Flash Element TD v1.5
Instructions: Place towers on the grass to prevent the creeps getting to the exit. Select towers to upgrade or sell them. Each tower has three upgrades. When you earn wood, spend it on unlocking the element towers or on interest rates or extra lives. Unlock all three elements to build the rocket tower!
Desktop tower placement: Click a tower button and then click where you want to place the tower. Cancel a build by clicking a different tower or trying to place it anywhere other than the grass.
Mobile tower placement: Tap and drag a tower from the bottom menu to place it on the map. Release when the tower is in the right position. Cancel a build by trying to place it anywhere other than the grass.
History: Back in 2007 I created my first successful game and the first stand-alone Tower Defense game “Flash Element TD”. Up to this point the only way to play a TD was to buy a game like Warcraft III and download mods. The game was an instant hit, receiving over 500,000 loads within hours of launch and getting embedded on over 12,000 websites.
I quickly patched some bugs and released a v1.0 build on the 1st February, that was the final release of Flash Element TD 1. In 2017 I released a v2 on the website CasualCollective.com which I created with some friends to host our web games.
Sadly, today, flash games are hard to play as the Flash plugin has long been removed from browsers. And, unfortunately for FETD, the emulators that replaced Flash cause it to get stuck on level 1.
I have re-created the game from scratch using a modern language (Golang) and Ebitengine, with updated graphics that I feel preserves the essence of the original v1 while looking like something creates a bit more recently than 15+ years ago. It's my first time using both the language and engine, and it was a delight. I also took this opportunity to improve the balance of the game and change the behavior of the earth and rocket towers.
A big thanks to Kenney for their UI bundles and the Creature-Mixer which I used to make all the creeps.
Today: 15 years later, I'm working with a great team on a MMORTS game called Kingdom Maker. It's available on iOS and Android: Battle, Boink, Betray in this multiplayer mobile game that mixes base building, real-time combat, and family simulation!
Keyboard shortcuts:
- [SPACE] send wave
- [1-3] build the first three tower types
- [U] upgrade selected tower
- [S] sell selected tower
- [ESC] Cancel tower build / selection
- [F] Cycle through fast-forward speeds
- [P] toggle pause
- [O] toggle full screen
- [R] Reset
Tips:
- Boss waves give 1 wood
- Though a creep's value in gold is fixed, the points you get from killing them goes down the longer they are alive
- Interest pays when the wave ends, a percentage of whatever gold you have is added to your income. Try to avoid spending towards the end of the wave if you can to maximize interest earned
- Immune creeps can not be slowed by water but do take extra damage from fire
- A fully upgraded Earth tower has a chance to stun enemies
