Animations and working with freelancers

Hi everyone! It's been a little bit since my last blog post but I don't plan on taking 6 month between post like before... Having a kid takes up a lot of your time but he is 6 months old and it gets easier and I'm able to work on the blog and on the game.

The good news is that I've been working with some freelance artist and mainly that is just communicating back and forth so I'm able to do it quickly and on the go.

Working with an artist, one of the most important things to do is make sure you are on the same page and communication is key for this.

So what I want to do is show you some of the process that I went through with my artist to create Hyena's death animation. Here is the final result.

Final Animation

It all started with my artist suggesting that the Hyena's hair should turn brown when he dies to symbolize that his fire has gone out. I totally loved this idea, it reminded me of when a super saiyan is defeated, they go from blonde hair to black.

After this I brought up that I think he should have the pose of a dog playing dead as I thought it would be kinda cute and would fit the game's sort of humor and I sent her this reference picture.

Reference image for animation

So with these ideas in mind, the artist came back with the basic keyframes of the animation for me to review and see if we are on the right track.

Keyframe test

Overall I liked the direction but I wanted to see the Hyena more in the last frame. I asked the artist to send me a couple of different version of the last frame that would show the Hyena more, especially his face and paws.

Once I picked the one I liked she send me a revised keyframe test and we moved to the final animation with the inbetween frames and we were almost done!

Final Animation lines.. almost final

So this was really close but there was one final detail that I wanted to add... I wanted him to have a frame that he looks surprised like "wow you got me!", I was a little picky at this point haha.

Final animation, with surprised look!

With the animation done, the artist went ahead and did the color.

V1 with color

I really liked it but after I showed my wife, she made a suggestion that his hair should maybe look more burnt like charcoal with ash on top. The artist thought it was a good idea and went for it. And so we got our final animation fully colored!

Final Animation!

I hope you like this behind the scenes look at the art process for Cosmoids TD, if you want more like this let me know in the comments or on Twitter! I also could do a blog about how I found my artist and my experience working with different freelance artist.

Thanks and see you soon!

Cosmoids TD - A reintroduction

Hi all!

Happy 2019! The last 5 months have been a blur! Having a baby is serious business and takes a lot of time. But we love our baby Caleb and wouldn't change anything for the world.

It's been so long that I wanted to start fresh. I wanted to reintroduce myself. So..

Hi, my name is Samuel Otero and I'm a game developer by night, by day I'm a Software Developer, Husband, Father, Friend, Brother, Son.. everything.. and once upon a time I made a game called Pokemon Tower Defense, which you might have heard of.. (okay it's the real reason why you are here, who are we kidding!) and a lot of things happened and now we are here and I'm making a game called Cosmoids TD.

Very similarly to Pokemon Tower Defense (PTD), Cosmoids TD is a Tower Defense Game with Creature Collecting elements mixed in, let's just called it a Creature Collecting Tower Defense. In this game you play as the Wishmaker.

The Wishmaker!

The Wishmaker is the prince of the Makers, an immortal race that create and oversee galaxies across the universe. He is the creator of the Cosmoids, which are a group of creatures that live in the planet Eden. Unlike Pokemon, Cosmoids can all speak the common language and some wear clothes and use tools and weapons.

Chamleaf, a Nature Type Cosmoids

 Planet Eden is in danger and the Wishmaker is weakened, so he must recruit the Cosmoids to help save the planet.

On a mission

Some trouble nearby?!

Like in PTD you will be able to recruit enemy Cosmoids into your party. You can level up your party and they learn new moves and even evolve!

But I really cannot do this without all of you, I want to make a game that we can all enjoy and have fun playing just like PTD. This time it's harder because everything is being made from scratch, while we can be inspired by Pokemon we cannot copy Pokemon. And so I want to make this game openly in front of all of you, so we can go on this journey together. I would love to hear your feedback about what you would like this game to have. I will post really early and buggy version of the game so you can play while it's still being made. In fact here is a screenshot of the current work in progress.

