Tentacle Defense

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Hmm.. That's an idea too, and even simpler one that may even be better for just starting out.
But what I was getting at were, say you have 5 animations... First one is just women going about their business as normal. First tentacle monster makes it through your defense, and suddenly you have a different animation of a monster lurking in the shadows. 10 monsters get through, and you have a different animation of tentacles creeping out of the shadows and curling/uncurling around the women's ankles while they look on in distress. 10 more, you get to see a one-time animation of the tentacles ripping off clothes, then curling / moving around their bodies. 10 more, and they start getting held and raped. 10 more, and each of them are getting triple tentacle fucked like no tomorrow.

Another slightly more complicated idea is to have an actual town with NPC villagers moving about randomly. Say you have fourty villagers. Whenever a tentacle monster makes it through your defense, it charges for the nearest NPC and strips her and starts raping her, continuing the rape animation throughout the duration of the game. If all fourty of your women get tentacle monsters raping them, it's game over, and you are treated to a special full screen animation of delicious tentacle orgy rapage.

Remember, this is only a stepping stone to what we REALLY want to make. Baby steps, so to speak. We can use many of the graphics in the new version as well. And, what better way to test ourselves and make all our mistakes than making a game that is fundamentally flawed (i.e., you have to do bad to get sex, which is always kind of stupid -_-)

 

[Wonderboy]

Re: Tentacle Defense

We should simplify even more for the first demo, less animation, just the basic coding, a life counter, a currency system. 5 basic towers. not a lot of drawing, not a lot of sex, not a lot of advanced coding. Games like this should be built in layers, e.g. you make the simple version, add a feature or two, and then expand like hell

 

[ScrewDriver]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Well, while I agree with Alias that building a "proof of concept" is a good way to test our metal, I have to agree with Wallpaper that it may split the focus. The concept of "role switching" has been mentioned before in this topic, and I do strongly encourage the idea of making this game a "dual-package". That said, if you guys really want to do that, I will give you full reign for that.

Next of the list, mah responses to the other posts:

@Sheep: So, your Body Count system is really more like the Sexual Energy system, but with more narrative details? That's what it sounds like to me.

@DeMatt: Wallpaper asked the same thing before my summary. Until put into practice, I'll support camera angle that was suggested.

Regarding the whole "OMG I don't want to miss the sexy animations! >_<", we could pop in a pause button that freezes the game state, but lets the animations continue. Additionally, if possible we can let the player zoom in and out while paused.

@Wallpaper:
[1] Thanks for proof reading. XD

[2] I picked the beach setting since it was synonymous with the concept of a "sand box". Teehee~

[3] I pictured the Cum Shooters just sort of spat out their spunk on the girls, and left the rest to one's imagination.

[4] Having them slurped up into the nest it an awesome idea. Having them just "vanish" would be dull.

[5] I have considered the possibility of a "resource" eventually drying up. I'm not certain if it should be implemented, but that's that beta-testing is for.

[6] Masochists would fit the bill with the sadistic ones. I was just looking for a variation of tower types we could try to play with.

[7] What I meant by "building a Maze" mostly involved building a maze using the towers themselves. Never the less, my preferred map type is the Set Path as it fits some of the other things we wanted to do.

@Alias: I often feel a little... discomfort with executables. True, Action Script sucks balls, and I often flip the bird at Adobe (now that they own it) since they have a ridiculous marketing model; however we can be sure that Flash will work on any machine that has the Flash player, and it can be easily uploaded to sites like New Grounds (where we upload it right next to JG and DG ).

Additionally... overloading functions? That's too far ahead of the game. Don't start using fancy programming methods until we're certain we'll need them. That's the first step towards failure. (Yes, I know what overloaded functions are, I also know what pointers, recursion, classes and structures are as well. I'm on my last semester in my program in college, so I am familiar with all that fun stuff, in a vast number of languages).

