New update is out now, quick post and I will be leaving for the day.

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.

It includes:

• New Challenge Mode Level (greatly inspired by forum member Zackirus, with music by Hank Winer)
• Pokedex and Achievements
• Bug Fixes

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 2.8)
• Gamerfish (Updated to 2.8)
• OneMoreLevel (Not yet updated)
• FreeWorldGroup (Not yet updated)
• NewGrounds (Not yet updated)
• MiniJuegos (Updated to 2.8)  

I think everybody out there has their own idea of what a perfect (but doable) weekly update would be. So why don't you let me know, but don't email me (I have plenty of emails!), post it on the forums http://s4.zetaboards.com/poketd so that everybody can see and comment on your individual suggestions (The comment space bellow is too hard to sort). If you guys come up with a good (doable) weekly update I will try to make it happen.
Just a couple of rules:

1. You can suggest a story level but don't suggest a storyline since I already have that set.
2. You can suggest a challenge mode and design one if you want.

Let me know about level cap, new moves, tms, new achievements, and even tell me which shiny hunt pokemon I should give out.

Let's make it happen, let me know what you think of this update and let me know what your perfect, but doable, weekly update would be.

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Purchase some SnD coins and get Ninja-ja bonus items free! 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! 

• 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
• FreeWorldGroup
• Gamerfish
• OneMoreLevel
• NewGrounds
• MiniJuegos

Top 10 Forum Questions of the Week:

I talked last week about our community forums merging and adding some new features. One of the features is that every week the forum moderators will gather 10 questions that they want to ask me or Dan and we answer them each week. So here are the questions and answers.

1) xplay10: In the most recent level, "Celadon City", Celebi has mentioned that Mewtwo's triumph will end and won't be coming back for the sequels to come, along with Joey. Do you plan on having Pokemon like Mewtwo in terms of strength become the main villains for the upcoming sequels? If so, will they be shown in PTD following the main storyline?


I haven't decided if I will make a sequel yet, but if I did I would definitely have a strong main villain in the game that compares to Mewtwo. If I do make a sequel it would be a different game so PTD will stop once it reaches it's last level. You won't see the next villain on PTD.

2) Muncho11/Budgetspaner: What is the chance of actually finding a legendary beast (Suicune, Raikou, Entei) in the wild? And will we be able to catch multiple legendaries (Zapdos, Moltres, Articuno, Mewtwo), or will it be only one per profile?



I get asked this question about once per day lol. I'm not revealing the exact encounter rate of the Legendary Beast since it can lead to hacking. I'm still deciding on the second part of this question. But I would think that you can't get more than one of each of those per profile. (Unless you trade)

3) blastoise 889: What is your favorite Pokemon?

I have a soft spot for Bulbasaur, since he was my first pokemon. I also like Poliwag, which happens to be the first created pokemon.

4) Trainer Red: Where do you get your inspiration for PTD and what was your first acquaintance with Pokemon?

I've always liked Pokemon since I first saw it on a comic on the Nintendo Power Magazine. I bought the game before it became insanely popular in the States and I've really liked it since but I haven't liked how they have continued to make the same game over and over. I got inspired to make PTD when I noticed a bunch of other Pokemon Apps on the Android Marketplace. I figured I would make a Pokedex or a virtual pet simulator. As I was making the simulator I noticed that I might as well do something more enjoyable. So I saw that the highest grossing android game at the time was a tower defense. Immediately I thought about capturing your enemy and using them as towers.

5) almostpro: Do you plan on changing Pokemon adoption prices? (10 for a starter seems high because all other non-legendary are 5 at most. People would rather buy new game corner Pokemon than starters. I believe there should be a clearer distinction between Pokemon in terms of trade value and I believe dogs and Mews should be different in price as well.)

There is a possibility that the prices might change in the future, but it's not in my plans at this time.

6) gogogogo99: Will you ever let new PTD players get the past mystery gift avatars?

I'll find ways to re introduce the past avatars, without boring the people that already have them.

7) ZKS: Have you ever considered buying your own server? (As an accountant, I see how much my company spends on them. They don't have a massive start up cost, especially since our data is relatively small and upkeep is negligible)

I do have a host that I pay monthly for the server that hold the Pokemon Center, I think the game corner really slowed everything down, but now with the change on it I hope it will help the issue.

