Mystery Gift
                          • Pokemon Graphics
                          • Pokemon Stats
                          • New Attacks
                            • Endure
                            • Counter
                            • Force Palm
                          • New Abilities
                            • Steadfast
                            • Inner Focus
                            • Prankster 
                          • Add to Pokemon Center Trading Search and Request 
                          • Change Link and Graphic
                          • Change Server Code  
                        Creature Universe: Pick your side! Light vs Dark!
                        A couple of weeks ago in our development team meeting we talked about how your character can make choices. These choices would have a big impact on the world around you. Would you keep thing in order or would you bring things into chaos? We talked about it a lot and many ideas came out of it. So I want to talk a bit about it. In previous blogs we talked about the Neutral, Light and Dark types. These are creature types but they also represent three sides that you can take in the game. There will be two organizations in the game that are after something and they both go about it in two separate ways. If you mostly only help one of them you will join their side. If you help both out pretty equally you will stay Neutral. Which side you join will also determine a few other things. Some creatures when they reach an evolution might evolve in 3 different directions either neutral, light or dark. It totally depends on how your character is aligned. Also some evolution will only happen if you are really deep into Dark or Light. So some creatures will be out of reach if you don't go fully into one alignment. Keep in mind that if you are Light aligned you can still have Dark creatures. There are only a few exceptions.

                        Another thing that I wanted to mention is that Light or Dark neither of them are evil. They are both after something and they both have evil people inside of their organizations that you will have to stop. So don't think okay Light = good and Dark = evil.

                        As you progress with that organization you might even make it to the top and become its leader!

                        So that is all we have for this week. Keep checking back, subscribe to our twitter, leave us a comment. Let me know what you think!

                        Monday, October 1, 2012

                        Weekly Progress 10/1: New Features and Critical Bugs!

                        Want to get the Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                        Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

                        Hola! Another week means another update! Last week we brought in Route 29 to story mode, which meant some really exciting things! Seeing wild pokemon in the map, your first party pokemon following you, capturing new pokemon, and hunting for shinies. But with that brought a new set of features that need to be added and a new set of problems and bugs to fix! That is the nature of games. So let's talk about what is coming this week.

                        Critical Bugs:
                        We have a number of what I like to call critical bugs. Bugs that really ruin the experience of the players and should have priority in being fixed. For this update we have 3 of such bugs.
                        • Saving not working (sometimes) - This one is pretty hard to fix because it sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't. You guys have given me some info that will help track it down. A reliable method to making this bug happen would be appreciated if you guys can come up with one. I have to be able to recreate the bug to solve it.
                        • Not learning moves - Apparently if more than one pokemon has to learn a move or evolve there are some cases when they don't. This is linked to using faster speeds in battle when this happens.
                        • Hole in the Route 29 map - There seems to be a gap somewhere in the map that lets the user get inside the forest where they shouldn't be going to. I mean to find this hole and do something fun with it.
                        Features:
                        After the critical bugs are dealt with (or after I'm tired of trying to fix them) I'll move into new features that I think are necessary before the game can progress much farther. The way I decide which feature should come next depends on what you can do in the game and how much use it is going to get by you guys. It's all about effort vs reward when choosing what to work on next.
                        • Trading Center for PTD2 - To me this is a staple of the game and what really supports me to keep developing the game. It will start as a copy of the PTD1 version but I will be improving it over time. You guys have given me a lot of great suggestion to what and how the Trading Center could be improved.
                        • 1v1 Mode Changes - I'm honestly not sure if this will be a quick change or if it's going to take the whole week. I'll have to make the changes and then rebalance the mode so that it won't be too easy/hard. If you don't know what the changes will be check out last week's blog.
                        • Mystery Gift - Zorua is ready to go but I have to work things out with the sponsor and make the screen for this to get it out.
                        • Day and Night - This is an interesting one, adding the Day and Night cycle to story mode. This will mean new pokemon to catch and new npc dialog for different times. I also have to answer some questions like: Will time only move forward in Routes? (Like you can be in a town and time will stand still, when you go in the route it will gradually change to night and back to day again. Then go back into town and it will be what ever time you ended up in but it won't change until you go to the route again.) And the technical aspects of how I will do it. Will I use a tint effect or a movieclip overlay? (Technical speak)
                        • Held Items - This one is pretty fun too. Probably start with berries. I have this idea that berries can have multiple charges. So they last more than one use with a cooldown between uses. Also leads up to super berries that have unlimited charges.
                        • Releasing Pokemon - Now that you can capture pokemon you need a way to get rid of them.
                        I also have some left over items from the last few weeks. So that's what I have this week I hope to cover a lot of it. Keep checking back to see how I'm doing, ask questions, give suggestions, or encourage me. It's up to you!

