Gym Challenge Heats Up! VS Blaine enter the battle! Auction House progress!

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!

PTD2 Trainer Pass! Get it today!

A great way to support us while getting amazing rewards!

So let's talk about what you get:

• Increased chance for Shiny/Shadow pokemon to appear in the wild
• No ads while you play the game
• Get a copy of shiny giveaway pokemon automatically every week
• Faster Breeding - Breed with only one visit instead of 2, essentially breed something everyday!
• Faster Leveling - Get twice the experience on every battle!
• Giveaways for pass holders only

You get all of this for only $1.99! One time payment! Get it today!

Gym Challenge Heats up! VS Blaine enters the battle!
Late last week I got some great ideas for how I would do the Blaine battle for the Gym Challenge. I've been watching a lot of World of Warcraft on Twitch (while I work), especially guilds trying to beat Mythic Blackrock Foundry (the latest raid dungeon in World of Warcraft). So I think this battle is very influenced by different MMO bosses that I've seen lately. I hope you guys will enjoy! I'll try to make it pretty challenging without making it feel unfair. That is the ultimate goal for game development. I've also added a new poll so that you can vote on what reward you will want for the gym.

Blaine - Cinnabar Gym Leader

Auction House Progress
The Auction House is still in progress, it is slow and steady but things are coming together, I didn't think it would be fair for you guys that I spent another whole week just on it so I'm also doing the gym challenge for PTD2. I'm very excited for the auction house, it won't be super pretty at first but it will be functional.

Work in progress

Weekly Progress

Pokemon Tower Defense 2 - VS Blaine Released!

• Background Graphic (100%)
• Level Layout (100%)
• Blaine Graphic (100%)
• Level Menu Setup (100%)
• Oak's Helpful dialog (100%)
• New Boss Attacks (100%)
• Molten Rock Throw (100%) - User focuses on a target for a while then throws a Molten Rock at their last location. The rock hits and creates a lava puddle around the location. The less damage the user has the more molten rocks it will throw at more targets.
• Level Waves (100%)
• Mega Evolutions Pokemon (100%) 
• Graphics (100%)
• Stats (100%)
• New Item (100%)
• Server Code (100%)
• Made Legendary Dogs less likely (but still pretty available) to show up once you beat the game (100%)

Champions TD Auction House Moved to Next Week

• Log In (100%)
• Creating/Changing your Auction House Nickname (100%) - This shows up in your auctions and bids.
• Pagination for certain pages (100%)
• Creating an Auction (100%)
• Ending Auctions (100%) - this happens as needed
• Sending notifications (100%)
• Sending Items (100%)
• Sending Money (100%)
• Bidding/Buying on Auction (100%)
• Buyout (100%)
• Bidding (100%)
• Return Money to person that was outbid (100%)
• Send Notification to person who had bid on item (100%)
• Return Money to person that was outbid when somebody else buys out the auction (100%)
• Send notification of a successful auction to auction owner (100%)
• Send money to auction owner after buyout (100%)
• Don't Allow bidding or buyout on your own auctions (100%)
• Don't Allow bidding if you are the highest bidder (100%)
• Removing an Auction (100%)
• Most things (100%)
• Sending a notification to person that was bidding (100%)
• Returning money to whoever bid (100%)
• Auction Notifications System (100%) - You will get messages on the outcome of your bids and auctions in the Auction House Website.
• See all notifications page (100%)
• Removing Old Notifications (100%)
• Delete All (100%)
• Other Stuff (100%)
• Sell Storage Items (100%)
• Searching for an Auction (100%) - more searching options will be added in the near future.
• Game Change (100%) - Trogg Leather will now be called Cave Leather.

Have any questions, idea, feedback? Let me know in the comments below or on twitter! Thanks!

Cosmoids Early Alpha is out! Funding Phase 3! PTD 2 updates!

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! Let's begin!

Blog updates
I want to apologize for not having blog updates the last few weeks. As my wedding get near things start to get hectic and I have less and less time to sit down and work and so by not doing blog post I saved those precious hours, however things seemed to have calmed down a bit and so I plan to continue with blog updates every week like before. There is much to talk about.

Fundraiser lives on!
The fundraiser is alive and kicking. The last few weeks I made it a point to add new ways for you to donate and the fundraiser has gained dramatically from this. If you haven't heard about the fundraiser basically we are asking you guys to help us keep making PTD2 and Cosmoids while giving out great prizes. Some of the prizes include access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha, Shiny Rayquaza and Cosmoids Starters for your PTD2 account. Instead of going over every detail here on the blog we have made a page exclusively for the funding. You can find it here. Check it out, if you feel like we deserve to stay alive making games then give us a little help.