8) KimmyLube: Real world question - outside of PTD, what exactly is your real world job?

Outside of PTD, I'm a programmer, I work remotely from home. Hopefully soon I will be able to leave the job and focus completely on Sam and Dan Games.

9) Link: How do you think the cooperation with S&D Central will continue? Do you have any ideas for future cooperation plans?
I think think the cooperation between us and the Forums can only get better from now. I don't have anything specific but I'm sure we can work on some contest :)

10) PokeFan Gen. 1: Since the safari zone will be coming within the next month or so I was wondering will the level layout be similar to Rock Tunnel? With multiple rooms (zones) where you catch certain Pokemon? I feel like safari zone is such a key section it may take two weeks to actually put it together

Yeah the Safari Zone is a big deal, a lot of new pokemon will show up there. Right now I'm thinking of an idea for it that not everybody will get every pokemon but that each profile will get it's own pokemon out of a list. This is to encourage more trading. I also like the idea that your profile is unique from another. The layout itself might be similar to Rock Tunnel or it might be something new.

Well that was fun! Head to the forums if you want to submit your question and have them posted next week.

About Scams: 

I want to talk about something that I have been receiving some emails about. I've been receive a lot of emails about people being Scammed. I know that Scams are a terrible thing, but it's one of the things that I really can't stop since most scams aren't doing anything illegal. So here are some tips to protect yourself.

• If the person wants more than 6 pokemon, avoid the trade unless you personally know this person is trustworthy.
• Do all trades through the Trading Center's system. Use the request feature that way you know that what you are getting is what it's supposed to be.
• If the pokemon's picture doesn't show up on the Trading Center then that pokemon is not what it seems to be, do not trade for this pokemon.

I hope that those simple tips can help somebody out there from being Scammed. I can't really help you with scams cause there is really no proof of it happening. For all I know you are trying to scam me!

Weekly Progress List: 

So let's talk about this next week coming up.

New Story Level  (100%)- Team Rocket's Secret Base
We managed to beat Erika and get our fourth badge! Now it's time to head to Team Rocket's Secret base and grab the supply of Silph Scopes, but there is somebody in the way!

• Level Intro (100%)
• Level Layout (100%)
• Level Waves (100%)
• Level Ending (100%)
• Level Music (100%) New battle song from The Kira Justice - http://youtube.com/thekirajustice2

Level Cap up to 52 (100%) - Getting closer and closer to Dragonite!

• Extrasensory (100%) - Vulpix
• Heat Wave (100%) - Growlithe
• After You (100%) - Clefairy
• Superpower (100%) - Pinsir

New Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - It doesn't bug me to add this new pokemon into the game.

• Graphic (100%)
• Shiny Graphic (100%)
• Add Stats to Game (100%)
• New Evolution (100%)
• Graphic (100%)
• Shiny Graphic (100%)
• Add Stats to Game (100%)

Avatar Chat (0%) - Use your avatar to enter a virtual room and chat with other trainers. This is the first step towards Multiplayer.

Potion Upgrade (100%) - Receive the upgrade when you beat the new story level!
Adding Steamroller to Golem (100%) 
Adding leveling up will restore your pokemon's health (100%) 
Added Arrow key/WASD controls to move the level maps (100%) 

TMs

• Hyper Beam (100%)
  

Bug Fixes

• Added Swagger to Hypno and Drowzee at level 45 (100%)- Thanks Tyd from the blog comment!
• Geodude now properly learns Stone Edge at level 50 (100%)  
• Make Tri attack faster so it shows all the components and lower the amount of particles in the attack so it will hit faster (100%)
• Using the attack Double Hit, freeze the game (100%)

Distribution (0%)

That's all I have for now 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!

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!

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! This week we are staring our Fundraiser, we need your help

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!


