Batteries Included Dev Blog

What we are working on... Programming and Art: Unidentified Flying Features Improved window material to be less invisible Put a King Exposition (good king character) model in as a placeholder for the enemy kingpin figure, sitting on the windowsill looking over the table opposite the player's perspective Added a clock (above the desk) with the Chaotic Good symbol and hands of the Towerscape color theme – this should be able to be animated later Added a Pin Art Display with the Chaotic Good symbol on the desk to add more neat things to look at Added plastic bricks on the desk, which may be snappable together later Implemented UFO toy model with a metallic material – not functional as a unit yet but one is present flying around and another present hovering above the desk, both for visual demonstration Design: Decided on the enemy kingpin figure being an old rejected toy of the player's who wants to use your other toys to make himself better, so that he can...

What we are working on... Programming: Towers Box to dispense towers Tower cost restrictions and refund (by throwing off the table) is functional Temporary-solution labels displayed for these interactions with towers, to indicate the values involved for purchasing, repositioning, and refunding A calculator on the windowsill displays the current amount of gold coins in piggybank Lamps can be toggled on and off Greedy Goblins dodge grab attempts and incoming arrow shots Enemies are destroyed upon being thrown off the table (not killed – they are not supposed to drop any items when dispatched this way) Quadratic curve implemented for shrinking (unshrinking is still using smootherstep). This makes it less jarring, even smoother than smootherstep; it was found that the acceleration of smootherstep going in was more uncomfortable than a steady speed that is achieved by quadratic – this is due to the quadratic curve better imitating the relativity between larger 3D space an...

Towerscape made it through the Shark Tank! This means we have the opportunity to continue development. Here's a look at our plans: We also have our first trailer, check it out! Stay tuned for more updates as we head into the the Workshop stage of the Game Design program. We may pick up a few more team members!

Hunter Bobeck | Gameplay Programmer In order to take advantage of the first-person perspective VR provides, Towerscape allows players to shrink down to toy-size and commandeer towers themselves, using the power of their imagination. In this post, I will be discussing the design pattern and programming methodology behind the mechanic. The Interaction Since Towerscape is played in room-scale VR, we have the ability to adjust the player’s relative scale to the game world. Shrinking the player in the game results in the player feeling smaller, even though their scale hasn’t changed in real life. The act of shrinking down is begun via a controller interaction with the chosen tower. Controllers are tracked within the room-scale VR space, so to choose the tower to commandeer, the player physically moves the controller to be in contact with the virtual tower. Then they only have to press the appropriate button to initiate the interaction. Not all towers can b...

Video update: Programming: Working on combining the first person archery scene and the tower defense scene Enemy wave testing  Changing to SteamVR interaction system Bug work of course Design: We are exploring taking the game in a bit more a toy direction. What this means: Having only one basic tower model that can be placed and have toys placed on top to change the function of the tower. (Example: Place a basic tower. Add a spaceman toy on top. The tower now reskins to look like space'esque and the spaceman shoots lazers at enemies.) We also updated our loops to reflect changes we made to the game. Art: Goblin model Texture painting complete Repolying complete Clothing complete Tower models Room layout  Board layout

   Video update: Programming: Tower placement working The Lab first person archery mock up made Archery Tower shoots and causes damage 1st enemy class moves down specified path and takes damage from arrows   Art: Tower models created Archery Level 1 Bomb Level 1 Wizard Level 1 Design: Initial waves laid out Concept statement Interactions mapped out Tower Powers created

What we are working on... Programming: Tower placement up and working Zooming in to first person refined Art: 1st enemy goblin model is almost complete Tower sketches are done and ready to be modeled in 3D Level 1 weapons currently in model pipeline Finished gathering references Reference Art!  Taking reference from Heroscape. Board size reference from Castle M ust Be Mine. . Andy's Room, room size reference. How we want the enemies to move. Player pedestal example. Toy art reference. First person examples Tower  upgrade example Design: Working on excel doc more to balance gameplay Designing ui/ux Main story book Pause menu book The very first sketch of the game. 8/10/17 Core loops are f un, right...