Phase 3 of the Fundraiser
Today we start Phase 3 of the fundraiser. What does it mean? NEW PRIZES! For funding $10 or more you will receive in the near future your choice of one of the 3 starters from Cosmoids (you can check them out in the Early Alpha). You will get to pick your favorite and they will stats and move set similar to other starters in pokemon. They won't however evolve right away since we don't have the graphics done for the evolutions. You will also receive 2 of the one that you choose so that you can trade it with somebody. Lastly if you are wondering they will not be able to breed with each other or with any other pokemon.

Cosmoids Early Alpha Released
I'm super excited to announce that for those who funded us any amount now have access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha. If you don't have access and would like to check it out it is very simple. Go to the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page and watch a video ad to fund a few cents to us and get access.

Okay so now that you checked it out I wanted to talk about a couple of things that you might have noticed. First of a lot of the graphics are not final and some are close to final. Mostly everything is not final except for the creature units. Those are pretty close to the final graphic besides a few tweaks on size and some minor details. Another huge thing is that there is a lot missing. The UI which is always important is not set up yet.

So you might ask what is the point then? Well there are plenty of points. What I want you to check out is that you can put units in any spot on the map, units have different ranges depending on the attack they are doing. Also unit's attack speed will be based around the base speed of the creature. In PTD I always wanted to do that so that electric pokemon would attack very fast and slow pokemon like slowpoke etc would have a long time between attacks. The problem with pokemon is that attack stats are not balanced around speed since speed in pokemon only means who gets to go first. For cosmoids I do want the base speed to affect attack speed and so we will be balancing around that. In the alpha you can see that the chameleon has a high attack speed but doesn't inflict as much damage. While the koala has a lower attack speed but does more damage per hit. All the numbers still need to be tweaked so the balance is not there yet but it should show a little of what I want to accomplish for this game which is...

Cosmoid Creatures should feel different from one another
I think long and hard about the games that I'm making. On one hand I have PTD a game that I have already established so I don't want to add too much or remove things. Then on the other hand I have Cosmoids which is something new. I don't have anything that tells me how the stats should work or what levels and creatures I need to have. This is both a curse and a blessing. Mostly a blessing in my eyes. So I started to think about what Cosmoids is about and in the same thought what is PTD about. Is the whole point of the game to just capture all your favorite creatures? Do you just set a unit down and watch it all unfold? I thought a lot about it and came to some conclusions, but most importantly I came to the conclusions as to what I wanted the game to be about. I want the game to be about you discovering new creatures, trying them out in battle and picking the ones that suit your playstyle and taste and using them to beat the challenges that I lay in front of you. Using the combination of attack speed, attack ranges, defense, hp and attack stats to create very unique creatures that all play a little differently. I hope that the alpha can give you a little sense of how I want to make each creature feel a little different.

Pokemon Tower Defense 2 updates!
Many of you know that I've always wanted to make a Pokemon MMO but obviously I would need the copyright to make it happen. Cosmoids is a way to creature my own original creatures so that I can still make a creature MMO in my lifetime. Cosmoids is very important to the future of Sam & Dan Games cause it make it our first truly original game that we distribute to any place we want. Steam, Android, Appstore etc. So in many ways Cosmoids is going to get a lot of my attention from here on out. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working on PTD2. I will continue to do updates for PTD2 but with a slight change in focus.

My focus now is more on getting more attacks and more creatures into the game each week. You might have noticed I'm doing giveaways the last few weeks starting with Luvdisc and then Litwick. These particular giveaways are a sort of experiment. I'm curious to see if eventually these 2 will be common among users as more and more are breed. Luvdisc will take longer in my opinion because right now it can only breed with itself. Another way I'm adding more pokemon is by starting to allow PTD1 transfers over to PTD2. Each week I want to add at least 3 new families that will be able to transfer. Also I want to reach the mighty level 100 soft cap so that most of the attacks are added in the game and will make transferring from PTD1 and adding new creatures faster as more attacks are added. Also this week I'm adding the Dusk Stone and the Reaper's Cloth so that you can evolve your recently new Ghost Pokemon. The story mode is still very important to me and even 1v1 is important. But these take a lot of time to create, this week I won't be doing a story mode level but next week I will.

So let's look at what I will be working on this week.

Weekly Progess

PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!

• Mystery Gift (100%) 

 PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!