Work In Progress Level, with Fire Hyena and Stick figures guys..

So what do you say, are you in?

As always, let me know what you think!

A new story direction!

Greetings!

Let's get right to it! But first...

Baby Update

A little bit less than a month is left before Caleb is born, we are very excited we have all the things ready for him and can't wait!

A new story direction!

When playing games I have found that personally for me having a story makes me more likely to finish a game. Even if the game wasn't that good, if I got invested in the story (even if wasn't that good) I felt more compelled to finish it. 

This was the reason I choose to add a story element to PTD. I notice no tower defense games had a big story and I thought it would be a great addition.

So naturally for Cosmoids TD I also wanted to have a story. Originally I envisioned Cosmoids as something very similar to Pokemon. Over the years I've thought about the origin story of Cosmoids and it has changed here and there but some of the same elements have remained the same.

The story started with a powerful alien being known as the Wishmaker that encounters a young boy and grants his wish to bring these Cosmoids to Earth. I was pretty committed to this story line until a freelance artist that I hired made a concept art for the Wishmaker. I thought it looked so cool that I decided to make the Wishmaker the main character.

The Wishmaker

Along with changing the main character it was more interesting to also have the game take place in the Cosmoids original planet. This will allow for some creative environments that you wouldn't find on earth.

The next major change that I wanted to make is that in pokemon, while the pokemon are smarter than your average animal they mostly co-existed with humans the way pets do. For Cosmoids now that we are exploring their planet. I thought it would be very interesting if the Cosmoids were more humanoid like. They could speak a language, they used tools, clothing, communities. So instead of capturing them as beloved pets. You will recruit them for your cause. Below is a small preview of how a cosmoids like Chameleaf will look like. Keep in mind this is an early work in progress.

Chameleaf - Creature like (left) to Humanoid (right)

I've been mostly focused these past few weeks to working with my artist, trying to nail down the new direction so I haven't work a lot of the prototype but next week I will talk about how to focus on features and task that are needed versus wanted.

As always let me know what you think about the new story direction in the comments below, or twitter or by email at sam@sndgames.com

Have a great week and thanks for your continued support!

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!

Basic Prototype Completed! What's next?

Greeting trainers!

I'm glad to announced that I have completed the first prototype! Huzzah! I've embedded the prototype below and as you will soon find out, there isn't much to do at all beside placing your cosmoids into different spots and moving them around.

You can do that by click on the orange spots and selecting pressing one of the 6 buttons. Once the Cosmoids are weak with the red bar you can click on them to "Capture" them. Also if you hover your mouse towards the bottom of the prototype you can full screen the game to get a better view of the characters.



So we have the most basic idea of our game here, it may not look like much but a lot of thought went into everything you see there. It's pretty mind blogging to see the big AAA games out there when you think about every little decisions they have to make. Everything you see in a game or a movie was something somebody thought about and wanted to be there. Nothing is be chance.

An example of this is when I was doing the new tower positioning system. Normally you place a cosmoids in a spot, the avatar walks there and places it. If you select the same cosmoid for another spot then that cosmoid will walk to that spot. Seems pretty simple right?

Well then you run into odd scenarios, what if we are trying to place a Cosmoid in a spot where another Cosmoid is already there, what if we assign two cosmoids to the same empty spot? All these combinations must be thought about and handled in the programming. As you play the prototype, try these different scenarios and see what kind of solutions I came up with.

This is something you can also do in any game you play, as you play try different things and keep in mind that a designer had to think about and make decisions as to what should happen in that scenario.

So now that the prototype is done, we clearly see that there are many thing that are still missing. So we will now start the Prototype version 2, for version 2 I will be focusing more on the User Interface, the menus for capturing Cosmoids, for leveling up, for seeing when the next wave of enemies will come. Over the years I have always proclaimed that I hated working on the UI but it is so vital for games because it shows the correct information to the player. It is a fine balance between showing the right information and not having too much on the screen.