=
In case anyone is curious, my diploma is in the Computer Engineering - Computer Science. 90% of the course teaches us how to document our programs, and how to manage these kinds of projects. The other 10% involves hard-core programming, including making a compiler from scratch. I know what I'm talking about... most of the time. =P
=

While I really don't want to dive into the implementation specs for this project just yet, I will tell the devs this: You can make reusable objects in flash. Once you've designed one girl, the rest will end up using the same code, just with different sprite clips. It really isn't as hard as you're all making it sound.

@Wonderboy: Excellent idea. In fact, that was the development model I was going to propose.

Finally... though this is for future reference, every tower should be able to penetrate their victims perfectly. This is what we call quality people! XP
=======================

I'm just going in every which direction to answer everyone's questions. If I missed something, poke me with the talking stick.

 

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Hmm. I'm not sure how it would split focus. We do one, once we are satisfied with that and feel ready to graduate to the next, we do the other. I suppose you might mean that people might prefer to continue development on the first project instead of moving to the second... clarify, please? In either case, seems to me that if we put both versions into one game that it really wouldn't matter.
Feel like I'm missing something. Sorry =(

Regarding possible languages... I share your discomfort with execs. Personally, to me, C is the lesser of two evils where AS is concerned. Maybe we can find a happy medium in Java?

Overloading functions is advanced?

I always thought that was one of the most basic things that you could do when using object oriented programming. Maybe I should have been more specific and said overloading constructors... although it's really the same thing. I find it immensely helpful no matter what I'm doing, especially when just getting started - make a default constructor that sets test information, then add more as needed.

As for the camera, definitely agreed that it should scroll, much like Warcraft TDs. Have we decided that it'll be tile-based?

 

[ScrewDriver]

Re: Tentacle Defense

In the order of your paragraphs:

Pretty much as you said it there - once we have the other project rolling, some people may want to continue working with it. Even if we include it into the game, it's not the "main" entry. We'll just have to ensure that we remember to finish the other game too.

Again, I prefer to do this with flash as it's a bit more... universally accepted on gaming portal sites. I have yet to see a Java application appear on sites like New Grounds.

Overloading functions is language specific, if I remember correctly. The only two languages I seem to recall allowing that sort of thing is C# and Java. I may be wrong, but I'm certain that's it. I sort of figured you were going the route of Java when you mentioned it, which is why I'm giving you the back-hand right now. I love Java too, but in this situation, I just can't see it being the preferred choice:

Here's why:
- Java requires that you have the JVM installed on your machine.
- The JVM can be slow on start-up. (sure, not a big deal, whatever)
- Not all end-users have the ability to install the JVM on their machine (for whatever reason; but this comes up enough to be an issue).
- Finally, as I said before, if we wish to publish this to get it out there, I have yet to see a flash portal site that plays Java applications.

*dons his fur thong and cracks his whip* Yar!

Additionally, when you think about it, flash removes all of that other crap we have to do to set up the environment, thus reducing a significant number of potential bugs. Further more, I'm certain that Flash is vector friendly, what with it being maintained by the same company that makes Photoshop.
==

Finally, tile-based is a must. I can't see this working any other way.

I apologize if I came off as harsh... sometimes I can be very strong with my opinions. <<;

 

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Not at all. I was confused and asked for reasons; you gave some very good ones. I didn't feel like you were being rude at all. You brought up some very good arguments for using Flash as opposed to one of the other, heftier languages. See, I almost never play my games through portal sites, so I didn't think of that aspect. Of course if you want it to be publicly available to any average Joe, flash is the way to go.

Much as we might hate it.

As for making the other version first... mostly my inspiration for that was based off of the same fear. I know only too well what it is like to have worked on something for days and see little to no progress, lose interest, and stop working on it. We're both trying to keep people involved, and as of now, I have no opinion as to which would be the correct approach. I just wanted to put it out there.

 

[wallpaper]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Hmm.. That's an idea too, and even simpler one that may even be better for just starting out.
But what I was getting at were, say you have 5 animations... First one is just women going about their business as normal. First tentacle monster makes it through your defense, and suddenly you have a different animation of a monster lurking in the shadows. 10 monsters get through, and you have a different animation of tentacles creeping out of the shadows and curling/uncurling around the women's ankles while they look on in distress. 10 more, you get to see a one-time animation of the tentacles ripping off clothes, then curling / moving around their bodies. 10 more, and they start getting held and raped. 10 more, and each of them are getting triple tentacle fucked like no tomorrow.