                        Weekly Progress:
                          Alpha v1.19.9: 1v1 Mode Changed! Bug Fixes, Small Changes, Pokemon Center!: Released! 
                          • Mystery Gift Screen (100%)  - OUT NOW! Get your Zorua!
                          • PTD 2 Pokemon Center OUT NOW!- Note: Other pages, such as Daily Gift, Inventory, Game Corner will be added/changed later on as the game develops.
                            • Create Trade Page - You will be able to make up to 3 separate request for your trade. Meaning you can request a Shiny Zorua OR Shiny Rattata OR Shadow Sentret. Also you can specify gender. Each request can have up to 10 pokemon up from 6.
                            • Your Trade Request Page
                            • Search Trade - Can now search by Gender and you can view all 3 possible request the other trainer has put up.
                            • Searching for any gender instead of just Male or Female for both regular search and want search
                          • 1v1 Mode Changes - Note: The last level might be a little too hard right now, I'll fix it up next week.
                            •  Defeated target will no longer give out experience
                            • Evolutions will not be available for unlocking
                            • Every pokemon will now start at level 5
                            • You will level up with candies that are given out after beating levels
                            • When you use a checkpoint you will get the same amount of candies that you would have received if you have beaten all the way up to that point. So you can skip the previous levels and still have a powerful team
                            • Lowered the cost of some pokemon.
                            • Made the level with the old Hiker easier.
                          • Added the Pokemon Center to the Mode Select Screen
                          • Fixed a bug that is preventing new users from saving their game
                          • Fixed a percentage problem on Sentret's waves
                          • Made it so you can play PTD 1 and PTD 2 at the same time
                          Alpha v1.19.5: Bug Fixes, Small Changes and additions: Released! 
                          • Fixed a bug that some battles in story mode give you money when they shouldn't 
                          • Even after you have more than 6 pokemon, the game will put the first 6 on your party in story mode
                          • Instead of disappearing completely, Sentret that are hiding will now just be faded
                          • Wave Security
                          • Prevent users from playing story mode and using the PTD 2 Pokemon Center at the same time to prevent duplication exploits that come when trading is activated.
                          • Saving Bug - FIXED OMG! It was a stupid server problem, so it should work now!
                          • Gap in the Route 29 Map - Did something fun with it.
                          • Added a Police Officer infront of Route 46's entrance
                          • Randomize the level and distance of the wild pokemon waves to break the uniformity of them
                          • Pokemon Center  
                            • Picking which profile to enter - The profile page will now show profile that you have made from PTD 2, including your avatar and version color.
                            • Side Bar - Integrate PTD 2 info into the side bar.
                            • Home Page for PTD 2 - Being able to retrieve or release any pokemon to your corresponding profile.
                            • Adoption Page- This page includes Shiny Starters and Shiny Zorua to start.
                          Creature Universe TD
                          Last week's CU meeting that I had with the team was really short. We updated each other on what we were doing and called it a night. The game is progressing but I don't have a lot to share with you guys this week. Next week I hope to bring you guys some new creature designs and info.

                          That's all we have for you this week. Keep checking back to see how I'm doing, and as always, let me know what you think!

                          Tuesday, September 25, 2012

                          Weekly Progress 9/25: New Stuff! Starting locations for Creature Universe!

                          Want to get the Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

                          Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

                          Greetings! Welcome to another amazing week of Sam and Dan games! Last week we almost completed our goal of releasing both a 1v1 level and a story level but we didn't quite make it. I did release it yesterday night which is pretty close I guess. This week again we will attempt to do a Story levels among other things! We love to give you guys content and we love making it. We will also talk a little bit about the starting towns/cities/villages for the first 3 starters in Creature Universe TD. Sound good? Great! Let's get to it.

                          New Story Level
                          This week we will finally get out of New Bark Town and into Route 29! You might have noticed that once you defeat a battle you aren't able to repeat this battle over and over like you could on PTD1. Well on Route 29 you will be able to repeat battles, catch new pokemon, hunt for shinys! I'm looking forward to making this and finally be able to see pokemon walking around in the wild instead of just having random battles. You will also get your PokePad which will act as a pokedex, a computer and it will also heal your pokemon between battles. Along with this I'll be working on getting your first party pokemon to walk behind you. If I have time I'll be adding the first Mystery Gift and the Trading Center for PTD2. Lots to do!

