Clockwork TD Devlog #7: Map Progression Pt. 2

This is the seventh post in an ongoing series about the development of my thesis project, Clockwork TD.

In previous devlog entries, I covered the initial development of the map. This fall, I got some good feedback from playtesters on gameplay progression, including a very important question: “why would you want to close spawn tiles?” To my mind, closing spawn tiles was sort of self-evident: you want more space between where the enemies spawn and your home tower, so of course you’d want to keep closing spawn tiles! However, I needed to add a mechanic to force the player to engage with this system–and so, the Pressure gauge was born. The Pressure gauge increasing makes the game harder, but increases player rewards; closing a spawn tile releases Pressure, letting the player have some breathing room again.

Initially, the Pressure gauge increased when the player did damage, and decreased slightly with each enemy spawned; the problem with that the player’s damage is wildly unforecastable (and increasingly so as the game goes on). Instead, the Pressure gauge simply increases with enemies spawned, which makes the max pressure amount much easier to grow consistently as the game goes on.

But what to do with Pressure? At the time, the player received choices from two drawn card hands at the end of each round; the higher the Pressure, the higher the minimum reward rarity of the cards drawn (more pressure, better rewards). This could tend to lead to mindless clicking at the end of each round, though, as players eagerly attempted to get to the next enemy attack phase.

To keep reading this devlog and see the example code & gifs, visit:

https://onewinter.net/2023/12/11/clockwork-td-devlog-7-map-progression-pt-2/