Hey guys I'll make this quick cause I need to leave.

Want to play Ninja-ja? Get a shiny pikachu, shiny mew, shiny starter or have your suggestion for a weapon design to be used on Ninja-ja? Click here for more info on how you can get those things.

New version 2.7.1 is now out! It includes:

• New Story Mode Level
• Level cap up to 36 (you can now evolve your starters and pidgey to the max evolutions)
• Fixed the bug with Charizard
• Fixed Fury Swipes to do the intended damage.

Where can I play?

• Play here on the blog by clicking on the "Play PTD!" tab.
• Download the EXE, SWF or APK by clicking on the "Game Downloads Link" tab.
• PlayTowerDefenseGame (Updated to 2.7.1)
• OneMoreLevel (Updated to 2.7.1)
• FreeWorldGroup (Updated to 2.7.1)
• Gamerfish (Updated to 2.7.1)
• NewGrounds (Updated to 2.7.1)
• MiniJuegos (Updated to 2.7.1) 

Some notes about the level: It is not intended that you have all pokemon at level 28 since somebody starting from the beginning would not have pokemon that high when they reach this level.

Ninja-ja update coming early next week, new pokemon update progress list will also come next week.

As always let me know what you think below.
Have a good weekend.

Want to play Ninja-ja? Get a shiny pikachu, shiny mew, shiny starter, shiny magikarp or have your suggestion for a weapon design to be used on Ninja-ja? Click here for more info on how you can get those things.

Get Ninja-ja: Apprentice Edition for free, after completing one of the offers provided!  

Want to get the 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! V5.8.1 of Pokemon Tower Defense is officially released! Go get your Ponyta and swf, exe, and apk files! I didn't have enough time for the co-op level last week so this week I will see to it. I hope those of you who are far enough enjoyed the Zapdos fight, you can expect similar type of battles for the other birds when we get to them. This week we will continue the story along with some other things.

So to change it up a bit I wanted to talk about what the thought process was for creating the Zapdos fight, and the general process of coming up with a new level for each week.

Step 1: What's going to happen next? - So I have an idea in my head of what the story is going to end like, almost like some bullet points, but the actual details I come up with each week. In this case the gang had just finished spending some time at the Safari Zone, kinda relaxing and just capturing new pokemon. So I thought it was time to make something exciting happen in the story. Your characters had not been to the cycling road so I thought there needed to be a reason to go there. Originally I thought that Gary would show up and tell you that you needed to go to Professor Oak to learn Surf but I didn't want to go to Viridian City again yet since that will be the last gym. I also thought of the possibility of not meeting Gary but another friend on the Cycling Road but I thought I was running out of time and I needed to deal with Gary and the birds in order to move on. Plus I thought the idea of the next level being Gary and the legendary bird would excite the players (you guys). As far as what happens in the level. I always like to make fun of Joey, and just show that our gang still has fun along the way. Also a good reason to travel to the Cycling Road was that they hadn't gone there yet as Joey mentions. Since Gary was running away from the birds I wanted to see him cornered and you show up to save the day! Also making this level with Gary and Zapdos facing off I thought of something interesting for the story and I left some small hints of it in the scene.

Step 2: Level Design - Usually on Monday I will think of the general theme of the next level. Last week was Gary and Zapdos. I knew I wanted to make the fight with the legendary birds.... errr legendary. So I thought okay I want this fight to just be you and Zapdos but Gary is there so he needs something to do. I put that aside for a moment and thought that Zapdos is electric so I want him to be sending out attacks very often and that they should affect your whole group. So since Zapdos will be doing a lot of damage to your party Gary would be perfect to heal your pokemon, similar to Celebi. But I wanted to add more work to the healing, so unlike Celebi you have to actually take your pokemon away from battle to get healed. A player a long time ago suggested an idea to have nurse joy on the side line and you sent your pokemon there to be healed. This was a variation of that idea. Now back to Zapdos. First I thought okay Ground is immune to electric attacks so I would use Drill peck to counter that, which also brought the idea of he being able to target anybody in the field regardless of their position. But I read that flying doesn't do a lot of damage to ground and I didn't want everybody to have to get ground pokemon to beat the level. So I made all damage be a set amount. Also I thought simply removing your units from the field to prevent damage was overplayed and would remove the need to use Gary so I added way for Zapdos to wait for your units to be ready which introduced some bugs (when your party dies the level doesn't end since Zapdos is waiting for a target).

