After I made sure that my game could support rhythm-based game mechanics, I started working on my Rhythm Tower Defense game, which I call Big Beat Tower Defense. The name is a lot of fun and it got me pumped up to start working on things. In this article, I'll explain how the game works. The artwork is nothing to brag about (yet), so there won't be any screenshots.
First of all, I should explain what a Tower Defense game is, for those who don't already know. In a tower defense game, you have a town, castle, or other precious space that you're protecting from hordes of enemies. The enemies follow a fixed path across the play area to reach your town, and if too many of them make it in to your town, you lose. However, you're not defenseless! You can protect your town by erecting towers alongside the path the enemies follow. The towers usually vary in their abilities. Some simply shoot arrows out at nearby enemies, but others can do even trickier stuff like slowing down enemies or freezing them. The fun of the game comes from strategically placing your towers and watching them do their job.
The question is: how do you blend this sort of game dynamic with rhythm mechanics? I accomplished this in two different ways:
That's the basic idea of the game. The enemies are sort of dancing along the path to the music, and you can only accumulate currency to spend on building towers by pressing a button rhythmically with the game's music.
So, with that basic idea in mind, I developed all of that. The game is now functional, but it's really basic. It's important to keep things simple at the beginning until you land on the right idea. Stay tuned for the next article!
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