X3 Forgive me if I'm being naive, but from the artist P.O.V This sounds like LOTS more work than drawing a a base woman image, changing it slightly so that the costume looks different, doing several angles of said babe (with modifications) and then doing several poses that can be picked at for the purposes of animating. XD With the latter, we can start drawing one character and one animation pose and you guys could technically make code for the one enemy and the one tower, which while it's not "OMG WE HAVE A GAME!" at least it's something!

I'm working on another project at the moment, but I'll get around to trying out a vector image of a nude lady for you guys sometime around the beginning of next week if someone else doesn't squeeze in with their own model first. X3

 

[darent]

Re: Tentacle Defense

LOL
I saw a massive amount of threads... I'll read them later... now... Im very tired... maybe tomorrow I'll finaly finish the so called "demo"... but Im afraid that it may be only the interface... Im so busy with the school (dam!)

 

[Newbie]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Priorities my friend. RL School trumps internet friends about 80% of the time.

 

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

X3 Forgive me if I'm being naive, but from the artist P.O.V This sounds like LOTS more work than drawing a a base woman image, changing it slightly so that the costume looks different, doing several angles of said babe (with modifications) and then doing several poses that can be picked at for the purposes of animating.

What? Isn't that what I said? I was just explaining that was my original idea since it seemed like you got something else from it. I did add, though, at the beginning of my post, that your idea seemed a lot simpler and perhaps would be a better option to start with.

 

[Kusanagi]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Sexual Energy[SE]: You have captured a female. As she is violated, your reserves are filled with the energy generated by her orgasms. The more women you capture, the faster your energy reserves will build up.
**Screw Driver's preferred approach**

Body Count[BC]: Each woman you capture can be turned into a tower? (do I understand you Sheep?)

Point System[PS]: standard TD approach - each enemy you frag will reward you with a set amount of points. Points can be spent on towers and upgrades

I'd like to see either the SE or the PS approach; the SE sounds interesting, and the PS approach appeals to the Warcraft Custom Map TD gamer inside of me.

[2] Map style: Open Space | Set Path

Open Space [OS]: the map is an open area within an enclosed space. Towers can be built anywhere, even used to create a maze to slow down or trap the incoming enemy. The enemy will usually approach from one side of the map and may disperse across the map trying to get to the other side as quickly as they can.

Typical set-up looks like this:

,________________
|________________|
|________________|

|________________|
|________________|
|________________|

enemies typically come in from the left and try to get to the right side. This is the typical TD approach, but does not work very well in the situation where a rescue mission is involved.

Set Path [SP]: There is a well defined road to your base that your opponents must travel across. This path can change per map, and will make their movements a bit more predictable. This is another common TD approach, however the enemy units normally do not attack the towers - they just try to rush the base. This is a great set-up for rescue missions.

I like the OS way of doing it, simply because it forces you to think about what the best way to stall the girls is; in the SP approach, all you're doing is building on the side of the path, and you're only able to give towers a set amount of exposure, therefore limiting the full effectiveness of certain towers; not to mention it's funny to juggle creeps, and you can't do that with a SP approach XD

[3] Where shall we start for the demo?

Kusanagi appears to have a rather robust list of locations, and they appear to work within the numbers I mentioned before. I would highly recommend starting with the Beach levels. Anything after that can be done in the full version.

Personally, for the demo, I'd say start with the beach levels as well. It's the easiest area in terms of armor. Though the School levels would work as well, though you'd either have to give the player a decent mana/point boost at the beginning - as if they made it through the beach without leaking - or make the girls weaker than they will be in the real game.

[5] Tower Types: There have been many suggestions as to what we should have in this game. We need to pick five to satisfy the needs for the demo, and then we'll need to decide on their upgrade schema. Should there be a cap on the number of upgrades you can put on the towers?