• Testing! (100%) - Super Important to test out things before I hand it over to you guys. 
• Bug Fixes (100%)
• Rough Skin Fix (100%)
• Flame Burst AOE Fix (100%)
• New Evolution Items (100%)
• Reaper's Cloth (100%)
• Dusk Stone (100%)
•  PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers (100%) - Pikachu, Sandshrew, Nidoran Female and Nidoran Male Families
• Soft Level Cap Increase to 25 (100%) - 37 New Moves!
• Mirror Move (100%)
• Roar (100%)
• Mega Punch (100%)
• Stockpile (100%)
• Swallow (100%)
• Spit Up (100%)
• Sweet Scent (100%)
• Horn Attack (100%)
• Thunder Fang (100%)
• Fire Fang (100%)
• Rock Blast (100%)
• Baton Pass (100%)
• Cross Poison (100%)
• Water Pulse (100%)
• Protect (100%)
• Crush Claw (100%)
• Amnesia (100%)
• Chip Away (100%)
• Assurance (100%)
• Psybeam (100%)
• Metal Sound (100%)
• Dual Chop (100%)
• Imprison (100%)
• Toxic Spikes (100%)
• Silver Wind (100%)
• FeatherDance (100%)
• Air Cutter (100%)
• Smack Down (100%)
• Bulldoze (100%)
• Steamroller (100%)
• Echoed Voice (100%)
• Refresh (100%)
• Torment (100%)
• Swagger (100%)
• Revenge (100%)
• False Swipe (100%)
• Slash (100%)
• New Pokemon (100%) - Pichu, Dusknoir, Chandelure, Aron, Beldum
• Graphics (100%)
• Stats (100%)
• New Attacks (100%)
• Electro Ball (100%)
• Nasty Plot (100%)
• ThunderBolt (100%)
• Magnet Rise (100%)
• New Abilities (100%)
• Heavy Metal (100%)
• Light Metal (100%)
• Clear Body (100%)
•  Evolutions (100%)
• Add to Breeding Center (100%)
• Add to Trading Center (100%)

That was a lot to read! Thanks for sticking with us and let's make Cosmoids the best that it can be! As always let me know what you think!

Sam's Graphics Edition, things you want done, and forum contest!

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 another AMAZING week of Sam and Dan Games! It is me Sam and with my game development partner Dan bringing you the latest news on what we are thinking about and what our goals are for this week. Read on to find this and more out!

Last Week's PTD2 Update
Last week we had a nice little update we got to see more of the story for PTD2. Since PTD2 has such a fast development speed the story is actually made as we go. I try to stay 2-3 steps ahead and I also try to think about how the whole story will end. To me the story is about the evil in each person and how it can come out but also how we can control and stop it. I haven't seen a lot of comments or emails about the story itself, I'm curious to hear what some of you think about it so far. I'm not oblivious enough to know that a good amount of people just skip over all the text and just play the level which is why I tend to highlight very important bits so that even people skipping can get the hints. Next!

Forum Contest
The Fan forum is now the Official PTD forum and it's getting a ton of new members, you should check it out to connect with other fans. If that is not enough then you will be happy to know that the forum is throwing a contest that is giving away shiny mews! Here is a video of Link's Collection http://youtu.be/9xP5Mfohp1o !
If you are interested in the contest go here: http://pandoragaming.co.uk/topic/9801977/1/ 

Sam's Graphic Edition
So making a game can be a very challenging task. As a game designer you want to test out gameplay ideas as fast as possible. You want to see how your idea looks like when you can actually play it. Usually what I do is that I will think about an idea and I will do my best to visualize the idea in my head. If the idea seems good enough then the next step is to program it into the game and play with it to see if its as good as you thought it was. For PTD2 this process is pretty easy, all of the graphics are already made I just need to cut them out and place them on the right spot. This makes it real fast and easy to try out new ideas and it makes the weekly updates possible. For Creature Universe TD since the graphics are not done then it becomes a lot harder to develop. Also using different languages and frameworks (programming stuff) that I have no experience with can start making simple things harder to do. Good quality graphics take many hours and hours to make. So how can I focus on the gameplay when I'm waiting for graphics and have to deal with programming issues. Well you make your own graphics and you stick with the programming that you know!

The goal here is to make an alpha version of the game that focuses on the gameplay while having what people call "programmer's graphics" in this case we are calling them "Sam's Graphics" so while the nice graphics are being carefully crafted I can still move on with design ideas and development and then at some point start swapping in the finished graphics.

So what does it mean to you? Well as you might have read (or not) before we will be doing some funding to keep PTD2, CUTD and Sam and Dan games alive pretty soon and one of the prizes will be to get access to this Sam's Graphic Edition of the game. You will get the game before anybody else and you get to see how AMAZING I draw! You will be able to give valuable feedback that will help shape the game and you will be helping us continue our work, which is to make games for you to enjoy! Sounds like a win-win! Oh and here is a sample of the title screen :)

Amazing, right?!

Time for the Weekly Progress!