Step 3: Implementation, Balance and Testing (Making it happen!) - This part is the last part to happen, once I have my ideas I set out to animate the scenes make the new characters and create the new moves for the level. In this case most of the characters were done, I just had to make Gary into a Tower and create the new moves for Gary and Zapdos. The new moves can sometimes create technical difficulties. I can spend a good amount of hours bug fixing or just balancing the moves so they do enough damage. Once the bugs are cleared I create a team of pokemon that will be the best to beat the level. In this case I made a team of 6 level 90 Rhydon with Stone edge, I didn't buff them but I thought it would give me a good idea of what kind of damage the players would be able to put out. I played it until it took at least 6 waves to beat him while moving the pokemon around to get healed etc and moving them around to always be attacking Zapdos. After that I tweaked with Zapdos stats a bit to make it just right.

So I hope you guys enjoy seeing what it takes to make the level happen. Now on to the progress list! (Note that Hero Tower Defense Progress will stay in the HTD post from last week)

Weekly PTD progress:

PTD FirstLook!

New Story Level (100%) - Route 19 Training Level

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

Zapdos boss battle co-op level (100%) - This will be for Monday! Exclusively on PlayTowerDefenseGames.com
New TM (100%)

•  Icy Wind (100%)
• Dive (100%)
• Hail (100%)

New Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - Seel! This will be for Monday!

• New Moves (100%) 
• Icy Wind (100%)
• Dive (100%)
• Hail (100%)
• Add Graphic (100%)
• Add Shiny Graphic (100%)
• Add Shadow Graphic (100%)
• Add Stats to Game (100%)
• Implement TM/Relearn moves (100%)
• Implement in Adoption (Battle Ready and Shiny) (100%)
• Implement Shadow in Game Corner (100%)
• Implement in Trading Center (100%)
• Implement in Save Code (100%)

Decide who will I trade my Shiny Mew (100%) - Congrats to xlawrunes, he caught my eye with his all shiny all psychic team of Psyduck, Jynx, Starmie, Alakazam, Exeggutor, Venomoth! This was a hard choice!
Choose a new pokemon to trade for next week - my account is samO (100%) - I'm putting up a big number of shiny and shadow pokemon that I have collect during my journeys! Next week I will trade every one of them, if you see something you like send me an offer!
Add new moves to the Pokemon Center's Move List (100%)
Finish implementing design to trading pages (0%) - Forgot some >.<
Bug Fixes (100%)

• Make Route 17 end if your party all faints (100%)
• Only one weather effect can be active at a time (100%)

Thanks guys for the continued support, I have a couple of things in the works that I will talk more about next week. I will keep updating this list as the week goes on and....As always let me know what you think!

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!

Hi everyone! Last week we had the second level of the story mode released. We got to walk around and talk to the citizens of New Bark Town and go on a little quest to save our starter. This is but the tip of the ice berg for story mode and hopefully you got a taste of what is to come. Did you like it better than the PTD1 style of just watching an intro playing the level and watching an ending? Let me know! Your feedback here in the comments, twitter, emails, facebook and on the forums help shape this game. Like I've said before I spend a good amount of time reading everything you guys write. I might not have enough time to answer them all like I used to but I do the best that I can to answer ones that are crucial or easy enough for a quick answer.

Okay so moving on to this week we will have both a new 1v1 level and a new story level! Lots of new content coming your way.

For both the Story and 1v1 level I will be adding some new technology to the game engine. I've been meaning to add this for a while but haven't had a lot of time. The new technology will be for the trainer you are battling against. Usually they will bring out a pokemon and you defeat that pokemon then they bring out their next one. It's very similar to how the waves work in PTD1 because I'm using the same engine for the trainers that I use in the waves. The new tech will be to allow for the trainers to have a team like you do and to be able to switch out pokemon in battle just like you can. Which will make the fights more interesting and dynamic.