                          Look! 1v1 is evolving!
                          I've decided to make some big changes to 1v1, remove a lot of the grinding and focus more on strategy and choices. This requires some shifts on how things work. I'm still thinking about it so not everything is finalized yet. But here are some of the things that will change:
                          • There will be no more experience gained from defeating the enemy.
                          • You will level up by using rare candies that are given out by beating levels.
                          • When you use a checkpoint you will get the same amount of candies that you would have received if you have beaten all the way up to that point. So you can skip the previous levels and still have a powerful team.
                          • Every pokemon will now start at level 5 and evolutions will not be available for unlocking.
                          I'm still figuring out what exactly I will do with the coins, but I have a few days to think about it. My main goal is to make it so it doesn't feel like you need to grind for the coins to be able to beat a level. 

                          So that is a little preview of what we have coming for you this week. Check out the weekly progress below to see how I'm doing during the week. I also added a new "My Status" which will tell you if I'm currently working or not.

                          Weekly Progress:

                          Alpha v1.191 - Bug Fix: Released!
                          • Fixed a bug with the pokeballs not showing up unless you saved and reloaded the profile after receiving them from Prof. Elm (100%)
                          Alpha v1.19 - Route 29, PokePad, Bug Fixes: Released! Yes, Shiny Pokemon can show up in the actual battles in Route 29 but not in the map itself.
                          • Fixed some NPC typos
                          • Slightly Decreased the HP boost on your rival's starter
                          • Made the pokemon in your first party slot follow you in the map - Fun stuff but you won't be able to talk to it like in the other games.
                          • Fixed Map Issue in Elm's Lab on Story Mode
                          • Fixed Issue with Speed resetting between waves in Story Mode
                          • Made Story level music stop playing when you leave story mode
                          • New Story Level - Route 29
                            • Level Intro
                              • Before you get the PokePad
                              • After you get the PokePad
                            • Implement PokePad
                            • New Map
                            • Battle Layout
                              • Swarm Layout - Normal Tower defense fight
                              • Single Layout - 1v1 style fight
                            • Battle Waves - Both 1v1 and normal version for each pokemon
                              • Pidgey
                              • Rattata
                              • Sentret
                            • Pokemon Map Behavior - how the pokemon will behave in the map
                              • Pidgey
                              • Rattata
                              • Sentret
                            • Level Ending
                          • Added a Spawning System - This will control how many and where each pokemon spawn in a route. 
                          • Saving Extra Info for Pokemon
                          • Show Shiny Popup and slow down speed when a shiny shows up
                          • After closing a popup window the previous screen will now properly get back focus - When learning a new move or evolving the screen would lose focus when coming back. Not allowing you to use the keyboard shortcuts. This is now fixed.

                          Creature Universe Starting Locations!
                           Like I've mentioned before each starting creature will have it's own starting location instead of have all 3 available in one town. What this means is that we can really do something special for the starting locations. Giving each of them their own unique style and appearance. For Creature Universe we really wanted to do something different. Instead of realistic towns that are... well kinda boring. We really wanted to do something interesting for each town. Below I will show you some sketches that our artist made to create the mood of each starting location. Keep in mind that these are concept sketches they don't represent the final look of the locations. Also some of these are there to strictly show an idea and not intended to look amazing. Keep that in mind!

                          First is the grass starter zone. The grass starter is the chameleon, they mostly live on trees so why not make the town live on top of trees. Not shown in the concept is the flooding that occurs during the rainy season which is the reason they build higher up and the water that is under the trees.

                          Work In Progress Concept of the Grass Starting zone
                          Then we have the fire starter zone. This place is more industrial, more gritty, it's a mining town. The fire starter zone will have a lush reservation area that the creatures live in that will be very contrasting with the rest of the zone. The fire koala family helps with refining the metals and treasures found in the mines. They also help create the steam that gives power to the town. I don't have a picture as the one I had didn't really show off the town it self but a mining cave.

                          Lastly the water starter zone. This place is more outdoors in a place surrounded by mountains. Not shown in the concept is a zone that is dried up due to recent droughts. This zone will be divided between a rich part and a poor part. The water buffalo need water to use water so even with them around they don't completely solve the drought problem as they can only use water in their supply to defend themselves and keep themselves hydrated while doing work like pushing carts and what not.
                          Work In Progress Concept of the Water Starter Zone
                          So there you have it! Three different concepts for the starting locations. Remember these were just for ideas and should give you a little sense of what each location will be like.

                          That is all we have for you this week. As always let us know what you think!