Ice And Fire Tower Defence
| Ice And Fire Tower Defence | |
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| Release Information | |
| Series: | SP |
| Genre: | Tower Defence, Spoof |
| Modes: | Single Player |
| Platforms: | ME-OS |
| Release Date: | January 6, 2024 |
Ice And Fire Tower Defence is a 2D tower defence strategy game made by Octopus58. It was released as part of the 0.0.57 update to ME-OS alongside a web version. Unlike other games in the Zelomedia Splash collection at the time, this game focused on strategy and quick thinking opposed to platforming action or purely parody games.
Gameplay
This game simulates a friendly tower defence like battle between two random teams of creatures: the fire team and the ice team. Each team has their own fort which takes up space on the stage, the fire fort is to the right while the ice fort is to the left. The player has to pick a side, and control the "army" while the opponent does the same. The objective of the game is to get the health of the opposing fort down to zero. Likewise, getting zero health on the players side is a game over.
To achieve this objective, the player can spawn different soldiers, turrets, and summons, as well as upgrade their fort. The types of spawnables the player spawns are restricted by upgrade level, of which there are five. For example if you haven't upgraded your fort, you are restricted to only level one soldiers, turrets, and summons. However if you upgraded y our fort four times, you can spawn all spawnables ranging from level one to five.
Upgrading a fort makes it have more health, and resets any damage done prior. It provides a saving grace if a player is able to upgrade just before running out of health on a lower level fort. To upgrade a fort, the player needs XP, which is obtained by defeating the opposing side's soldiers in battle. Doing so also allows the player to gain money to buy more soldiers and turrets.
Summons can only be spawned with the special meter, that gradually increases over time from 0 to 500. The rate at which the special meter fills up is 2 * (upgrade level - 1) per second, so the higher the fort level is the faster it fills up. Similarly, money also fills up over time at a rate of 3 * upgrade level per 0.75 seconds. This way the player will always have a chance at fighting back, even if all their soldiers are down and they don't have money or special meter at the moment.
The teams have slight differences that significantly change the gameplay. The ice team is more focused on defence, giving them slower and weaker attacks, slower movement, as well as more limited range, but more health. The fire team is faster and has stronger/faster attacks, but not a lot of health. The turrets reflect this as well, as the ice turrets are generally more powerful and protect the entrance to the ice fort better, while the fire fort has weaker but faster turrets. As for the summons, the ice ones focus more on attacking closer to the ice fort to defeat enemies getting closer to the fort, while the fire summons are either more balanced or directed towards the ice fort as a more offensive approach. While there are exceptions, this design is what is mostly used for the teams.
There are three difficulties the player can pick: easy, normal, and hard. The hard difficulty is the "true" difficulty of the game, with no helping hands or advantages over the opposing team. In easy mode, both teams get (4 + 10) x upgrade level amount of money per 0.75 seconds, normal mode (4 + 5) x upgrade level, and hard mode 4 x upgrade level. However upon claiming a soldier in easy mode, the player gets a multiplicative bonus of 3 money reward and 2 XP reward, and in normal mode a multiplicative bonus of 2 for money and 1.5 for XP. In hard mode, these bonuses don't exist. Additionally, the CPU's actions also vary by difficulty. In hard mode, the CPU will randomly take a turn every 2 - 6 seconds, normal mode every 2 - 5 seconds, and hard mode every 1-3 seconds. The latter is meant to simulate somewhat "realistic" quick decision making. Summons are also difficulty dependent, as the hardest difficulty will not summon any summonable under its current level unless half of the opponents health is gone, where it will be fine with spawning one level down. In normal mode however, there's a random chance of spawning one lower than current level at any point, and for easy, two lower.
Interestingly, the fire team seems harder to play as on the hardest difficulty compared to the ice team.
