Clockwork TD Devlog #10: Year-End Wrap-up

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

So, what next? The game has enemies through round 35; there are 3 bosses for players to fight currently. Towers are implemented through Tier III; ten basic spells (that admittedly need more design work) are in. The game saves at the beginning of each round, so players can leave long play sessions (it takes about a minute per round) and come back later. The game is stable, dynamic, and probably good for a few playthroughs before players get bored of it.

Well, a true roguelike lets you accumulate experience across playthroughs and then deploy that experience to enhance future runs. I really like the way Citadelic does it:

Players can customize their playthrough by mixing and matching different home tower components. These components affect starting resources, in-game customizability, and risk/reward (by trading lower base health for more gold per enemy). Optional modifiers are selected separate from the home tower configuration:

All of these unlocks are permanent, meaning a player pays once to unlock them and then can turn them on or off as they like in future playthroughs. Finally, the difficulty itself scales the enemy strength in exchange for a higher experience multiplier:

For Clockwork TD, my goal for January is to design a similar set of starting options that will let the player scale the difficulty and boost their starting loadout by spending experience earned at the end of each playthrough. At least one playtester was surprised when the home tower couldn’t fight back, so giving players the ability to add a turret module to the home tower could be fun. Other options will likely include boosting certain types of damage such as Fire or Energy (to supplement certain playstyles) and could also impact variables such as the max number of Spawner Seals the player can hold at a time, or the maximum duration/strength of status effects like Burn or Shock. Optional modifiers may be simpler things like increased starting resources or starting with certain tiers of towers/spells unlocked.

Stay tuned for future devlog updates detailing this design & implementation process… and have a happy and safe holiday season. See you in 2024!