Weekly Progress- Things you want done!
Every week I ask you guys to post what you want to get done for the next week in the blog comments. One of the things that I read a lot is to expand the Pokedex to include a lot of the pokemon that you are getting in the game and on Mystery Gifts. So this week I will start that process with the Generation 1 pokedex being added. Just like when the pokedex came out it will count what you have right now as if you had all the previous stages. For example if you have a shiny raticate it will count as if you also had a shiny rattata at some point. After the first time you log in it will no longer do this and only count what you have with you. So after that if you traded for a shadow Blastoise (not possible yet) it would only count as a Shadow Blastoise in the pokedex but not as a Shadow Squirtle and Wartortle. So pretty much don't worry about it!

For Mystery Gift this week we will have the remaining types: Poison, Rock and Bug to choose from and then I will pick a selection from that for you guys to vote on.

Finally I will be adding part of Route 32. You won't be able to access all of it right away since it is a big route with a bunch of things on it. Instead of rushing it and it being empty I will do it in parts as needed for the story. It will include new pokemon to catch! Something that I want to do for catching these new pokemon is to give them more interesting waves, instead of just a free roam type of level it might be a level that you can lose in but still have things to catch. Very similar to PTD1 levels.

I'm also fixing some critical bugs. The ability Hyper Cutter not showing up properly when you go to switch Trapinch's ability.  A problem with Night Shade and a problem with Falkner's dialog showing up when you beat Lugia.

On top of all this I will make the first level when you pick the grass starter for our Creature game using my graphics :)

As I do every week the list below is how I'm doing in all these different areas and if I'm currently working. I update this throughout the week so keep checking back to see how I'm doing.

PTD2 v1.32.1 Alpha Released!

• Mystery Gift  - Skorupi
• Change link in game
• Change Graphic in game
• Change Server Code
• Get link and code from sponsor
• Change Blog Links
• New Pokemon
• Graphics
• New Abilities
• Battle Armor
• New Attacks
• Knock Off
• Pin Missile
• Stats
• Move List
• Evolutions
• Add to Breeding Center
• Add to Trading Center
• Dunsparce should only show up in waves inside Dark Cave not outside
• Added Fearow's missing pokedex description
• Sceptile can no longer incorrectly relearn the missing move X-Scissor

PTD2 v1.32 Alpha Released!

• Added the New Wild Pokemon to the Research Mode List
• Pokedex Upgrade - Adding Generation 1 Pokedex tracking
• Client
• Server
• Wild Dunsparce have been seen wandering around Zubat and Geodude waves in the Dark Cave 
• Story Level - Route 32 Part 1 
• Updated waves for Hoothoot, Hoppip, Pidgey, Rattata - Higher level pokemon
• Map
• Graphics
• Triggers and Interactive Objects
• Wild Pokemon
• Spawns
• Behaviors
• Battle Map
• Battle Layout
• Battle Waves
• Dialog
• New Pokemon
• Graphics
• New Abilities
• Plus
• Damp
• Water Absorb
• Unaware
• New Attacks
• Mud Shot
• Slam
• Yawn
• Stats
• Move List
• Evolutions 
• Add to Breeding Center
• Add to Trading Center
• Bugs
• Hyper Cutter name and description is missing when you are trying to select your ability
• Hyper Cutter Ability preventing Attack increases
• Fix some issues with Night Shade that are cause the game to stop working
• Beating Lugia will show the wrong dialog in certain cases
• Fixed Flygon's Shiny Sprite

That's what we have for you this week. Check back often to see how we are doing and as always let us know what you think and what you want. Sam out!

Story Choices: Who should fight?, Official PTD Forum, Creature Universe Power Glove and Weekly Progress!

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 welcome welcome!  Triple welcomes for everybody! To another week of Sam and Dan games. My name is Sam and I am your captain for the week.

Latest PTD2 Update
Our last update included a new story level and a new mystery gift along with some balance changes to the game. The level had you helping the monks in the Sprout Tower with their shadow Bellsprout problem. A lot of you have talked about wanting to repeat levels and having done a rematch level for the gym battle I thought it would be cool to have most levels be able to be repeated over and over in a more challenging versions of that level.  The first time you play the levels they will be tuned to what I'm expecting the skill of the player will be when they reach that level from the beginning so I'm not expecting them to have pokemon over level 12 at that point. The rematches should provide with more challenge yet aren't meant to be impossible.

Official PTD Forum
So the guys over at the PTD Fan forums thought it would be a great idea if instead of being a fan forum they could become the official PTD Forum and I think considering the Avatar Chat is no more that this is a good idea. I encourage you guys to go there. I will also be working with them to make contest and special events on the forum. They will have a trading chat (if they haven't made it already) and it is moderated! Check it out http://pandoragaming.co.uk

User Choices: Who should fight?
I talked about letting you guys choose more things for the game and so here we are. On this next story level there will be a chance for either Ash, Gary or Silver Jr to fight in an important battle. Which one do you think should do the battling? You only have one day to vote so that I will have enough time to work on the level.