Soldiers
The soldiers the player starts with are one melee soldier, and one slower moving projectile soldier. After upgrading once, the player unlocks a speedier melee character. Another upgrade grants a slightly longer range projectile soldier, as well as a stronger melee soldier. The next upgrade grants a long range projectile character, and finally the last upgrade grants one soldier that uses both melee and projectile attacks, and one slightly differing fighter: the fire team gets a strong projectile soldier, while the ice team gets a faster and strong melee soldier.
| Character | Team | Type | Speed | Power | Health | Invulnerability Period | Attack Rate | Level Required | Cost | Reward Money | Reward XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Fire | Melee | 3.25 | 10 | 100 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 1 | 100 | 150 | 100 |
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Ice | Melee | 3.15 | 8 | 130 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 1 | 100 | 150 | 100 |
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Fire | Projectile | 2.9 | 10 | 135 | 0.25 | 0.3 | 1 | 150 | 200 | 165 |
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Ice | Projectile | 2.5 | 15 | 150 | 0.25 | 0.175 | 1 | 150 | 200 | 165 |
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Fire | Melee | 5 | 14 | 200 | 0.25 | 0.35 | 2 | 300 | 500 | 330 |
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Ice | Melee | 4.5 | 12 | 250 | 0.25 | 0.3 | 2 | 300 | 500 | 330 |
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Fire | Projectile | 3.75 | 25 | 300 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 3 | 600 | 950 | 660 |
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Ice | Projectile | 3.5 | 30 | 375 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 3 | 600 | 950 | 660 |
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Fire | Melee | 3.5 | 30 | 400 | 0.25 | 0.3 | 3 | 900 | 1500 | 990 |
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Ice | Melee | 3.45 | 25 | 475 | 0.25 | 0.275 | 3 | 900 | 1500 | 990 |
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Fire | Projectile | 3.5 | 60 | 450 | 0.25 | 0.275 | 4 | 1500 | 2200 | 1650 |
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Ice | Projectile | 3.5 | 75 | 550 | 0.25 | 0.225 | 4 | 1500 | 2200 | 1650 |
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Fire | Both | 4 | 100 + 120 | 600 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 5 | 3000 | 4500 | 3300 |
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Ice | Both | 3.85 | 85 + 150 | 800 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 5 | 3000 | 4500 | 3300 |
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Fire | Projectile | 3.35 | 225 | 950 | 0.3 | 0.275 | 5 | 5000 | 8000 | 5500 |
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Ice | Melee | 3.4 | 150 | 1500 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 5 | 5000 | 8000 | 5500 |
Turrets
Turrets provide an advantage mostly from the defence aspect. Ice turrets are usually stronger than fire turrets, although fire ones are slightly faster.
| Turret | Team | Power | Attack Rate (seconds) | Level Required | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stoner 1  |
Fire | 20 | 1.25 | 1 | 1500 |
Darter 1  |
Ice | 30 | 2 | 1 | 1500 |
Stoner 2 |
Fire | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3000 |
Darter 2 |
Ice | 40 | 1.75 | 2 | 3000 |
Smasher  |
Fire | 40 | 3.1 | 3 | 6000 |
Bellshot  |
Ice | 75 | 4 | 3 | 6000 |
Stoner 3 |
Fire | 40 | 0.8 | 4 | 10000 |
Darter 3 |
Ice | 50 | 1.5 | 4 | 10000 |
Superfire  |
Fire | 100 | 2 | 5 | 20000 |
Chillbeam  |
Ice | 175 | 2.5 | 5 | 20000 |
Summons
Summons differ greatly irregardless of teams, but ice summons mostly attack towards the ice fort as a defensive strategy while fire summons are more offensive.
