MEAT TANK
ARCANA
THE DESIGNS OF
Egg Defender is a Tower Defense game where the player must use critical thinking skills to best defend their nest from an invading force of slime enemies. The player uses eggs to make it more difficult for the slime to reach the base by both hatching them into array of devastating monsters, and by crafting a labyrinth for the slime to have to traverse.
Egg Defender was originally done in Flash (Action Script 3) but was later rewritten in Unity C# as Unity could provide optimization that flash simply could not. We rewrote the entire game in 15 weeks and the game won second place at the Academy of Arts Spring Show in 2014 in the Mobile Game category
GAME PLAY VIDEO
This started as a 4 person collaborative project between illustration and game design students.
The video above contains some gameplay slices from the new version of the game.
DUTIES
I was the Lead Game Designer on this project. I was responsible for the original concept, as well as the Level Design, Boss Design, some of the programming, mostly revolving around the enemys, towers, enemy spawning, (ActionScript 3, C#). As well as the games balancing.
LEVEL DESIGN
The images above depict the first 10 campaign levels, the first 5 levels were designed to slowly introduce the player to the aspects of the game, ramping up to level 5 where they will have everything at their disposal, and level 6 where they will be asked to do things with out direction.
Level 1: The player is introduced to hatching eggs into monsters, Hatching eggs is the most fundamental part of the game. Although they can not place any yet.
Level 2 : The player is introduced to placing eggs and rudamentary mazing. The green eggs on the maps show points where "Place Egg Here" Icons will be to help guide the player, the number on the egg shows the turn that the icon will appear. Mazing is a vital aspect in defending the players base, the longer it takes for the slime to get there, the more damage the monsters can do.
Level 3 : The player is introduced to drying slime pools and slime meteors. A drying slime pool is a slime pool that eventually runs out of slime, while a slime meteor is a slime pool that comes into play on a later turn. The slime meteor displays a shadow the turn before it appears to give the player warning that it will come down. This level is designed to show the player the importance of refunding, which is another aspect that is introduced. The player will spend their eggs on the first pool, and then it will dry out the turn another pool comes down right next to the players base. to successfully defend the base, the player must refund their previous towers and build up new defenses.
Level 4 : The player is introduced to working around terrain to add to their maze. They are also introduced to handling multiple slime pools, and how to funnel them into one path. If the player is resourcefull and uses some of the skills they learned in the previous level they can refund some of their eggs to make the most optimal path.
Level 5 : The player is introduced to their first boss, as well as the first touch of the highly powerful elemental towers.
Levels 6 - 10 : The player uses the skills they learned in the first 5 levels to overcome the obstacles set before them in the next 5.
BOSS DESIGN
When I designed the bosses I first thought what skill each one would have before setting up preliminary design sketches on their apperance. For instance the Wheel boss was also looked upon as being a creature that grew more legs the faster it got.
There are different boss types that force the player to adapt and change their mazes, for instance the wheel boss punishes players with long straight mazes while the carrier boss punishes mazes with weak rear end defenses.
The bosses can also have up to 3 abilities, which is a flavorful way of making them more interesting and difficult. The boss gains a title based on which ablilties they have.