WIP: Auxiliary cannons and final boss

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since the last update, so I thought it is a good time to share some work in progress. I don't plan on adding anything on the demo currently (except fixing bugs if I find any meanwhile), so it's likely that the next major update will be the completed version 1.0!

I have been working a little less on this project since I was busy with work stuff, but nevertheless I'm very satisfied on the progress I'm making. I have now settled on how I want the completed version to look, and I'm getting close to completing the basis of all features (more on that later). 

Originally, my minimum scope was about 45 mins of fighting waves and a final boss fight at the end and if I felt that the game could be interesting for more time than that, I could expand after that. I decided to more or less keep the original scope, but with some extra features added in the gameplay which weren't planned originally. 

Effort-wise, the game has taken me more time than expected to bring at an acceptable level, but not a lot more, and I am very happy with how it turns out.

In case I want to expand on the game after the release, I do have a lot of ideas that could potentially make the game more fun, but my focus right now is to complete the game and release it. 

By the way, since I haven't mentioned it anywhere, it will be available completely for free here on itch for web and PC. I have though about selling it, but I decided that reaching more players and receiving feedback is way more important to me now. So if you like the game and want to support me, just share it, rate it or let me know and this will be a great reward for me!

Here are the 3 major features that I'm in the process of adding before the final launch:

1. Auxiliary cannons: Originally the idea was that you only had one orbiting cannon. But some players requested the ability to add additional cannons. I did not want to make it a standard tower defense as I would feel it would complicate the mechanics a lot, and I want it to be a more straight-forward game. Therefore, I decided to implement additional cannons as a module, which is already an established mechanic of the game and wouldn't require the player to learn new things.  The Auxiliary cannons are smaller cannons that damage and apply effects to enemies, although they are way weaker than the main cannon. Here is a sneak peak of that:

2. Final Boss: Making a Boss that feels fun in a static environment is very hard! Many TD games resort to just making it an HP sponge and make the challenging part killing it before it reaches its target. I did not like that for my game, as I feel it can be repetitive. Having a time-limit to kill the boss could work, but I also wanted to add a second challenge for the player. I decided that the boss would itself spawn an additional type of enemy in order to add an extra challenge. Therefore the idea for "The Worm" (working title) was born:

The boss flies around the earth in a snake-like pattern and releases it's pods gradually, which attack the earth. That way, the player is forced to manage defending against both the normal enemies and the pods, in addition to damaging the boss in order to kill it. I won't spoil more for now, but if you have any ideas or remarks let me know!

3. Upgrade system overhaul: From the start, I wasn't too fond of the upgrade system, because the player can be very confused on what upgrade to do and when. Therefore I decided that it should follow a much clearer structure. I plan on changing it to a more RPG-style upgrade tree, although nothing too complicated. I haven't worked much on that so I don't have anything to share yet, but stay tuned!

I have also some less important changes planned regarding the target priority, the Earth HP and more. After I finish with implementing those features I also have to balance everything, so there is some work to be done before the release. If everthing goes well, I estimate that I could launch version 1.0 around May, but let's see how it goes!

Thank you for reading, as always I'm happy to hear any feedback on my Twitter, or in the designated feedback form!

Philip