Creature Universe TD - Gauntlet Preview
For our CUTD we got to the point when we wanted to figure out how the character in the game would capture creatures and how he will be able to use his different abilites. Kevin one of our artist came up with a cool way of making all these things happen. Introducing the Gauntlet!

Kevin's Concept Images for the Gauntlet

This Gauntlet will serve as your pokedex, pokeballs, and more!

Weekly Progress
Last week I asked you guys what you wanted to be worked on. A good amount of you wanted to see more story, and the soft cap increased. A lot also wanted the buildings filled up but there is a reason why they aren't that has to do with the story so they will fill up at the right time. So there will be a new story level and a soft level cap increase to 16. This will bring 11 new moves into the game. I'm also tossing a critical bug fix into the breeding center. On top of that we will have a mystery gift.


Alpha v1.31.1: Released!

• Mystery Gift - Out now!
• Change link in game
• Change Graphic in game
• Change Server Code
• Get link and code from sponsor
• Change Blog Links
•  New Pokemon- Trapinch
• Graphics
• New Abilities
• Hyper Cutter
• Stats
• Move List
• Evolutions 
• Add to Breeding Center
• Add to Trading Center
• Making it no longer possible to put your pokemon to breed if you only have 2

Alpha v1.31: Released!

• Story Level
• Concept & Script
• Intro
• Ending
• New NPC Character Graphic
• Dialog
• Level Background
• Level Layout
• Enemy Attacks
• Enemy Abilities
• Rematch Battle
• Fixed a bug that show attack numbers as critical hits (yellow color) even if they were not critical hits
• Soft Level Cap Increase to 16 - 11 new moves!
• Bug Bite
• Magnitude
• Night Shade
• Helping Hand
• Reflect
• Feint
• Safeguard
• Twineedle
• Hyper Fang
• Fury Cutter
• Mist

That's all your captain has for you this week, keep checking back to see how I'm doing on the update. Thanks and as always let me know what you think!

 

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!

Getting back on track! Keeping it simple!

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! Last week there was no update, I got really busy with College Final Exams and taking some Engagement photos. So this week I'm getting back on track!

Instead of packing this week up with more things to do I will keep it simple so I can finish everything in the list. We already have the Mystery Gift set up which is Shiny Chimchar! Somebody ask if this was a good idea since I regretted having the Shiny Charmander gift. The difference here is that a lot of people payed to get Shiny Charmander before it was a gift so it was a mistake to add it after people had bought it. Chimchar is not available to purchase so it's not a problem adding him to players that are playing now.

Creature Universe
I've had some moments to think about Creature Universe. Whenever I think of a new project, for example PTD2, I think what changes in gameplay I can bring to the new game to make it more interesting or different. That is the stage that we are in with Creature Universe. I'm putting together some prototypes with different gameplay ideas and then playing with them, sending them to Dan and then we talk about what works and what doesn't work. The graphics in the prototype are extremely basic so we can focus on the gameplay and not the look. So making changes comes really easy. What you end up learning is that a lot of ideas sound great on paper but don't work as good when you actually play with it in the game. You also don't want to lose what made the game great just to put in new ideas. It is a tricky balance that all game developers must learn.

Pokemon Tower Defense Fan Film: Episode 5!
Joel has been working extra hard to get the next episode out. I saw it and it looks great! Check it out!

Alpha v1.27.1 Released!

• Added Experience Points to the Checkpoint in 1v1 mode
• Breeding Feature - Out now! Note: Getting moves from parents is not implemented yet.
• Added Igglybuff to the game - Obtainable by breeding.
• New Attacks
• Charm
• Sweet Kiss
• Stats
• Move List
• Evolution Info
• Graphics
• Normal
• Shiny
• Shadow
• Add to Breeding Center
• Add to proper Egg Group
• Add to proper Family
• Add to Trading Center 
• Add to Search List
• Add to Request List

Thanks for coming by and checking us out! Keep checking back to see how we are progressing during the week! As always let me know what you think!

Final Exam Week! Air Starter revealed for Creature Universe! Let's get this done!

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 another week here at Sam and Dan Games. Up and coming indie developers,  learning new things everyday, coding, having team meetings, dealing with sales, dealing with bugs, answering user feedback and more! Good times! Lots of hard work and dedication!

Final Exams Week
Like many of you, this week is my final exam week at college. This means more time studying and less time being able to work on an update. For that reason instead of adding new things to the list I will only work on what is in the list and get breeding and the item store up plus fix some bugs like the checkpoint in 1v1 mode not giving you the experience points. If I have extra time I would like to increase the soft cap some more and add new moves but no promises. Also like every week there will be a new mystery gift!