Other than the new tech, 1v1 will now be headed to Route 3, we got some trainers to fight there and also a new pokemon to unlock. Can you guess who it is? All I can say is that it likes to sing a lot.

Speaking of sing, I will be making some changes to how the sleep mechanic works. Previously it would just put you to sleep for a certain amount of time regardless of how much damage you took. Now it will put you to sleep for a longer amount of time but taking damage will most likely cause you to wake up. Making it better for use against somebody that is attack you.

For the Story mode you will be challenged to your first fight. Speaking of this fight I've had reports of people finding an interesting way of leveling up your starter past level 7. This is pretty much my mistake so don't worry if you did it, I will be fixing it in the next version so it should no longer be possible.

Speaking of leveling, I also want to announce a new feature (inspired by my playing of Guild Wars 2)! In PTD1 you could very easily just level up enough so that a level was incredibly easy. In PTD2 there will be a limit as to how high you can be for each level to preserve that level's difficulty (to a point). So for example, lets say your starter is level 12 and you go into Route 29 (The first route in Johto). That means you would massively out level this stage. Most pokemon on this level will be level 2-4. What the game will do is temporarily turn your level 12 pokemon into a level 6 pokemon. Your pokemon will keeps its attacks, evolution, and abilities but it will have stats like it was level 6. Notice that the cap is higher than the highest level in the area but it is still within a certain range. Also since you get to keep your attacks and evolution you will still have an advantage. It just makes it so you can't simply steam roll everything once you get level 100 pokemon. What do you think?

I also plan to bring out the first Mystery Gift! We had a poll a while back and the first Mystery Gift for PTD 2 will be Zorua! Mystery Gift codes will be done a tiny bit different, you will still go to PlayTowerDefenseGames.com and try to figure out the code and you will also enter the code on that site's version of PTD2. Before you could go to any site and enter it but now it is exclusive to their site. Since most people would just find the code on a different site and just use it straight off without visiting our great sponsor.

Lastly I'll also be working on the PTD2 Pokemon Center. It will be very similar to the PTD1 but I still have to do a lot infrastructure changes. I don't think it will be out this week since I have so much to do but I hope to get a good amount done and who knows maybe it will be out too.

Alright so that was quite a bit of info. Let's look at the Weekly Progress list next. Also remember I update this while I'm working so make sure to come back every once in a while to see how I'm doing :)

Weekly Progress:

Alpha v1.18 New Story Mode Battle: Released now!

• Fixed a bug with the Ability Intimidate that was preventing it from being applied to enemies that swapped into the battle
• Fixed a bug that is preventing the Arena Trap Ability and other attacks that trap you from working on Enemie
• Made it so Arena Trap will not work on pokemon that are immune to ground attacks
• New Level Modifier Feature - This only applies for Story mode and not 1v1 mode.
• New Story Level
• New Character
• Quest Intro
• Properly load your pokemon to the profile
• Properly saving Pokemon Information like leveling up, learning new moves and gaining experience
• Get Pokemon Unique ID after saving
• Get and Give Pokemon Position 
• Sending Info
• Receiving Info
• NPC AI for battle
• Battle Layout
• Battle Waves
• Quest Ending
• Implementing a level cap at 10 for Story Mode
• Lowering any pokemon that went over 10 back to 10
• Implementing in the server
• Implementing in the client

Alpha v1.17.1 Critical Bug Fix: Released now! 

•  Fixed a bug that was preventing players from completing the second quest on Story mode 

Alpha v1.17 New 1v1 Level: Released now!  