You will also notice that I have started to add design task as well as art task to the list. When you develop you need to assign time into design. I imagine in bigger companies you would have a person assigned for design and a different one for programming, in our case I'm handling both. Next week I will talk about the changes I have for level up and experience and how they will be different from the PTD series.

Prototype v2 Task:

• Design - How will leveling up and experience work? (100% Completed)
• Programming - Scrolling the map (30% See next blog post)
• Design - Incoming Wave Alert System (See next blog post)
• Design - How much enemy unit information will you have in level? Before the level? (See next blog post)
• Art - Incoming Wave Alert Icon Placeholder Graphic (See next blog post)
• Art - Unit UI Graphics Used for buttons or menus (See next blog post)
• Programming - Incoming Wave Alert Location Tracking (See next blog post)
• Programming - Incoming Wave Alert UI Popup and Confirmation (See next blog post)
• Design - How to view friendly unit information? leveling up? targeting options? (See next blog post)

As I work on these task I will update the blog, as always play the prototype, play with the positioning system and tell me what you like about it, and what you don't like about it, also how would you improve it!

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Path to Prototype: Changing it up

Hi again!

Welcome to the Cosmoids TD weekly update. Last week we talked about creating a game and how you should create a prototype to test out your ideas for the game.

This past week I've been chopping away at the different task I had set up for our first prototype and while I didn't get to finish the whole list I was happy with my progress.

It's been my experience when developing games that momentum is your biggest friend. Even if you can't spend that much time working on something just by getting even the simplest of task done can fuel you to complete the next one and then the next one.

Another thing I have learned is that you can't be hard on yourself when you don't complete all your task or when you don't even get any done at all. I believe you should be satisfied with what you could get done or couldn't get done, however, you should learn from your experiences.

Most of the task for the Prototype are done! Here is a 3D view of the game so far.

For example, if I'm not happy that I couldn't finish my task instead of being mad at myself or feeling guilty/disappointed I should look at what were the things that held me back. Did I end up playing video games or watching Twitch streams instead of working? If that is the case then you have to be conscious of your decisions and really ask yourself do I want to entertain myself or do I want to develop a game. So the next time you face the same decision you should go back and think of which outcome would make you happier.

The other case is you are doing something of equal value. So for example if I wasn't able to get the task done because I was spending time helping my wife around the house. Then I  should value that time with her and know that it was not a waste.

So back to Cosmoids TD. Some people have asked me if the game is going to be similar to the PTD series and the answer is yes! It will be very similar but as I have looked at the prototype I've been getting the new ideas for how to give the game an extra layer of gameplay/strategy.

The first of such ideas is that in PTD you can place and move your Tower Units instantly. This is of course a very convenient mechanic. In most Tower Defense game putting or moving a unit in the map often comes at a cost and that is something I wanted to explore in Cosmoids.

So  as you can see in the GIF below (kinda hard to see) there is a human avatar in the level and when you want to place a cosmoid on a spot your avatar has to move to that spot before your cosmoids will be active on the level.

New Mechanic: Adding/moving towers is no longer instant.

 The same thing will happen if you want to move a unit from one spot to another. This adds an extra layer of strategy that I can play with when designing levels. Also the speed of your avatar and the speed of your cosmoids will matter. For example some Cosmoids may be faster and so they can move from one spot to another quickly. While there may be some slow Cosmoids that take longer to move from spot to spot.

If I wanted to take it farther then the terrain in the map may affect the speed in which units can move, or even have terrain that only certain cosmoids can travel.

It really opens up some fun opportunities that I hope to explore.

So I only have a few more task left for the first prototype, after that I will start planning for the next one.

Prototype v1 Task:

• Be able to change a unit's spot on the map (100% Completed)
• Be able to swap two units from one spot to another (100% Completed)
• Be able to capture a weak enemy unit (100% Completed)

Prototype v2 Task:

• To be determined

As I work on the game I will update this page, on my next blog post I talk about more changes from PTD as well as what to do after your first Prototype.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below!