| Summon | Team | Power | Level Required | Special Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Fire | 150 (30 x 5) | 1 | 100 | Five fire pillars appear and do continuous damage for 3 seconds. |
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Ice | 600 (200 x 3) | 1 | 100 | Three giant frozen spitballs fall near the ice fort. |
Ohozhd (doom bringer form)  |
Fire | 800 (400 x 2) | 2 | 200 | Two giant fireballs fall on both sides of the stage. |
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Ice | 240 (60 x 4) | 2 | 200 | Four frozen roots pop up near the ice fort and do continuous damage for 2.5 seconds. |
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Fire | 1350 (450 x 3) | 3 | 300 | Three hungry green flames go right to left, damaging all the enemies in the way. |
Bluppy (super 3 form)  |
Ice | 60 | 3 | 300 | A massive glacier spawns for two seconds in the center of the stage, dealing continuous damage. |
Balzei (beast slayer form)  |
Fire | 120 | 4 | 400 | A massive green fire spawns in the center of the stage for three seconds, dealing continuous damage. |
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Ice | 3600 (600 x 6) | 4 | 400 | Six heavy stars fall from the sky closer towards the ice fort. |
Put'bi (ascended form)  |
Fire | 2800 (2000 + 800) | 5 | 500 | Put'bi's eye projectile sweeps the stage from right to left, before a massive fire sword swipes the whole stage. |
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Ice | 750 | 5 | 500 | A slow moving laser obliterates most fire opponents as it moves from left to right. |
Forts
The only difference between ice and fire forts at each upgrade level is the health. Ice forts have more health than fire forts.
| Fort | Team | Health | Level | XP Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Fire Tower 1  |
Fire | 1000 | 1 | 0 |
Ice Tower 1  |
Ice | 1250 | 1 | 0 |
Fire Tower 2  |
Fire | 2000 | 2 | 3000 |
Ice Tower 2  |
Ice | 2500 | 2 | 3000 |
Fire Tower 3  |
Fire | 4500 | 3 | 7000 |
Ice Tower 3  |
Ice | 5000 | 3 | 7000 |
Fire Tower 4  |
Fire | 9000 | 4 | 17500 |
Ice Tower 4  |
Ice | 10000 | 4 | 17500 |
Fire Tower 5  |
Fire | 17500 | 5 | 30000 |
Ice Tower 5  |
Ice | 20000 | 5 | 30000 |
Development
The game started development in early December 2023. It was a quick idea that was mostly meant to be a small game and finish development in December. However several difficulties caused the game to be released later in January 2024.
The first part of development started with art assets, which involved animating all forts, soldiers, projectiles, turrets, summon reveals, summons, and summon projectiles (in that order). The only difference between summon reveals and summons was that some reveals differed to what the actual spawnable was. For example, Ohozhd would appear in his normal form in the reveal, but would spawn in his doom bringer form. Some of these were actually changed towards the last days of development, as some time was available to allow more interesting summon differentiations to happen. This included Bluppy and Put'bi, who were originally going to appear the same as in their reveals. The process of making all the art assets took around two weeks.
Another difficulty during the development of the game was balancing the teams. Since the implementation of soldiers, turrets, and summons (in that order) were incremental, the game had to be balanced on just soldiers alone first. It proved difficult to keep the stats that make the teams unique from each other while not making one team overpowered compared to the other. However once soldiers were balanced, turrets were later balanced as well as summons, and small tweaks were made in the end.
The whole game was tested almost exclusively on the hardest difficulty, since it was meant to feel like the "true" difficulty" and the most realistic one to how an actual opponent would play. However that proved to be problematic, as testing later on easy and normal modes either ended the game too quickly, or left the player with no money and the opposing team would win way too fast. Initially, the only differentiating factor between difficulties was how much soldiers the CPU was able to spawn. However, money, reward, and health had to be adjusted later to make the difficulties feel more balanced. The approach taken was the lower the difficulty, the harder it was for the player to lose and also had room for more reaction time.
Music
The only track in this game is called "Last Millennium's Snow". It is meant to sound nostalgic and be in the Italo Disco 80's style, and also not be too distracting to the player. Unlike a lot of other songs in ME-OS, this one still has energy but also fits more of a "thinking" or strategic mood while still being full of emotion.
| Track Number | Song Name | Preview |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Last Millennium's Snow | File:ZSP IAFTD 1.mp3 |
External Links
Trivia
- The character selection of this game aimed to showcase less seen SP Creatures in SP games and works so far.