My recommendations are as follows:

The Cum Shooter - there are a few variants mentioned in this topic. This is the basic "cheap" tower that shoots its cum at passerbies. Upgrades will make it fire faster.

The Groper: - Typical tentacle nest. They'll grab at anything that comes within their reach and molest them. Upgrades may improve their range and number of females they can hold on to (starting at one).

The Sadistic Lasher: - An angry set of tentacles that pleasure themselves on inflicting pain. This tower is a bit stronger, and may work best when clumped in groups. Not sure if it should actually kill, or just try to render the victim unconscious. Upgrades will boost their prowess.

The Leering Eye: - a tower with a large, telepathic eye. The eye will shoot a beam at one victim at a time, inflicting them with thoughts of sexual acts. With a constant exposure to this beam, the afflicted target will eventually lose consciousness as their need to burn off their lust will override their body. If the victim manages to escape the beam, the thoughts will linger for a very brief moment. This tower starts off very weak, but upgrading it will improve its draining effect.

Finally
Slime Trap - for the sake of having at least one "tower" that will slow down a large number of units, the slime trap is something that sits on the road. Any target that walks into it will be slowed down as they try to break out of this sticky mess. Upgrades will increase the amount of drag this tower causes, but they are costly, and possibly capped at level 3 (to prevent a total standstill)

How is this for a start?

Towers as far as I imagined:
-Basic Tentacle: it really does nothing, but it's the cheapest of cheap at only 1 mana/point; can be upgraded into the Cum Shooter for 4 mana/points or The Groper for 9 mana/points.

--Cum Shooter: Doesn't do much damage and doesn't reach very far, but it's cheap and it's quick to fire. When it manages to weigh a girl down with enough cum that she falls over in exhaustion, it uses a tentacle to quickly grab the girl and capture her (does not interfere with it attacking; this is simply to show that it has defeated the girl and she has been added to your 'collection')
The Cum Shooter may be upgraded for moderate added damage and range per upgrade; max 2-3 upgrades; maybe an upgrade (could be the final or a separate upgrade) to give it small splash? (@ 1 square out from initial hit)
i.e.;
1-initial hit
0-1 square away
_0_
010
_0_


--The Groper: Decent damage (starting damage is better than lvl 1 Cum Shooter), but the only tower that will be weaker than this tower in the end may be the Basic Tentacle; however, it DOES make up for it's lack of damage by being able to immobilize whatever girl it attacks. Once it has fully overwhelmed a girl, it will drag her into it and send her to your 'collection', and almost immediately find a new target - if one's in range.
The Groper may be upgraded for minor-moderate added damage and minor range increase per upgrade, max 2-3 (fully upgraded, should be weaker - but not by much - than the Cum Shooter); it also has another upgrade, giving it +1 tentacle with which to grab a girl per upgrade, max 3-5.

-The Pit: Better starting damage than a lvl 2 cum Shooter, but at the price of being melee range; still, it's a nice tower to have, as it can attack any and all girls within range.
The Pit can be upgraded for moderate damage and minor speed increase per upgrade, max 2; fully upgraded should be more damage than a fully upgraded Cum Shooter.

-The Exploder: At first, this tower looks like it's not as great as even the Cum Shooter, as it's slower than any previous tower and does less damage as well; by the end, however, it will do damage somewhere in between the Cum Shooter and The Pit. This is the first AoE tower you get, and it even comes with the ability to slow all the girls it hits.
The Exploder can be upgraded for moderate damage and range, minor-moderate speed and AoE range per upgrade, max of 2-3 upgrades.
AoE (starting(?)):
_000_
00100
_000_

AoE (full(?)):
__000__
_00000_
0000000
0001000
0000000
_00000_
__000__

I also liked that eye-tower idea.

 

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Guess it's time to put my two cents in instead of bickering about what language I want to work in.

SE/BC/PS:

I actually like Sheep's idea the best. I think it makes the most sense. Every girl you catch gets impregnated, gives birth to X amount of tentacle larvae, which then have the ability to combine into towers. More larvae = better towers. Larvae added to existing towers = tower upgrades.

