STEAMPUNK TOWER
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About the Game
Steampunk Tower is a World War II themed tower defense game published by VMaxxx in 2013. The player must defend a single tower from waves of enemy infantry, paratroopers, tanks, fighter planes, and more. The game introduces a number of innovations to the tower defense genre, such as the ability to reposition specific armaments to counter enemy threats, and the need to manage each armament's ammunition supply. As of March 2017, the game has a rating of 92% and over 3 million plays on Armor Games.
Steampunk Tower is a World War II themed tower defense game published by VMaxxx in 2013. The player must defend a single tower from waves of enemy infantry, paratroopers, tanks, fighter planes, and more. The game introduces a number of innovations to the tower defense genre, such as the ability to reposition specific armaments to counter enemy threats, and the need to manage each armament's ammunition supply. As of March 2017, the game has a rating of 92% and over 3 million plays on Armor Games.
Busted: Machine Guns Only
The player is presented with four classes of weapons to erect their defense. A natural test for this game is to complete the entire campaign using only the cheapest class, machine guns. Many armored enemy units have a resistance to bullet damage, which may encourage players to sample the other available weapons. However, resistances can also be defeated by a combination of overwhelming force and solid mechanical play.
Like most games in the genre, the player can generate an advantage by spending their money as quickly as possible. The main barrier that prevents continuous spending is the high mechanical skill ceiling, as individual armaments must be dragged into specific positions to fire, reload, and upgrade. The more efficiently and accurately the player can perform these actions, the greater the advantage they will accumulate against the unending swarms of enemy forces.
The other economic constraint is that individual weapons must accrue experience points before they can be upgraded. At times the player will have a surplus of funds, but be unable to spend it because no weapons are ready to be upgraded. To avoid such bottlenecks, the player can use weaker enemy waves as an opportunity to pull high level weapons off the firing line, giving low level weapons a chance to gain XP.
The player is presented with four classes of weapons to erect their defense. A natural test for this game is to complete the entire campaign using only the cheapest class, machine guns. Many armored enemy units have a resistance to bullet damage, which may encourage players to sample the other available weapons. However, resistances can also be defeated by a combination of overwhelming force and solid mechanical play.
Like most games in the genre, the player can generate an advantage by spending their money as quickly as possible. The main barrier that prevents continuous spending is the high mechanical skill ceiling, as individual armaments must be dragged into specific positions to fire, reload, and upgrade. The more efficiently and accurately the player can perform these actions, the greater the advantage they will accumulate against the unending swarms of enemy forces.
The other economic constraint is that individual weapons must accrue experience points before they can be upgraded. At times the player will have a surplus of funds, but be unable to spend it because no weapons are ready to be upgraded. To avoid such bottlenecks, the player can use weaker enemy waves as an opportunity to pull high level weapons off the firing line, giving low level weapons a chance to gain XP.
Design Analysis: Solving the Player's Problems
The main tenet of StratBuster philosophy is that good game design is about presenting the player with interesting choices. Another way of framing this concept is to say that a game should give players interesting problems to solve. During the course of the machine gun only campaign, it became clear that while Steampunk Tower certainly has interesting gameplay constraints, many solutions present themselves automatically. Some examples:
The main tenet of StratBuster philosophy is that good game design is about presenting the player with interesting choices. Another way of framing this concept is to say that a game should give players interesting problems to solve. During the course of the machine gun only campaign, it became clear that while Steampunk Tower certainly has interesting gameplay constraints, many solutions present themselves automatically. Some examples:
Problems |
Solutions |
Should the player use the tower's special attack when it is fully charged, or save it for a strong enemy wave? |
The strongest enemy waves tend to appear just after the special attack reaches full charge, or at the end of the level, when there is no reason to save it. |
Is it better to spend the opening budget on a few strong weapons, or many weaker weapons? |
Because weapons cannot be upgraded until they gain experience, the opening budget can only be spent on the weakest weapons of each class. |
How can the player manage ammo to avoid needing to reload during a heavy enemy wave? |
Upgrading a weapon instantly refills its ammo supply, so reloading is not a concern until after all weapons have been fully upgraded. At that point, there is so much firepower available that it doesn't matter if one weapon must reload. |
Should the player call waves early for an income bonus? Or will the overlapping waves overwhelm the tower? |
The buttons to call the next wave usually don't appear until after the preceding wave has already been cleared. As such, there is no risk in calling waves early. |
The skull icons can be pressed to call enemy waves early, granting bonus cash.
With no enemies on the field, and not enough cash to make purchases, why would the player wait?
With no enemies on the field, and not enough cash to make purchases, why would the player wait?
The convenient timing of the special attack and the leniency of calling waves early can both be solved by borrowing a motif from Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows: as soon as one wave begins, the option to call the next wave is also presented. With this mechanic, in order for the player to reap the full economic benefit of calling waves early, they must essentially fight two waves at once, making the risk commensurate to the reward. Even if the player does not elect to call waves early, inefficient tactics or a high density of armored enemies will naturally cause waves to overlap. This change would also discourage the designer from including crux waves specifically to justify the use of the special attack, instead allowing its utility to emerge naturally as enemy waves overlap.
Next, to force the player to experiment with different weapons, enemy resistances can simply be upgraded to immunities. This can increase the tactical depth, encouraging the player to shuffle weapons into different slots to target specific enemies. This also solves the problem of the opening budget feeling constrained by the experience system. By requiring a diverse arsenal of weapons with different prices, the player is given much more agency at the beginning of level, rather than simply asking "How many level 1 machine guns can I buy right now?"
Finally, there is the matter of weapons instantly reloading when upgraded. While certainly an appreciable quality-of-life feature, this is somewhat problematic in that it rewards players for an action they are certain to perform anyway. It also diminishes the impact of the ammunition system, something that should be highlighted as much as possible due to its uniqueness within the tower defense genre.
With these tweaks to Steampunk Tower's balancing, the player will no longer feel that the game is solving problems for them, while still preserving the game's overall feel and high skill ceiling.
Next, to force the player to experiment with different weapons, enemy resistances can simply be upgraded to immunities. This can increase the tactical depth, encouraging the player to shuffle weapons into different slots to target specific enemies. This also solves the problem of the opening budget feeling constrained by the experience system. By requiring a diverse arsenal of weapons with different prices, the player is given much more agency at the beginning of level, rather than simply asking "How many level 1 machine guns can I buy right now?"
Finally, there is the matter of weapons instantly reloading when upgraded. While certainly an appreciable quality-of-life feature, this is somewhat problematic in that it rewards players for an action they are certain to perform anyway. It also diminishes the impact of the ammunition system, something that should be highlighted as much as possible due to its uniqueness within the tower defense genre.
With these tweaks to Steampunk Tower's balancing, the player will no longer feel that the game is solving problems for them, while still preserving the game's overall feel and high skill ceiling.