• Added Sponsor Intro
• Made starters have a chance to be both female and male instead of just male
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to keep leveling up your starter
• Moved the Back button in the story level to a different spot
• Made it so if you aren't facing an NPC then you won't talk to it
• Made it so bumping into an NPC will now make it stop and face you
• Changed the Police officers text for when you are a female character
• Limited the amount of potions you can have on you in 1v1 mode to 15 - This won't be like the rare candy where you can only buy 2. This means that you can only have a max of 15 on you at a time but if you use any of them you can go back to the max for the next level.  
• Made the Sleep status effect last 12 second but any damage taken has a 50% chance to awake up the target
• Increased the cost of Kakuna, Metapod, Beedrill, and Butterfree in 1v1 mode  to 25, 25, 45, and 45 respectively
• Added New Pokemon to the game (3)
• Graphics (100%)
• Shiny Graphics (100%)
• Shadow Graphics (100%)
• Stats (100%)
• Attack list (100%)
• Evolution Information (100%)
• Added New Attacks to the game
• Sing
• Pound
• Disable
• Wrap
• Glare
• Fake Tears
• Fury Swipes
• Added New Abilities to the game
• Cute Charm
• Friend Guard
• Intimidate
• Unnerve
• Illusion
• Added Gym Leader Checkpoints to 1v1 - Once you reach a gym leader you will be able to start playing at that gym leader battle.
• Added New Trainer AI Feature - Very basic trainer AI, when his/her pokemon faints he will take out the next one. Implementing feature into the game engine.
• Increased Coin rewards for any level that gave less than 20 coins to 20 coins - This is help reduce the feeling that you need to grind a lot for coins. This also helps balance the fact that you can only hold a certain number of potions on you in this update. I'll be keeping an eye on the numbers and will tweak as necessary.
• Added New 1v1 Level
• Intro
• Level Layout
• Level Waves
• Previous Level Ending Text
• Added New 1v1 Trainer AI - This is the AI for the trainer in the new level.
• Changed PTD 1 link on the main screen to point to the sponsor's website.

Alright now let's talk a bit about Creature Universe TD. Many of you might not know but Dan and I hold team meetings every week. We chat with our artist about Creature Universe, we see what everybody is working on and talk about the design of the game. So for the last few weeks we have been talking about the types that we were going to use for Creature Universe. This hasn't been an easy task. We all had different opinions. Some of us wanted to remove some types. Others wanted to add even more types. In the end we started from the beginning and asked ourselves which types MUST be around. After we figured that out we went ahead and added some new ones, combined some other ones and even removed some. Here is the list of the types that will be in Creature Universe! Granted this list could still be tweaked in the future. But for now this is what we have decided.

Normal/Neutral - Unlike Pokemon this type will actually be Neutral to all other types. It has no weaknesses but also no advantages. This type will also be more limited than I pokemon where a bunch of creatures had this type along with another one.
Fire/Flame - Pretty self explanatory.
Water/Aquatic - See Fire.
Grass/Plant - See Water.
Electric/Lightning - See Grass.
Air - This type is pretty much what flying is in pokemon.
Ice - See Electric.
Ground/Earth - This type combines what pokemon would have as Ground and Rock into one type.
Metal - This is kinda like Steel, but it can be different metals. Basically very strong and sharp.
Toxic - Like Poison type in pokemon but a lot better.
Dark - Like Dark in Pokemon but this is the type you would see ghost show up in.
Light - This type is something completely new. It's the counterpart of Dark. You would see more magical creatures like psychic show up with this type.
Mythical - This is the type for legendary creatures. The plan we have for it is that it is very defensive against all types except for Neutral, Light and Dark. It also has no offensive advantages.

So these are out types! Something old, something new, something combined. It's got a little bit of everything. The only types advantage we have figured out are Mythical and Neutral since those are really different from the rest. We are still working on specific type charts for the rest so stay tuned for that later on. Or what kind of type charts can you guys come up with? I would love to see them with explanations as to why you did what you did.

Also creatures will have almost like secondary "types" we are calling it species. For example your creature can be a type Fire but it can also be a bug species. Being a bug will carry certain advantages or disadvantages. Other species might be like "reptile", "mammal". We are still working on this part but I just wanted to mention it so you guys knew about it.

Well that was a lot of info! I hope you guys have a good week this week and as always, let me know what you think!

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!



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.

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!

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Status: Not Working.