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

Last Week's Update/Server Issues
We had a crazy week last week, both in a good and bad way. Let's start with the bad. So instead of telling you the story how it unfolded I will just tell you what the problem was and how it caused all the issues that we had. Okay. So Databases need indexes. Imagine you have a giant book and it has no index. How would you find that page you are looking for without having to go through the whole book? You can't! So I had a tiny database (the one that keeps track of what events you had done in the story) that was missing an index. Initially the database was so small that it didn't matter. But as the game grew in size and in users this database grew. It has over 2 million entries and so every day as the database grew so did the slowdown. It got so slow that our host suspended our account. I told them to put it back up so I could disable all logins while I fixed the problem. I was really conflicted about all this. I'm no expert on databases or server administration so I had very little idea on where to start. Luckily I had bought this book called High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, and Replication. While I didn't have the time to read the whole book or follow everything it had to say, it did give me some ideas on trying to find the problem and how to fix it. After doing some test to see how long each thing took to load I found that loading events was taking way too long even when I was the only user playing the game, which brought the discovery of the missing index on that database. Other than that I made some upgrades to the database engines (I changed from mysam to innodb, for those with database knowledge) that should let more people in at a time. There might be some side effects to these changes that I will have to fix but I'm pretty happy that we are somewhat back to working order.

The good stuff is the new content that I was able to bring to the game. I finally put in running shoes into the game which let you move at twice the speed. (Your pokemon will also move fast, I did have a version where your pokemon wasn't as fast and he would be left behind) You can get the shoes by talking to an old man in Cherrygrove City after you defeat Zapdos there. Another big and daunting task that I had was to add fishing. I actually go the chance to stream while I was making the fishing part and frankly I had no idea how I was going to add fishing. Luckily I'm pretty quick at thinking about how to solve problems and so I thought of a way to add it in and it worked out pretty well. You can now get an old rod or good rod by defeating the fisher man on the second part of Route 32 (Read the FAQ page for more detailed info). Once you have a rod you can go to any water source available in the game and fish on it (press spacebar or z) this will trigger a battle. Things like which rod you are using, which location you are in, time of day will affect who you get to battle with. I basically set it up to mimic the actual game. I'm really happy with how it turned out so I hope you guys can enjoy it.

On top of all of this I added all the generation 1 pokemon that you can capture in PTD2 to the PTD1 to PTD2 transfers. This includes: Jigglypuff, Wigglypuff, Zubat, Golbat, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Victreebell, Geodude, Graveler, Golem, Gastly, Haunter, Gengar, Poliwag, Poliwrath, Krabby, Kingler, Staryu and Starmie. As I do every week there was also a Mystery Gift and a Giveaway pokemon. The Mystery Gift was electric ghost type Rotom and the giveaway was Plusle and Minun. If you got the code in time you would get 2 of each Plusle and Minun. One male and one female.

Last but not least Cosmoids had a nice update. I added more losing conditions, if you let enough bug creatures pass you will lose the level. You can tell how many lives you have left by the heart graphic on the top left. Evan, one of our freelance artist, also did a revision on the grass graphic for the first level. While I thought the original ones looked fine, Dan thought they needed more work. And so Evan did the job and they look great! The other thing I added was a fainting animation to the units. Instead of disappearing you will now see them flip on their backs and then flash before they disappear. These types of details go a long way in making a game. Each of them bringing us closer to a full game.

What's happening this week:

Pokemon Center Bugs
I need detailed information about the Pokemon Center Bugs with Breeding, Trading and Picking up pokemon. The more step by step information you can give me the better.

Mystery Gift
Like every week we will have a mystery gift and a giveaway for the runner up of the poll. You have one day to vote for which of the remaining types should be the new mystery gift. Then I will post specific pokemon that can be the mystery gift and giveaway.

PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers
My goal this week is to add a lot of Generation 1 Pokemon into PTD2. So this week I plan to add: Vulpix, Ninetails, Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume, Paras, Parasect, Venonat, Venomoth, Diglett, Dugtrio, Meowth, Persian, Psyduck, Golduck, Mankey, Primeape, Growlithe, Arcanine, Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam, Machop, Machoke, and Machamp. Adding these will make it so that you can get more than half of the Generation 1 Pokemon into PTD2!

Sun Stone
Since we are adding the Oddish family and Bellossom is part of Generation 2 then I'm also adding the Sun Stone so that Gloom can evolve into Bellossom!

Cosmoids Level Select Screen and Level 2
For Cosmoids this week I want to start work on Level 2. I really want each level to feel different than the others so each level will take some time to create. On level 2 is when you finally get your first creature, but please note that you won't be able to save just yet. Since we will have multiple levels we also need a level select screen. Very similar to PTD1 there will be different chapters. I'm looking forward to making this!

