Tower defence games have been around for a long time,
bringing a lot of differences between them. It was only a matter of time before
the concept was reversed so that the player would be on the offensive, and that
came with a game called Anomaly: Warzone Earth. While I don’t exactly know if
the game was the first to reverse the concept, there doesn’t seem to have been
as many notable games using it.
Tower defence games have you defending against incoming
waves of enemies by placing units of your own in or outside the path that the
enemy travels. In tower offense, you are the units travelling on the path, with
the enemy defences already in place. In the case of Anomaly, you can change the
path your units travel to tackle the defences how you want.
Now, this first idea of mine has you not acquire any
credits for buying new units during a match. You will be able to buy
reinforcements between matches, and to help you decide what you need you’ll see
all enemy units for the next map, but in the matches, you’ll be stuck with what
you’ve got.
The enemy units will already be placed on the map, and
you will have a list of all your units available at all times. You can deploy a
unit at any time, with each unit having the usual statistics applied such as
attack, defence, range, and speed. The units you send out will be unable to be
stopped, so keeping an eye on the field and which units are engaged in battle
will help to reduce losses to your team.
You need to keep the offensive going, and avoid losing
too many units, as if you are unable to make it to the next base, you’ll have
to work back up to what you had before using the starting amount of credits for
the base you launched from. There are also no upgrades, as the bases you take
give permanent buffs to all units depending on what they are best suited for.
The second idea uses a side-on view instead of the usual
top-down viewpoint. There would be no tanks here, as it would be within an
interior setting. Instead, there will be a variety of turret units to face off
against, along with the normal soldier units.
The idea behind this comes from an idea for a platformer
game I had, but I feel it would be better suited to a tower offense game. In
the game, you would be a squad of four fighting through the corridors of a
cruiser to take back control of it from those who had assumed command. At the
end of each section, there would be a boss.
Now, how would I be able to turn that platformer idea
into a tower offense? The four squad members are the only units you will have, so
you need to look after them. Each of the four have different weapons that are
good against various enemy types, but only the person in front will be able to
fire their weapon.
At the end of each mission, you’ll accrue credits that
you can use to heal up and upgrade the four units. If one or more of the units
fell in battle, you’ll need to use credits to revive them, meaning less
available for upgrades. If all units fall, you’ll start the mission again with
all at full health, though with a further reduction in credits.
Bosses would play out with each boss having a particular
favoured turret that they would place between them and the squad after a
certain period of health taken from them to allow them to run away to the next
point, where more turrets have to be dealt with before more health of the boss
can be taken.
Now, if the entire game takes place on a cruiser, how are
the visuals of each area going to be different? By not having every area be a
corridor. And even the corridors would offer slight differences depending on
where they were on the cruiser. You would be going all over this cruiser within
the story to make sure no-one remains on board.
It’s the upgrades that matter with this one, but strategy
still plays a part if you want to earn that greater reward. And it’s the upgrades
that are part of this third idea – to a much greater degree.
See, this third idea is a non-linear approach to such a
title. But at the same time, it also slightly breaks the idea of strategy. The
region you live has been invaded. Cities have fallen, with everywhere now in
control of the invaders. Small pockets of survivors rest in the forests of the
region, but have no way to connect with each other as the invaders have set up
camps between routes.
In a small section of forest, three of the colonists decide
to fight back, and it is these three who you start with. You control where they
go, tackling any route out from the patch of forest they reside. They will
battle against the invader camps with nothing but branches to start with, and
should you wish can be called back to home at any time.
As the survivors defeat a camp, they earn experience to
level themselves up and items with which to craft better weapons and armour. As
they progress through the region, they can find other survivors who will join
the cause, and once enough have joined you can start setting up multiple groups
to journey the region. You’ll still need to task them individually by swapping
between them, but you can always see their condition and order a retreat no
matter which group you currently control.
Once you have built up enough strength, you can start to
tackle the cities, which offer larger rewards than the camps and allow you to
start building up explosives. See, while you might defeat a camp, the invaders
will rest and be ready to fight again unless you blow it up. Once it’s blown
up, it will be permanently defeated. Cities will not be reclaimed until you
defeat the leader within it, but leaders won’t show until all invaders have
been removed from it.
The leaders roam the city, so it’s best to have multiple
groups on hand to trap the leader in position before striking. In taking back a
city, you will get more recruits to help, access to more powerful equipment,
and an additional perk such as additional health or smarter recruits. Once you
take a city, it can be set as the base of operations, though any recruits left
elsewhere will remain until tasked to move. Once all the cities have been taken
back, the main game has been won.