Cosmoids

• Swap Mechanic UI and Functionality (100%)
• New Move Type (0%) - Targeted move

PTD2 v1.37.1 Released!

• Mystery Gift (100%)

PTD2 v1.37 Released!

• PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers (100%)
• Story Level (100%)
• Intro (100%)
• Level Layout (100%)
• Waves (100%)
• Ending (100%)
• New Attack (100%) - Fireball
• New Enemy Pokemon (100%) 
• Made it easier for big pokemon to fit into spots that are close to other spots (100%)
• Fixed a bug that would not allow you to transform into an Unown either by Illusion, Transform or Imposter (100%)
• Metal Coat (100%) - You have to find the item in one of the maps before it is unlocked in the Pokemon Center's Item Store.
• Fix how Genderless is shown in game (100%) 
• Testing new attacks and abilities (100%)
• Ditto Breeding Rules (100%)
• New Pokemon (100%)
• Graphics (100%)
• New Abilities (100%)
• Thick Fat (100%)
• Oblivious (100%)
• Moody (100%)
• Technician (100%)
• Limber (100%)
• Impostor (100%)
• New Attacks (100%)
• Powder Snow (100%)
• Encore (100%)
• Ice Ball (100%)
• Body Slam (100%)
• Aurora Beam (100%)
• Vacuum Wave (100%)
• Bullet Punch (100%)
• Transform (100%) 
• Stats (100%)
• Evolutions (100%)
• Add to Trading Center (100%)
• Add to Breeding Center (100%)

That's what we have for you this week. As always let me know what you think in the comments below or toss me an email at sam@sndgames.com or if you want to message Dan email dan@sndgames.com!

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! Coming back from chaos!

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

What's New
It has been chaos, to say the least, these past couple of weeks. For the first time in my life I moved out of my parents house and into my own apartment. All of this in preparation for my wedding which is 2 short months from now! Chaos might have been a soft word. With all the moving also came computer problems. I had to take my development computer to be fixed and now my old computer is giving me trouble. I've never had this much trouble before! While I haven't been able to really sit down and work on anything my mind has not stopped thinking about what and who is making all of this possible. You guys and gals are the reason I'm able to push my life into the next stage and I'm able to wake up every day and think about making video games instead of coding something I have no interest in for somebody I don't even really know. Because of that I will give it my all as long as you guys will have me.

I did manage a few things, Cosmoids got a small update, some tweaks on the first level to make it a bit shorter and some massive changes to the tutorials so they are easier to understand and more to the point.

Speaking of Cosmoids...

Designing a game before coding it
The way I make Pokemon Tower Defense is that each week I think about what to work on next and early in the week I will make a plan, write the blog with my plan and then I try to accomplish my plan. In more detail this means I'm making it up as I go. Each week I think about where the story could go. While I have some very basic plans for the overall story, the lines of dialog and the different events that will happen are not planned out months in advance. At the most I will have an idea like having Mewthree win, and then slowly during the week I will think about how this will happen. Same with the battles, ptd1 transfers, new attacks. Having been doing this for a few years now I can see that there are benefits to this method. The main benefit is the speed that you can put things out. There are however some drawbacks to this style. I think an obvious example is the Avatars in PTD1. Your player doesn't have an avatar until later in the game. This is the result of not having time to add it initially but then eventually getting the time and figuring out how to add it in. Going back and adding it to all the previous levels would have been a big undertaking that would have stalled the game updates so I was never willing to do it. At the same thing I think it is odd to add new things as you go and having the old content not take advantage of these things.

So for Cosmoids I want to design the game in advance before I make it. What this means is that I will be coming up with the levels and moves in advance before I actually code them. Then I will see what everything looks like and be able to implements new things into the whole game instead of just adding them as I go. So far I have designed up to level 5. My goal for the game is for it to have about 40ish levels before I consider it complete.