Mystery Gift
So far we have had an Ice, Dark, Fighting, Ghost, Electric, Flying and Legendary pokemon in the mystery gift. So first let's figure out which type we want then we can figure out which pokemon we want from that type. Let's make this happen!

My friends do stuff!
Joel did a cool comic showcasing real life pokemon evolution check it out! http://joelsamcomic.blogspot.com/

Gym Battle Feedback!
So the gym level has been out for a bit and it had some interesting mechanics. I would love to know what you guys thought about the level. What is too hard to understand? Too easy? What did you like of it? What did you hate? All this information will help me when thinking of future levels.

Help me squash some bugs!
A lot of you can't seem to get the game to load while a whole bunch of you can. This is really weird as I've always been able to load the game. What I'm thinking is that this isn't a programming bug at all and more like something happening on the server. What I need is information! First if you have never been able to load ptd2, what browser are you using, did you clear your cache, what country are you accessing the game from, what website are you trying to access it from, what day of the week have you tried to load the game? If you had trouble but can now load it, did you do anything specific to make it load?  My guess is that some people might be timing out with our server.

Another bug is the one when your pokemon get the moves of another pokemon. I need information as to what you did when this happened and can you replicate the bug and how.

With this information I will be able to better solve these issues and make everything better for everybody!

Creature Universe - Air Starter!
When I first thought of making my own original creatures for my next game I really wanted to take the things that you would expect and flip them on their head. The Air starter is a great example of this! Let's check them out! Here what Bill, one of our artist, sent us as a concept and then the colored version. Keep in mind that the names and descriptions where made by Bill and aren't necessarily final!

Bill's concept image (not final names or descriptions)

Colored versions by Bill (not final colors)

Thanks guys for all the support! As always let me know what you think! Keep checking back to see how I'm progressing in the game!

Birthday Wishes! Breeding and Soft Cap Increase! Creature Universe Toxic Starter!

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!

Hi everyone! First off thanks to everybody who wished me a Happy Birthday, my birthday is today (Monday) and last year on my birthday I made a very special mystery gift and so this year I want to make another one. This year I will choose and it is my wish that the mystery gift be Jirachi!

Newgrounds and Hacked Arcade Version
I recently released the Newgrounds (same as the one here, go and rate the game por favor) and the Hacked Arcade versions of PTD2. The hacked arcade version will give you more experience per kill and it is easier to capture pokemon but it tags your pokemon with the hacked tag. Enjoy!

Soft Cap Increase
Many of you have been asking for the soft cap to increase, so I will work on that this week. You might ask yourself what the soft cap is since you can level up to 100 already. Well the soft cap is the level in which your pokemon stop learning moves. The soft cap is currently 12 so my plan is to increase it to at least 14 if not higher.

Breeding
Another highly anticipated feature is the breeding mechanic and I think this will be a good week to introduce it. Okay so here are a couple of details on how it will work:

• Most of the rules regarding egg groups, gender, and families from the actual games will be in play here.
• Breeding and Egg Hatching will take place in the Pokemon Center.
• To hatch the egg you will have to visit it for a number of days. It will usually take less than 7 days of visits for it to hatch depending on the rarity of the pokemon in the egg.
• The parents stay with the egg until the egg is hatched. They are very caring!
• Egg moves will be implemented, same rules as the real game.
• You can have a shadow or shiny egg hatch
• You will find out if it's shiny or shadow the moment it's hatched, the egg will look the same.
• Each parent can increase the chance of the egg being shiny or shadow by a percent.
• Special held items will be sold that can also increase the chance of the egg being shiny or shadow. You will be able to buy them with SnD Coins or Daily Coins.
• So let's say each parent can increase it by 4% and the item can increase it by 4% then if both parents are shiny and they are both carrying the item then that will increase the chance for it to be shiny by 16%
• You will only be able to have 3 eggs hatching per account but you can increase this number with SnD Coins or Daily Coins.

Everstone and Neeverstone
Speaking of items I will be adding the Everstone and the Neeverstone (never everstone), the everstone will stop evolutions from happening and the neeverstone will stop any experience from being gained. Both of these items can be bought with SnD Coins or Daily Coins.

Daily Activity Tweaks
I won't be adding a new daily activity but I have a changed planned that will make this one more doable. Right now every day you have to find 10 new people to trade with that you had not traded with before. The Tweak will reset the people you traded with each day, essentially you can trade with the same people once a day. I will be adding a different one at some point but for now we are sticking to this one.

