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Go here to read the Day 6 of Hero Tower Defense Tuesdays.

Sam again, working hard on the PTD update which is why this came so late.  I will continue talking about the talents and elements in this post plus give you guys an update on where the game is in programming so far.


If you haven't read last week's post then you will probably be really lost so I suggestion you give that a quick look and then come back to read this.


First a lot of you commented on adding more elements to the mix and while that may be possible we want to keep it pretty simple at first and then in the future possibly add more elements as we go. Today when I explain the talents more you will see why we want to keep it at 5 elements for now.


Okay so in HTD the elemental talent system has some pretty unique features.

• Every character gets the same elemental talent tree, regardless of what you pick.
• Regardless of what element you are attuned to, you can pick skills from any element. (If you are attuned to Fire you can still pick up water element skills or shadow element, etc.)
• Skills are separated by Physical and Magic and then by elements. (See picture below)

Mock up of Elemental Talent Trees

• You can get special combination of moves by fulfilling the requirement of that move. Combination moves are special moves that sometimes give you a different version of the original move or a move that will trigger a special effect on a previous move. An example of this is a Tier 2 Magical Fire move that will create Magma Armor for your character, if you get a Tier 2 Water skill then it will unlock the combination move for the Magma Armor which is dousing the Magma Armor cooling it down and turning it into a Magma Stone Armor. The Magma Armor will help against magic while the Magma Stone Armor helps against physical attacks. In the picture below the requirement for Tier 1 Fire is to get any Tier 1 Light Move. You can see that now the combination move for Fire is unlocked. Note: Combination moves are free and don't cost points.

The combination requirement for Tier 1 Fire is Tier 1 Light, the combination move for Fire Tier 1 is unlocked.

• You will get 15 points to work with once you reach the highest level in the game. You can go pure on an Element and it will unlock an Ultime move that you can use your last point in.

Using 7 Points on Fire Physical and 7 Points on Fire Magical will unlock an Ultimate Fire Move (not pictured)

• Putting 3 points into all the elements will unlock all the combination moves for all of them, this will get you more versatility. Doing this will unlock a special move that will be free. But not as powerful as an Ultimate Pure Elemental move.

Putting 3 points into every element will get you the most elemental skills, and will unlock a special move for free (Not pictured on this mock up)

• Other special arrangements like putting 7 points in one element and 7 points in a different element will give you an Ultra move. Also putting 5 points in 3 different elements will unlock a special move.

I know this is a lot to take in and it might be hard to understand without being able to play with it but this is the most we can offer right now.

With this system you can create a character as you see fit, do you want him to shoot fire balls and be able to heal with water? Go for it. Want to be a pure Shadow Master? Go for it. Want to be a pure physical machine? Go full physical fire and shadow. There are so many possibilities to what you can do! But we aren't done yet.

You might be thinking well what about classes? While the Elemental Tree system will let you go wild and create your own special class, there is also a Specialization Tree that you will get access to. The Specialization tree will allow you to pick more specific abilities both passive and active to your character. These will be more restrictive in that they require certain points to get them. When you put a point in the physical side of the Elemental Tree you will get a Physical Specialization Point that you can use in the Physical side of the Specialization Tree, same with magic. The specialization will help you define you character more with categories such as Defense, Stealth, Healing, Damage. Want to be a powerfull mage that can take hits like a tank? Well you can! Gone are the days of picking a class and being tied down to what you can do, we hope you will enjoy this system and help us fine tune it as we move forward.

Let's talk about our great artist, Kevin, for a little bit here. Kevin came to Dan and I requesting that he wanted to make his own blog that focuses on the art for Hero Tower Defense. While at the beginning we had our doubts on the whole idea, we finally decided to try it out and see how it goes. So click here to check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD. On top of that we will be posting small summaries each week here about what's going on in his blog so that you don't miss a thing. So go check it out!

The last thing I wanted to talk about is how the programming is going for HTD. A lot of you keep asking when the game is coming out, and while the game is not close to being ready I will update you on where we are now. Each week I will provide an update.

I'm actually re-writing all the code for HTD using PTD as a reference. I have learned a lot from PTD and using all those lessons to make the code in HTD even better. HTD is also more detailed graphically so it requires more detailed code for attack effects. For example in PTD the pokemon will just tackle and hit the target in the middle of it. In HTD your character will move infront of the target and then swing it's swords. These differences make all the difference as far as presentation and code.

Disclamer on the Picture above: We aren't going to have 10 units at once, only 5. I have 10 there as a previous test.

So that is what we have so far, the characters can be put on their spots and will attack an enemy that is going around the path. We are tweaking attack code and looking at how we can make the action easier to follow.

So which element will you choose?

That's what we have this week for Hero Tower Defense. As always let me know what you think!