Designing a level doesn't take a very long time but making it interesting, challenging, and fun can be quite a challenge. For Cosmoids we are following a similar formula that PTD1 has. You watch a story scene then you play the level and you watch another story scene. So the first thing you have to think about is where is your story at. What happened in the previous level, in the previous story scene and where do you want the story to go and how will it tie into the next Cosmoids you want to use on the next level. Then you think about what attacks should this new Cosmoid have and how is it different from the others. What kind of different role can it take. Finally using those new attacks you create an idea for how the level itself will play. What will be the challenge on the level. How will you test the player. Will it be a puzzle or the ability to dodge moves. Or will he have to have Cosmoids that have high defense. A lot of thought goes into making each level. So being able to focus on just the design lets you do it quick and it also lets you see the big picture quicker which can hopefully lead to the game feeling more unified.

Going to the past: The next PTD2 Story Update
It's going to be a good one! Mewthree has taken over the world with his massive clones, your friends, family and heroes are about to be captured. Celebi, the time traveling pokemon, shows up and offers you a chance to save the world but you must go to the past to change it! This update will have you going to the past. You will be able to visit the locations that you have already visited but 10 years into the past. In the world you aren't born yet and Silver is still alive! What can do you to stop the events in the future? Only time will tell.

The past will be a different place, while the maps themselves will look the same, you can expect more people to be around, and different house and buildings to be accessible.

You will be able to enter the poke mart and buy items. You will be able to enter the pokemon center and rest until night time, day time or early morning. Essentially giving you control over the time of day. There will be more trainer battles in the Routes.

Another cool feature is that you can travel back to the future! Talking to celebi from your pokepad will allow you to travel back a few moments before Mewthree took over the region, allowing you to replay old battles or talk to people in the future after finding out more about them in the past.

There is a lot of content to be added to make this update possible and I hope you guys enjoy the things I have planned.

Weekly Progress

Cosmoids Progress

• Design Level 8 (70%) - Honey Badger vs Bees
• Design Level 9 (50%) - Electric City
• Design Level 10 (50%) - Electric City 2
• Design Level 11 (50%) - Electric City 3 Boss

PTD2 v1.45 Released!

• Mystery Gift (100%)
• Graphics (100%)
• Stats (100%)
• Attacks (100%)
• Block (100%)
• Stealth Rock (100%)
• Abilities (100%)
• Soundproof (100%)
• Evolution Info (100%)
• Add to Breeding Center (100%)
• Add to Trading Center (100%)
• Bug Fix - Can no longer use items that have zero quantity (100%)
• Traveling to the past (100%) - Travel 10 years into the past to save the world! 
• Past Route 30 (100%)
• New NPC Graphics (100%)
• House 1 (100%)
• House 2 (100%)
• Trainer Battles (100%)
• Past Route 31 (100%)
• Trainer Battle (100%)
• Past Dark Cave (100%) - No Changes
• Past Violet City (100%)
• People Outside (100%)
• Houses (100%)
• Map Graphics (100%)
• People Inside Houses (100%)
• Sprout Tower (100%)
• Trainer Battles (100%)
• School (100%)
• Map Graphics (100%)
• Trainer Battles (100%)
• Gym (100%)
• Map Graphics (100%)
• Gym Battle (100%)
• PokeMart (100%)
• Add new Items (100%)
• PokeCenter (100%)
• Past Route 32 (100%)
• Trainer Battles (100%)
• Past Ruins of Alph (100%)
• Trainer Battle (100%)

PTD2 v1.44 Released!