My friends do stuff!
Joel did a great comic smashup for thanksgiving check it out! http://joelsamcomic.blogspot.com/
Kevin put up some great sketches that he made in his spare time check them out! http://kxnhtd.blogspot.com/

Creature Universe - Toxic Starter!
This is the Toxic Type starter, he starts off pure toxic but ends up Toxic/Ground by the third evolution. Here is the concept drawing from one of our artist Bill along with some non-final names that he came up with.

Toxic Starter with non-final names

Alpha v1.27: Released!

• 1v1 Mode Changes - As described on a previous blog. FINALLY!
• Mystery Gift- Jirachi!
• Graphics
• Stats
• New Abilities
• New Attacks
• Wish
• Swift
• Add to Pokemon Center
• Add Mystery Gift Graphic on Game
• Add Mystery Gift Server Code
• Change Blog Links
• In game Items - You can buy these on the Pokemon Center Item Store page, once it is available.
• Everstone 
• Neeverstone 
• Gold Incense
• Shadow Incense
• Soft Cap Increase to 14 - Missing Moves
• Sleep Powder
• Spark
• Icy Wind
• Shadow Punch
• Light Screen 
• Daily Activity Tweak - Described in teh blog above
• Added list in the FAQ page on where to find pokemon and at what time, similar to the PTD1 list
• Save Party Position 
• Fixed a bug that was letting you duplicate your party pokemon
• Release Pokemon - Note: You can't release a pokemon in the game, it is not humane! Please go to the PokeCenter Webstie to release them that way Nurse Joy can take care of them!
• Add new Level Item interface graphics for the ui (0%)   They are fine the way they are!

 
Alright well I'm off for now, keep checking back to see how I'm doing! As always let me know what you think!

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.

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!

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!

Weekly Progress and Anpo Starters

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!


Hey guys and gals! Welcome to another week of Sam and Dan Games. This week we have some sneak peak at the Creature Universe Starters and the weekly progress for what will be new in Pokemon Tower Defense 2 this week. Enjoy!

Creature Universe (aka ANPO) Starters:
Okay so every creature game should start with the trainers getting their first creature. In pokemon you started in one town and you picked from three different starters. In most games in the series you could pick from a grass, fire or water pokemon. My first thoughts in designing ANPO were "okay why not have different types available? Why not have all types available?" I thought it would be great if you wanted a specific type to be your starting type. Why only have 3 choices? Then I said "wouldn't it be cool if each starter had a different starting location?" What if since each city specializes in a certain type why not have a starter on each city and have players decide which city they wanted to start from. That all sounded great! But then I came back to earth and thought about how many different types we might have and about how long it would take to make all those cities right from the start. Okay so I like the idea of different cities for each starter. I like the idea of letting you choose which type you want to start. But to release the game I have to limit how many starters I will release the game with. So let's go back down to 3 and then as the game progresses we will add more. Okay so 3 starter types for 3 cities. The starters will be like that cities mascot. They will be an important part of that city. That is the creature that young trainers from that city receive when they first start training.

Now which 3 types should it start with? My first thoughts were to not do fire, grass, and water. Let's make it different! WOOOO! How about flying, ground, electric? Hmm it doesn't quite work out... Flying isn't super effective against ground... Also it's not that intuitive to figure out who beats who... not as nice as fire, grass, and water. So I decided okay I want more than 3 types for starters but if I only have 3 types then they will be fire, grass, and water. So a few weeks back I had my artist, Kevin, Bill, Evan, Josh and Joel, start coming up with concepts for creatures for ANPO. We have over 100 designs already! But I like to present to you the work in progress sketches of the water, fire, and grass starters for ANPO!

Work In Progress ANPO Starters

Weekly Progress:
This week for PTD 2 will we have another 1v1 level, this level should be enough for kakuna and metapod to level up to 10 so I will include the unlocks for those. Also I'll be pushing for saving in the story mode and the second quest where you can actually pick your starter. Plus if I have time during the week I'll add any small fixes or changes that I find.

Alpha v1.14 Added the Girl Avatar for story mode, saving for story mode, Bug Fixes and Changes (9/2/12): Released!

• Fixed a bug that was making attacks that should do at least 1 damage do 0 damage - Like Poison Sting on Geodude
• Fixed a bug that prevented a pokemon from learning an attack when it evolves and you beat a level
• Fixed a bug with attacks with an initial cooldown having a cooldown glitch
• Removed Prof Oak's winning text and added different text in Story Level 1
  
• Added Johto Starter sounds to the Story Level 1 Intro
• Added the correct lost popup to Story Level 1
• Implemented the girl avatar in story mode
• Fixed being able to enter houses through windows and walls in Story mode 
• Lowered the Geodude's level in Level 6 of 1v1 to 10, 11, 12 respectively, also lowered the amount of buffs they do before attacking
• Gave Professor Oak the correct questions to ask the player on Story Level 1 Intro
• Fixed a bug with beating a level while playing at a higher speed
• Added properly deleting profiles when the delete button is pressed  
• Added saving your story profile

Alpha v1.13 New Level, Bug Fixes and Changes (8/28/12): Released!

