ArcaneTD
A tower defence where every power spike comes with a price: pollution, a stressed crew, and a Middleman who sells you out.
- Status
- In development
- Role
- Solo developer and designer
- Timeline
- Ongoing
- Platforms
- PC and mobile (planned)
ArcaneTD is a work in progress. The systems described here are implemented, but the interface and art are still placeholders and will be replaced as the game gets its real UI. The screenshots show the current state.
- 156C# scripts
- ~16,000lines of code
- 4support towers
- 7enemy classes
- 7elements, all made from Nexium
- 5card types in the draft
From the game
The grimoire
The ideaWhat it is and why
Most tower defence games reward building more. ArcaneTD makes every decision cost something. Turning a tower elemental needs a blueprint card and a retrofit, so timing matters. Refusing a risky card from the Middleman means he sells it to the enemy. Strong towers pollute the base, and an overworked crew performs worse.
A roguelike tower defence on a hex grid with a bio-punk plague doctor theme. Towers turn elemental when built next to the right liquid, a black-market Middleman drafts cards between waves, and a crew of scientists has to be kept from burning out.
The worldSetting and story
A rogue doctor has formed a rebel alliance to cure a disease that is spreading across the world. The cure can only be researched from rare elements found on one place on Earth: an archipelago of islands. You play the doctor, and the islands are where you work.
The most important element is Nexium. It is powerful enough to help build a cure, and just as able to be turned into a weapon. How it ended up on the islands is still an open question in the story.
The World Government wants the same islands for the opposite reason. It sends troops, and infected soldiers, to stop the research and silence the rebels, so it can use the elements for weapons of mass destruction and tools of control instead of a cure.
Between waves, a corrupt broker called the Middleman trades with both sides, purely for his own benefit. Which side he leans towards depends on how you play. Conquer every island and finish the cure to win.
What I built12 parts
- Wrote the full game design document, then implemented the game from it.
- Hex-grid maps based on the Catlike Coding hex map tutorial, extended with liquid sources (Vulcanex, Hydronium) and ores that towers react to.
- Six attack behaviours (single target, splash, cone, pierce, mortar, all-around) on Cannon, Syringe and Mortar bases, each with seven elemental variants and three upgrade tiers.
- Four support towers: the Spotter pulses to reveal camouflaged enemies, the Deceiver sends enemies down a different branch at path forks, the Extraction Beacon harvests ore from neighbouring tiles, and the Attacher clips onto another tower and gives it an element-specific buff.
- Seven enemy classes with their own rules and twelve named designs, from Patrol Drones and Hazmat Grunts to Cloaked Enforcers, Roller Echoes and the Nexium Abomination. Camo enemies need a Spotter, disruptors slow or lock down towers, decoys split on death, thieves drain your elements, and every enemy has an elemental weakness.
- Two win types. Survive every wave for an Attrition win, or push the Research Lab to its top tier before the waves run out for a Turbo win. The win type decides what you get: an Attrition win banks your leftover liquids into the permanent Nexium Codex, while a Turbo win opens the bribe shop, where those liquids buy bonuses for the next level.
- A campaign map of levels with prerequisites that unlock the next ones, a wave system built from mini-waves, and an auto-assign that finds the best crew-to-department match.
- Elemental upgrades that check neighbouring hex tiles, and a toxicity system with five stages. Elemental towers add to it every time they fire. At Critical, towers start to misfire; at Meltdown, tiles get contaminated; at Rapture, tanks are drained, a tower slot is contaminated and the whole crew takes a stress hit. Maintenance crew slow it down and vent it faster.
- The Middleman shows three offers between waves: a single card, a pack, and either a risk card or a logistics card. Cards come in five types (Blueprint, Tactical, Logistics, Crew Management and Risk) and three tiers. Packs come as Blueprint Crates, Supply and Crew Manifests and Black Market Tactical Stashes, and you pick from what is inside.
- His loyalty runs from 0 to 100, starts at 50 each run and sets how good and how expensive the offers are. It moves with almost everything you do: taking a card, rejecting a risk card, refreshing the offers, or leaving without buying. High loyalty also unlocks the best bribes.
- A crew of scientists, each rated 1 to 5 stars in science, maintenance and defence, with three work slots and a rest slot. The Research slot runs the Research Lab, and with nobody in it, research and harvesting stop. Maintenance cuts toxicity build-up and speeds up venting. Defence runs the attack towers. How strong each slot is depends on who you put in it. Stress and burnout lower a member's performance, and an auto-assign finds the best placement.
- XP and a skill tree, the Nexium Codex for permanent unlocks, and save/load.
Stack: Unity 3D (URP), C#, ScriptableObjects, DOTween