Heart Defense

CS425 final project proposal

Team members: Nicholas Leontiev

 Heart Defense is a top down tower defense game that will have roguelite elements, such as upgrades and procedurally generated levels. Right now this current version is just a prototype that contains the basic elements such as the ability to pick up and place or throw towers. In this prototype you fight against hordes of zombies that are trying to eat your heart. You have to prevent this by using two nearby turrets to kill all of the zombies and destroy any tombstones. The controls for this game are wasd for movement, f to pick up and drop turrets, and mouse to aim, punch and throw turrets. Punching which is done with the left click allows you to knock back zombies, but it does not do any damage to them. Throwing turrets which is done with the right click allows one to quickly throw a turret in order to defend an area away from the player. The player can also pick up and throw the heart in order to move it away from zombies. 

The main technical component that is currently implemented into the game is pathfinding which the zombies use to reach the heart or the player if he is holding the heart. The pathfinding implemented is a gridbased method that uses breadth first search starting at the heart to reach all accessible squares which creates a flow field that the zombies can use to pathfind. 

 This game was made in Gamemaker Studio 2, I was initially planning on trying to learn Godot, but I changed my mind after deciding that I would rather try to create a more polished game then learn a new tool at the moment. 

Right now there are a lot of things that this prototype is missing, such as particle effects,a start screen, depth sorting, more sounds and a better movement system for the zombies. I will probably try to do something similar to boids with them so that they don't just move in a giant line. I also still need to implement upgrades and additional towers and enemies. After toying with my prototype I also am thinking of implementing a sort of movement system such as a dash or maybe have a way to quickly bring towers or the heart to the player.  

In its current state, it is relatively interesting, though it is definitely way too hard at the moment. In order to win you have to pick up and throw the towers almost immediately to have a chance. It is a pretty fast paced game and should be fun once its more fleshed out.