Weekly Progress

My Status: Not Working. Not Streaming. http://www.justin.tv/samsndgames

Cosmoids Released!

• Level Selection Screen (100%)
• Added new Title Screen Graphic (100%)
• Added new Character Graphic (100%)
• Level 2 (100%)
• Added the level 1 intro cutscene (100%)

PTD2 v1.42.1 Released!

• Mystery Gift (100%)
• Make Bellossom's graphic bigger (100%)

PTD2 v1.42 Released!

• PTD1 to PTD2 Transfer (100%)
• Add New Pokemon to Trading Center (100%)
• Add New Pokemon to Breeding Center (100%)
• New Item (100%) - Sun Stone
• Implement in game (100%)
• Implement in Pokemon Center (100%)
• Test New Pokemon, attacks, and abilities (100%)
• New Pokemon (100%) - Vulpix, Ninetails, Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume, Bellossom, Paras, Parasect, Venonat, Venomoth, Diglett, Dugtrio, Meowth, Persian, Psyduck, Golduck, Mankey, Primeape, Growlithe, Arcanine, Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam, Machop, Machoke, and Machamp
• Graphics (100%)
• New Attacks (100%)
• Sunny Day (100%)
• Moonlight (100%)
• Aromatherapy (100%)
• Spore (100%)
• Signal Beam (100%)
• Earth Power (100%)
• Tri Attack (100%)
• Fake Out (100%)
• Pay Day (100%)
• Switcheroo (100%)
• Power Gem (100%)
• Soak (100%)
• Covet (100%)
• Karate Chop (100%)
• Seismic Toss (100%)
• Kinesis (100%)
• Miracle Eye (100%)
• Ally Switch (100%)
• Telekinesis (100%)
• Vital Throw (100%)
• Low Sweep (100%)
• New Abilities (100%)
• Drought (100%)
• Stench (100%)
• Effect Spore (100%)
• Wonder Skin (100%)
• Anger Point (100%)
• Defiant (100%)
• Marvel Scale (100%)
• Water Veil (100%)
• Stats (100%)
• Evolutions (100%)
• Bug Fixes (100%) 
• Fixed a bug with stat change buffs and debuffs (100%)

Thanks guys for sticking with us! As always let me know what you think on the comments below, on twitter or email us at support@sndgames.com Thanks!

Want to get the legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Purchase some SnD coins and get Ninja-ja bonus items free! 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! 

• 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
• FreeWorldGroup
• Gamerfish
• OneMoreLevel
• NewGrounds
• MiniJuegos

Hey guys! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I'm happy to say that almost everything has been added for this update. The layout will be coming this week along with the new features. Let's talk a little bit about Shadow Pokemon.

Shadow pokemon are meant to be like an anti-shiny. You can't catch them in the wild, you can't buy them with SnD coins and they get less experience per kill. You can get them by completing certain achievements, buying a random one in the game corner or winning one in the daily gift prize. This prevents them from being hackable and it also encourages trading any repeated shadow pokemon with other players. Many have been wondering which pokemon you can get in shadow form. Well pretty much any pokemon that you can get in the game will have a shadow version. This include shadow mew, raikou, entei, suicune, and victini! Also every shadow pokemon has the same chance of showing up. Many of you have asked for me to add new moves and different mechanics from the pokemon video games that came out with shadow pokemon but that was never my intent. These shadow pokemon are just special, they don't need to be cleansed... on this game... Also these pokemon retain their type and they have STAB with their original type. Their only shadow move "Shadow Rush" has the advantage of hitting every type as normal effectiveness.

Other than that this week is going to be about getting Hero Tower Defense out! Because of this my weekly progress will be about different things in HTD. So expect HTD to come out before the 25th and then the week after that I will be taking a break to just spend time with loved ones in bringing in the New Year.

I'll be fleshing out this list as the week goes on.

New Pokemon Center Layout and Features (70%)
Trading my pokemon from my account samO (100%)
Adding a new pokemon for trade (100%) - Shadow Victini!
Finish the first HTD version (100%)

I hope you guys are enjoying your holiday break and as always let me know what you think and thanks for sticking by us!