The SE approach just doesn't make quite as much sense to me. Wouldn't the monsters' energy level drop from the vigorous exercise of so much rape? Tentacle monsters must get tired too...

My thoughts on PS... Eh. Too unoriginal. But probably the easiest. I'd much rather see something incorporating the whole spirit of the game though.

OS/SP:
If we do end up building it in stages like I suggested, building the tentacle monsters as attackers first, I'd say go for SP, as it's easier to code. We could even do something like Battle for Middle Earth and have tower "foundations," so we wouldn't have to worry about coding how the user puts towers where; there would simply be a set number of spaces where towers could be built, and whenever the user wants to build one, they just select a foundation and click one of the options. Eventually, however, I would want to graduate to OS. Mazing, for me, is an integral part of TD, and without it becomes bland and boring.

Where to start for the demo: Don't care. I like the sandbox parallel with the beach.

Tower types:
Eh. I'll come back to this when I have some ideas.

 

[ScrewDriver]

Re: Tentacle Defense

I find the Body Count system is more of a narrative form of the Sexual Energy system. In fact, they're the exact same thing, just with a different "narrative" to them.

Also:

Wouldn't the monsters' energy level drop from the vigorous exercise of so much rape?

Answer: You think too much. Stop thinking so hard *whaps Alias with a fan*

 

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

But... but that's my job =(

In all seriousness, though, that might be exactly the sort of question a player might ask. "Man this doesn't make sense, wtf, do not want." Obviously we can't avoid the majority of those, since everybody will come away with something different, but we can make sure no silly holes like that exist.

Unless you don't care. It's not really that big a deal =D

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Just putting my two cents (Canadian) on the table:

The way I see it, sexual energy is like a narrative point system, but the way it works is still slightly different, with the captured women from previous levels granting points every new level as well. Now the larvae system, that is definitely a narrative point system. Just re-read one of the explanations and replace 'larvae' with 'points', and you'll see what I mean. Defeat a woman, get 'points'. So many 'points' to build a tower, so many 'points' to upgrade one...

I think that if we can make the sexual energy system balanced, it would be a unique twist on the usual formula, so it gets my vote.

 

[Kusanagi]

Re: Tentacle Defense

If a player plays the game, wonders why the tentacles aren't getting exhausted, and refuses to play the game because of it. . . I don't think that's our target audience :/

 

[wallpaper]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Let's just say that it takes tentacles MUCH longer to tire than your average flock of nudist beach-goers. >:3

I like the sexual energy points, too, because... well, in light of that, it's women who are 'trapped' who are enjoying the crap out of themselves that's the base of that system, whereas as soon as you say 'larvae! ' I cringe and imagine restrained women popping them out... XD I'm sorry, I know it's such a fine line between fetishes, but for me I stray more to the 'having a good time' to 'oh god what am I birthing?!'

>.> Since I've never done this animation thing before, Screwdriver, could you toss me a PM or something with either a description or like a rough sketch of the first tower, maybe the first lady, and just let me know if I should be drawing her front-on or at an angle? o.o' I'm guessing front on, but I'm not sure. I'm also guessing that I need to draw her at eight different angles just to be able to walk in different directions (or can I cut that down to four -- front, back, and side -- in that case three? XD), and then with a short 'getting fucked' sequence... does that sound right?

 

[Wonderboy]

Re: Tentacle Defense

Screwdriver, could you toss me a PM or something with either a description or like a rough sketch of the first tower, maybe the first lady?

Here's a picture of the First Lady if that what floats your boat.

 

[Alias]

Re: Tentacle Defense

If a player plays the game, wonders why the tentacles aren't getting exhausted, and refuses to play the game because of it. . . I don't think that's our target audience :/

Sh, you.

You're probably right though =(

So hey... what are we waiting for, anyway? Has coding been started? Or are we still seeing if we like or lynch the sprites wallpaper is making? I think it's wallpaper that's making them.

 

[wallpaper]

Re: Tentacle Defense

If they're sprites, as in pixel things, I'm not making them. XD I just offered to draw pictures, I can't do tiny pixel art!