• 1v1 Level 6
• Intro
• Level Layout
• Waves
• Ending
• Added Butterfree and Beedrill as unlockables
• Lower the effect of speed changes to attack speed
• Update speed changes to attack cooldown in real time instead of only when a new move is going to be done

 That's all I have for you this week, keep checking back to see how I am progressing on the update, and let me know what you think of the starters and the weekly progress in the comments below or on twitter.
Thanks!

Weekly Progress: New PTD Fan Film, New Race for HTD Approaches!

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!

Okay lets talk about some new exciting stuff! First my brother just published episode 3 of the Pokemon Tower Defense Fan Film, this is probably my favorite one so far, click here to check it out now!

Also the artist for HTD have been hard at work on a new race for HTD and are planning to unveil it soon, check out the teaser shot on Kevin's blog, click here to check it out!

For PTD 2 I'm still working hard on getting it done, I've been trying to post more pictures and even movies about my progress so you guys can see what is coming.

Fixing bugs (50%)
Have Speed altering effects affect the pokemon's attack speed (100%) 

1v1 mode - level 1 (100%) - Intro level, pretty easy and short.

• Level Intro (100%)
• Level Layout (100%)
• Level Waves (100%)
• Level Ending (100%)

Level Ending Screen (Postponed) - A stat screen that will tell you how much money you earned on the level plus other things.
Pokemon Upgrade Screen (100%) - Adding the two suggestions that you guys requested, being able to change your pokemon in the screen and showing the pokemon's stats. Other additions are showing the nickname of the pokemon along with its name, showing the gender by symbol and background color. Also you can see that you can see your abilities and their description and also change them before the level. Finally I added a new pokedex button that will take you to the pokedex information of this pokemon. It will be more detailed than in ptd 1. You can see a work in progress shot below. (Note: I'm using pokemon with random moves in them for testing purposes, you can't learn these move on Onix without hacking)

Newer version, female onix, pokedex button, and ability window

Level User Interface (100%) - The Level UI will be changed to incorporate new mechanics and to not take up as much space as the previous one. Some new features you will notice in the screenshot below is being able to change a pokemon's move mid battle without having to go to the pokemon check menu, it will also help you keep track of the move's cooldown (not pictured below). Another thing you will notice is zoom, speed, and other info will be smaller and not take up as much room as before but still very visible. Where the pokeball used to be there is now a temporary box and an arrow. The box represents the current item you have selected. To change the item you click on the arrow to get a quick menu to pick your item. Items you can pick will be different pokeballs, medicine, berries, and battle items. The last thing you will notice is the 3 professor oaks on the side. For the story mode you will be able to use your traveling partners pokemon in battle! So you will be able to swap between the 3 trainers. One thing that is missing is the menu button, pause button, the special abilities button and some other small things.

Latest Version of the Pokemon Buttons

Party Selection Screen (100%)- Slightly refined, added new sorting options that you guys requested, plus additional settings to each sorting option as seen in the pictures below.

Showing new sorting options with sub menus

Any attacks that need to be modified for level 1 (100%) - Setting up the new stacking debuff mechanics. No longer will stat changing attack run out. They will also stack so you have to keep applying it to get the max effect. Watch the video below for a small preview. The graphic will get slightly bigger and stack as the debuff stacks. Also your pokemon will prioritize targets that have the lowest stack or no stack at all.
Attacks Completed:

•  Tackle, String Shot, Harden, Confusion, Poison Sting, Fury Attack, Tail Whip, Quick Attack, Focus Energy, Bite, Sand Attack, Gust, Peck, Growl, and Leer.

Level 1 Pokemon Abilities (100%) - Adding any missing abilities for the pokemon found in the first levels.

• Keen Eye, Tangled Feet, Big Pecks, Shield Dust, Run Away, Shed Skin, Compound eyes, Tinted Lens, Swarm, Sniper, Guts, and Hustle. 

Pokemon can now learn attacks before and after they evolve on a level up (100%) 
Creating the profile, profile_story, profile_1v1 classes (Programmer lingo) (100%)
Pokemon Buying Screen (100%)
Loading (100%)
Saving (100%) 
Item Buying Screen (Postponed) - Items will be postponed for near future update.

During the week I will keep adding more things and updating what I'm working on. This will give you a better look at where I am at with getting the release done.

thanks for all the support, I really want to get this out to you guys so please be patient! As always let me know what you think about the fan film, htd race teaser and ptd 2 progress! Thanks!