• Mystery Gift (100%) - Shiny Sandile!
• Traveling to the past (100%) - Travel 10 years into the past to save the world! 
• New Pokemon (100%) 
• Graphics (100%) 
• Stats (100%) 
• Attacks (100%) 
• Embargo (100%)
• Horn Drill (100%)
• Evolutions (100%)
• Add to Trading Center (100%) 
• Add to Breeding Center (100%)
• New Story Scenes and Battles (100%)
• Talking to Celebi (100%)
• Past New Bark Town (100%)
• Town (100%)
• Lab (100%)
• Gold's House (100%)
• Silver's House (100%) - Still locked!
• Crystal's House (100%)
• Special Spot (100%)
• Past Route 29 (100%)
• Trainer Battle (100%)
• Past Route 46 (100%)
• Trainer Battle (100%)
• Past Cherrygrove City (100%)
• Trainer Battle (100%)
• Houses (100%)
• Map Graphic (100%)
• Flower Trade (100%)
• Pokemon Center (100%)
• Map Graphic (100%)
• Allow you to change time (100%)
• Nurse Joy Graphic (100%)
• PokeMart (100%)
• Map Graphic (100%)
• Add new items (100%)
• Allow you to buy items (100%)
• Item Security (100%)
• Save Money on the Server (100%)
• New NPC Characters Graphics (100%)
• Fixed a bug that would not reset a map's music if you exited Story Mode (100%)
• The story maps will now show the name of the location that you are in (100%)
• Trainer Adoptions will now show if the pokemon is hacked in the Adoption Page (100%)
• Added a Trainer Adoptions link to the Adoption page (100%) - You can easily find the pokemon trainers are putting up for adoption on that page.

Thanks for sticking with us! That's all I have for you this week. As always let me know what you think!

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!

Countdown to PTD 2 Story Mode -
The next release of PTD 2 will have the very first quest, below you will find out the progress that I need to accomplish to reach this release. More things will be added and updated as I work on the game. Keep coming back to see my progress.


New Story Level! Pokemon Center update! v1.12 (08/24/12): Released now!

• Added a new title screen made by our artist Kevin!
• Level 1 quest - Dream Training 
• Intro
• Level Layout
• Level Waves
• Ending
• Add story profile screen
•  Walking around feature
• Collision map- Setting the hitboxes on level objects.
• Level Boundaries - Levels won't scroll past their edge.
• Character Boundaries - Your character will stay in the middle of the screen until it hits the edge of a level then it will be able to keep walking to the edge.
• Added Depth Sorting to Level Objects - Depth will now be sorted for all objects in the map.
• Create New Bark Town Map
• Create Forest Spot Map
• Create Lab Map
• Create Your House Map
• Your Room
• Family Room
• Create Other House Maps
• Connect different map together - Allows for entering into a different area. 
• Story Mode Graphics will now be from the GBA games instead of the DS games - The DS graphics are not easily available like the GBA graphics. 

Pokemon Center

• Added a much requested feature to the Pokemon Center! You can now search for trades that must have a request, or not have a request or both! 

New Level, Bug Fixes, New Additions v1.11 (08/17/12)

• Added the pokemon's current attacks to the "Buy Pokemon" screen
• Fixed a bug in level 3 pokemon getting whiter if you keep bringing them in and out
• Added missing attacks to Pikachu (Tail Whip) and Spearow(Leer)
• Removed Butterfree and Beedrill unlockables until you can earn enough experience to reach level 10
• Added a small global cooldown (0.6 sec) when a pokemon is placed on the field, this will prevent pokemon from attacking instantly upon their arrival, it also gives the opponent a possible free hit when you are swapping pokemon
• Fixed a stacking graphical bug on the party screen

HTD Status Update - 
Essentially Hero Tower Defense has been put on indefinite hold. We still love the idea and would love to start it up again but a number of things didn't work out for this project. We went for a high quality of hand drawn graphics that we thought we could achieve in a short time but the reality is that these graphics will take years in man hours to create and we don't have the resources to complete them. This is why we switched to 3D graphics but with our limited resources this was still an issue. If HTD comes back it will have a very simplistic style similar to the mobile game BattleHeart. Another big issue is that I'm the only programmer and my time is split between PTD and HTD. With PTD 1 being over my deal with Dan was to move to HTD more full time and only do PTD2 part time. But because of the graphic issues and the slow speed of development I didn't really have a choice but to move to PTD 2 at full force. (Also you guys wanted PTD2 more!) It is really hard to code two different engines at the same time. Even if they are the same genre (tower defense). Like I said I do hope this game will come back at some point in some shape or another.