Path to Cosmoids TD Prototype

Hello again,

With Cosmoids TD I want to return to writing weekly blog post to give you a glimpse of the development process. So here we go.

The first step of making a game is to choose a genre or multiple genres that you want your game to be. For Cosmoids TD that genre is obviously Tower Defense with a mix of "Pokemon" which is a Role Playing Game.

This provides a sort of guideline for building your game. After you have figured this out you can have a good idea of what are the different components that your game will need. These components will be a part of your first prototype.

Your first prototype should give you an early glimpse of how your game will play. At this point you shouldn't care too much about graphics since you are still figuring out the controls and feel that you want.

Prototype Work In Progress

So here are the first items I have for the Cosmoid TD Prototype and my progress on them:

• Create new project in Unity (100% Completed)
• Create Player Avatar Graphic (100% Completed)
• Put Player Avatar on Level (100% Completed)
• Player Avatar must be able to move to different spots on the map (100% Completed)
• Create Cosmoid Starter Graphic (100% Completed)
• Put Cosmoid Unit on Level (100% Completed)
• Enemy Units must be able to travel down a path (100% Completed)
• Create UI for showing the player's Cosmoids (100% Completed)
• Be able to place your Cosmoids into a spot in the map (100% Completed)
• Add a basic Attack (100% Completed)
• Enemy units can take damage and have a life bar (100% Completed)
• Be able to change a units spot on the map (See next blog for more progress)
• Be able to capture a weak enemy unit (See next blog for more progress)

As I work on the game I will update this page, on my next blog post I will post about some ideas I have that will make Cosmoids TD different from Pokemon Tower Defense.

Thanks for reading and playing my games! See you next time! As always, let me know what you think!

The path to a new Journey!

Hi everyone,

It's been over a year since my last blog post and I have to admit it feels a little weird, and nerve wracking, but at the same time exciting. So much has happened between then and now that changed and in some way liberated me. So I wanted to share some of that with all of you as well as talk about this new journey that I want to take. So let's get started!

I'm not one to tell a long story so I will cut this pretty short. In the middle of last year I had some medical complications that restricted me from sitting down for long periods of time, and that really impacted the amount of time I could work on games. It was a frustrating period as my full time job is also programming and so that required a lot of sitting. (A standing desk was not an option at the time for my office but has since become an option.)

After trying many solutions that didn't end up working, I ended up getting an out patient surgery that solved my problem. I was relieved and was ready to keep working on games again, but suddenly I got a big news announcement from my wife. We were expecting a baby!

This is Caleb! Our baby boy!

 Now it wasn't a complete surprise as we were trying to have a baby but we just didn't expect it so quickly! A lot of time has passed since then, 6 months to be more exact, and we know that we will have a boy and name him Caleb. Many of you might be a long way from having a child or might not be wanting to have kids (and that's perfectly fine) but for me having a child has actually been a dream of mine, and I'm looking forward to it.

The thing about having a child is that it really makes you think about your future and what kind of legacy you want to leave behind. This brings me to my decision and new path which I want for us to go in.

For a long time I've wanted to do an original game using Cosmoids. Cosmoids are pokemon like creatures that a group of artist and I came up with a while ago. The whole point was to make an original game using these creatures but for some reason or another it never happened. I always felt a responsibility to PTD, and it honestly felt like an obligation. Having a child has reminded me that this is not an obligation but something I do out of passion. Something that I should enjoy doing. I know that it may make some people disappointed or mad but I just can't work on PTD3 any more. The main issue with PTD is that I can't really share it with the world. It has to exist in sort of a shadow and that's not something that I want. I want to make a game and share it with everybody, have it be on different platforms (Flash has been slowly dying for years now, which is sad).

And so I've decided that I want to make a Tower Defense game like PTD but with Cosmoids. I believe that Tower Defense games can still be fresh and fun.

So in closing I want to say "Thank You". Whether you just started playing PTD or you've been around for a while. Thanks! If you are interested in being a part of this new journey I would love to have you, your feedback is invaluable to me and I would love to hear it.

