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Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

mapstd.com

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Re: Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made me curious so I played it out... http://i.imgur.com/Y2M6j.png At some point you just become unkillable. edit It's still going ;_; when will it end?! I wasted 2 hours on this already.

You are especially unkillable if you pick a very defensible location, like "mount evans"

Nice! "Col de Braus, Lucéram, France" is not as defensible, but has lots of switchbacks.

For a different approach, try "Golden Gate Bridge." The invaders follow one-way streets so everything coming from San Francisco has to cross the bridge twice.

Re: Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

#32
post #9

Maybe I'm just a sore loser, but I don't like the common trope in TD games of not telling you what kind of opposition you'll face until you're already committed in terms of what defense you'll put up. It doesn't make the game fundamentally harder, because all you have to do is play through it once to see everything. It just makes the first couple playthroughs suck, which is exactly when you should be sucking people i…

Eh, it doesn't matter a whole lot anyway. A TD game you can beat the very first time isn't interesting, and if hints on what is to come will let you beat it, it's too easy.

It isn't about being able to beat it on the first time, it's about being able to formulate and test a theory on the first shot, and feeling like the loss is the result of a mistake that you've learned from, rather than the first shot being mostly a blind shot where you are just learning what's coming.

Re: Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made me curious so I played it out... http://i.imgur.com/Y2M6j.png At some point you just become unkillable. edit It's still going ;_; when will it end?! I wasted 2 hours on this already.

I've been doing the same thing: http://i.imgur.com/WR7Xl.png

I found it pretty easy by upgrading the faster towers all the way; only needed 12 medium priced towers and a few expensive towers to win.

Re: Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

#35
I wrote a feedback email to the developer with many small suggestions for improving Maps TD. I am copying them here in case others are interested or have the same suggestions.

"""

If fast-forward is enabled when the round ends, skip the animation of the "Next Round!" panel falling and have the panel just appear. When I have a strong turret formation and just want to send a few waves of enemies through it to save up money, I get annoyed from having to wait for the Start (start the next round) button to finish bouncing before I can click it. Though the speed of the disappearance of that panel is fine. Perhaps the disappearance animation but in the other direction would work, too, since it's fast.

When a turret is selected, you make the inner circle white. I suggest you also make the border of the outer circle black, so we can see the range of the selected turret easily.

Turret inspector window suggestions (attached to this email is a mockup image incorporating these suggestions): (attachment mirrored for this comment at http://postimage.org/image/hizbeeotj/)

Make the turret type and X (close) button always stick to the top, even after scrolling, so I can easily close the inspector wherever I am in it.

To the left of the turret type name (e.g. "Yellow Tower"), put an icon of that turret (e.g. a yellow turret icon).

Always show the current attributes of the turret, no matter how you scroll - fix them to the top. Then, for each attribute, instead of listing every new attribute and the cost, list only the attribute that will be changed plus the cost. It might also be nice to show the old value of the attribute, for reference, but I don't see a place to fit that in the interface. I think this will make the effect of each upgrade easier to comprehend, and also require less scrolling. If that big a change sounds bad to you, here is different way of achieving that: in the attributes list of each upgrade, make the attribute that will be upgraded bold, italic, another color, or otherwise emphasized.

I don't know if this is possible with the Google Maps API, but it would be nice to have some indication of how upgraded a turret is just from its icon. I had one fully-upgraded blue turret next to a plain blue turret, and I wanted to upgrade the plain one, but I had to look at the inspector of one of them to find out which one was the plain one. Some possible indicators of upgradedness are the shade of the color (darker or lighter), the color or darkness of the circle representing size taken, or the size of the dot in the middle of the turret. The number to indicate how upgraded a turret is would probably just be the number of upgrades divided by the number of possible upgrades for that turret type.

Bug: on Firefox 11.0 on Windows 7, the six turret icons on the side all look like the goal/house icon instead, which is confusing for new players. The icons on the map look fine, and all icons look fine in Chrome. An image showing this bug is attached. (attachment mirrored for this comment at http://postimage.org/image/h0m7bv53f/)

I am seeing this turretless winning bug, too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3784435 (and the sale price bug mentioned in its reply).

"""

Re: Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

#37
You're an evil man posting this here on a Sunday night, knowing damn well people have work tomorrow.

IDEAS TO CHANGE THINGS UP:

- Here's something different: If there was 1 path to my "base" and every few levels my home would move and extend the path for the enemies. Something different to try if you wish.

- Do NOT show the path that the enemies take, just show me where my base is and where the enemies spawn from, and generate 3 or 4 slightly different enemy paths that are invisible so it looks like the enemies look like they're choosing their own paths towards you. The rule should be that you cannot place a turret on any street, only on property or parking lots.

LOVED:

- endless levels to choose from. The google maps themeing.

DIDN'T LIKE:

- Inability to move turrets.

- Short multiple enemy paths, I would have preffered one long and winding enemy path.

WISHED:

- You used the little "street view guy" icon as a enemy boss.

- Less straight lines, more turns for the enemies.

- Longer enemy paths.

- A lot of what roryokane said:

BUGS:

- I caught an interesting little glitch, I bought and fully upgraded a Yellow tower then sold it but it looks like its still doing damage as if it were still there.

Re: Maps TD - Google Maps-based Tower Defence.

#40

You're an evil man posting this here on a Sunday night, knowing damn well people have work tomorrow. IDEAS TO CHANGE THINGS UP: - Here's something different: If there was 1 path to my "base" and every few levels my home would move and extend the path for the enemies. Something different to try if you wish. - Do NOT show the path that the enemies take, just show me where my base is and where the enemies spawn from, an…

It doesn't help to hide the path the enemies take. It's built on the real world road system. A solution would be to prevent you from completely blocking the destination, but that requires knowing street data which Google doesn't easily provide.

If you want a more winding path, try some place in the world with more winding roads, like Col de Braus, Lucéram, France or Pikes Peak, Colorado. Golden Gate bridge was also interesting in a winding-like way.

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