ANPO has evolved! -
ANPO or Creatures Universe has evolved! I left a secret label in the blog post but nobody seemed to notice, and if they did they didn't mention it. "nadpto" if you change it around becomes "anpotd"! If you read the HTD update you will note that I said building two engines is hard work. Work that I don't have the time or resources to do right now. So I had this grand idea to expand PTD2 and have an overworld and seeing pokemon in the wild. Those are ideas from ANPO. So why not use the same engine that PTD 2 will use and have our designers come up with new creatures, new stories, new attacks, new abilities, and new graphics for all of these to make a new game? This is the idea of ANPO TD (Creatures Universe TD). What this means is I get to focus fully on PTD2's engine and I get 2 different games out of it. For you it means you get to have PTD2 faster than if we worked on a different full game at the same time and you get a whole new game a long with it! The games will have many differences so don't think this is just a quick re-skin. We plan to have a Kickstarter for it to help us out with paying the designers and being able to keep you entertained. What do you think?

Thanks guys for the continued support, we have great things coming your way that I hope you will be excited for, I know you are all looking forward to the story mode (look at that poll!) so I'm doing my best to get it to you while still providing you with updates.

As always let me know what you think!

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 everyone! I hope you had/are having a good labor day weekend (in the states). I will keep this one pretty short and sweet.

Weekly Progress:
This week we will have a 1v1 level (Released now on v1.15), we finally reached the first gym! Fighting against the Pewter City Gym Leader Brock. Something special about gym fights is that you will get an increase reward for beating them. For one, once achievements are out you will get an achievement for beating the gym and it will include a reward for your story mode profile. Also you will get more coins than usual, I haven't decided the exact amount. I was thinking either having a high flat amount, or a flat amount plus refunding whatever you spent, or a flat amount plus another amount or whatever you spent, whichever is lowest. I'm still working out the exact details but just know that beating the gym will boost up your coin amount since it is a pretty good place to reach. Also it will unlock either all the starters or just one I also haven't decided and I might put a pool up to see which starter should be out.

On the story side of things I'm working towards level two which will have you getting your first starter pokemon. (Released now on v1.16) Last week I did a lot of the infrastructure for saving and creating maps and such. The more of that that I do the easier it will be to make new levels. I have redone a lot of the saving code to make it faster more efficient plus in PTD 2 story mode you have a map so I also have to keep track of where you are and things like what quest have you completed and what not. Before I would just keep track of level attempted and level completed. With this game things are more complicated so there is a lot more time spent building these extra things. I believe it will be worth it in the end since both PTD2 and Creature Universe will gain much from this.

So that is what I'm trying to accomplish this week, below is the actual list that I will keep updating by completing and adding new things.

Alpha v1.16 Progress List: Released Now!

• Add interactions with objects in the map (100%) - Interaction with signs, tv, etc. 
• NPC Characters for first level (100%)- Prof and other people that live in New Bark Town
• Level 2 quest
• Chikorita Quest (100%)
• Cyndaquil Quest (100%)
• Totodile Quest (100%) 
• Battle Intro (100%)
• Battle Layout (100%)
• Battle Waves (100%)
• Battle  Ending (100%)
• Add the Town Music (100%)
• Add Saving your pokemon's info (100%)

Alpha v1.15 New 1v1 Level: Released now!

• Pewter City Gym Leader Battle 1v1 Mode
• New Attacks Needed
• Rock Tomb
• Custom Onix Attack - Boulder Throw 
• Leech Seed
• Vine Whip
• Stun Spore
• Pursuit
• Mud-slap
•  New Abilities needed
• Chlorophyll
• Level Intro
• Level Layout
• Level Waves
• Level Ending
• New Item Unlocked
• Implement Item
• Add limits to how many you can buy of this item
• New Pokemon Unlocked
• Add Stats
• Add Moves
• Add Graphics
• Allow for multiple pages in the pokemon/item store pages
• Add the TM/HM screen to allow learning TMs and HMs  - These will no longer cost money.

Guys I just want to thank you again for all the support, if it weren't for you guys going to the trading center, telling your friends about the game and visiting the blog we couldn't be doing any of this. I would be working a job that I would have no interest in and I wouldn't be able to make these games for you guys. Thanks again and as always.. let me know what you think!

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!

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!