So as always.. let me know what you think!

Sincerely,
Sam

A wild Champions game has appeared! Champions! The Last Defense revealed at last! Also... a new Egg has appeared... Cosmoids TD begins anew!

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A wild Champions game has appeared!

Champions! The Last Defense revealed at last!

So I've been secretly (sorta) working on a whole new game that uses Champions TD's graphics and is set in the same "universe", if that is even a thing for Champions, and it is called Champions! The Last Defense. The best way I can describe it is that it's an Infinite Defend game.

It's a mix of infinite runners with the tower defense found in Champions TD. Like any infinite runner game, if you lose you start over. So in this game you defeat enemies with your 3 champions and collect armor that will make your Champions better for that run. You also fight bosses that give you weapons. You have 10 lives to see how many waves you can defeat. Along the way you also get gold from completing different quest and beating bosses.

You can use this gold to buy permanent upgrades for your Champions. Over time you should be able to beat your high score as you keep buying upgrades for your different stats.

You can also unlock new Champions (so far you can only unlock the Hunter Champion) by completing different objectives. For example to unlock the Hunter you need to beat 100 waves or more on your high score.

I'll be adding a new Champion every week, and they will have different ways of unlocking them since beating 500 waves seems kinda hard!

Here are some pictures of the game. (These are from an older version.)

Talents are still there.

Boss battle!

Got a new weapon! Do I like that stats?

Cave Level

Something unique about this game compared to other infinite games is that you can save your game between levels so if you have a real high score or you only have a few minutes to play you can save your progress and not worry about losing it.

I haven't released the game to you guys because I'm looking for a possible sponsorship as that will help us financially.

If you have an Android you can join the Beta. Just email me at sam@sndgames.com with your google play email and I'll add you right in.

I've had a player in the beta express that he really wanted to see Champions TD live on and I agree with him for the most part but what we need to understand is that this is something completely new and doesn't take Champions TD's place.

The reason I made this game is that I wanted a game to finish in only a few months and so I came up with this idea that would condense what Champions TD was into a much smaller repeatable experience. I still love Champions TD and I hope that one day I can revisit it in it's full glory.

Champions TD is put on hold for the time being because I want to focus on another game...

Also... a new Egg has appeared...

Cosmoids TD begins anew!

Cosmoids! Oh how I longed to make Cosmoids! How it got lost and now is found! Okay okay I'll come down. These is so much that could be said about Cosmoids (For those who don't know Cosmoids is Sam and Dan Games' version of pokemon) We had about 5 artist coming up with ideas for creatures and they came out fantastic. Along the way things didn't quite work out and we had to put the idea on hold for some time...

Work In Progress Water Starter

Work in Progress Water Starter

Work In Progress 3rd Stage Grass Starter

Work In Progress Grass Starter

Work In Progress Fire Starter

Now I'm bringing it back! Cosmoids TD is taking the simplicity of PTD1 and adding a whole new story and a new set of creatures to capture, trade and collect.

The biggest thing is that I'm going to be doing it all in front of you guys and gals. I want you guys to be a part of the making of this game, whether you just want to watch and enjoy the show, show up now and then and see how it is going or provide feedback and ideas every step of the way. I personally want you to be a part of it.

I hope to start streaming my development of it. Something that will be very different from past games that I've made is that I'll be drawing all the graphics myself on this project! I'm excited to draw again, I'm not an expert by any means but I will do my best. I hope to stream every day for at least an hour or so while I get used to it. Then I'll possibly stream even more. During the stream I might do SnD Coin giveaways and also I'll be showing off Champions! The Last Stand for you guys.

I know a lot of you will be asking about PTD3 so I'll talk about it a little here.

I do have some ideas for PTD3 that would shake up the formula yet again, I'm not however in a place to start the game right away. I'm more excited for Cosmoids TD since it basically is a PTD type game but with original creatures that we can put on the Android and Apple Stores.

As always and forever more let me know what you think about all this! -Sam out