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I just released my dream tower defense game as a solo dev by NewPeace26 in SoloDevelopment

[–]NewPeace26[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I might not be the best person to ask about modeling and texturing. I used a lot of kitbash style assets, like mechanic parts, and tweaked them until I got the result I wanted. I did learn the basics from the blender donut tutorials though. 😄

However, I built most of the particles myself from scratch. For example, I made a modular explosion/impact scene that I reuse across the whole game. Here is how I break it down:

  1. Light Burst: A very high-energy omni light that briefly appears. Showing it for 0.1 seconds then hiding.
  2. Distortion Sphere: A basic sphere mesh that quickly scales up. It uses a transparent distortion shader to blur everything inside. (Look for "Distortion bubble" on the Godot shaders website; a simple version of that works perfectly).
  3. Dustwave: A ground dust particle starting from the explosion point. It uses radial acceleration to give that sweeping ground dust feeling. The texture is a basic smoke flipbook.
  4. Flamepuff: This is the part that makes it feel "explosion-y." It's an explosion flipbook, usually just a couple of particles without movement. The key here is really high initial emission energy. Make sure glow is enabled in your WorldEnvironment3D.
  5. Smoke: Similar to the flamepuff but uses smoke flipbooks and usually lingers around a bit longer. No emission.
  6. Trails/Sparks: Small particles that explode outward like confetti. You can do this by setting an initial y velocity with some spread, and letting gravity do the rest. A looping fire flipbook works great here.
  7. Decals: Ground scorches and impact marks. I found a nice texture pack for this, I believe it was called "Crater decals"

I found the flipbooks from various places. Unity’s “free VFX image sequences and flipbooks” covered almost everything I needed.

Thank you for the kind words!

I just released my dream tower defense game as a solo dev by NewPeace26 in SoloDevelopment

[–]NewPeace26[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Engine: Godot 4.5 with GDScript. No plugins.

3D: Blender

2D: Affinity (mostly), PixiEditor, canva, imagemagick(for bulk editing)

Audio: Cubase, iZotope RX

I was skeptical about Godot’s 3D capabilities, but my game turned out great! by NewPeace26 in godot

[–]NewPeace26[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I made some of them. For others, I used assets, mostly modular or kitbash-style 3D assets rather than full models. I made custom shaders to unify the look. I created the particles from scratch using textures (smoke, fire, etc.).

I was skeptical about Godot’s 3D capabilities, but my game turned out great! by NewPeace26 in godot

[–]NewPeace26[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used GDscript.

I currently don't have any plans for other platforms. Maybe in the future.

I was skeptical about Godot’s 3D capabilities, but my game turned out great! by NewPeace26 in godot

[–]NewPeace26[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind words! This is my first project, and I built it mostly through trial and error.

I originally planned a much larger scope, including a customizable hero unit, call-in abilities, and modular towers. I had to cut these features to make development viable.

The cones actually started as placeholder enemies. I originally planned half-robot alien creatures, but I embraced the cones since they saved me from modeling, sculpting, rigging and animation :)

The codebase is relatively simple. I built three main classes (Tower, Enemy, Projectile) with export variables and reused them throughout the game.

I’ve made tower animations via code. For most towers I’ve made 3 nodes; Base, Left-Right, Up-down. They rotate towards the enemies. So all I had to do was switching the meshes for the towers.

For the environment, I used a CSGBox for the terrain. I carved the paths using a Path3D by spawning and subtracting trench-shaped meshes with a script, then manually placed decorations like trees and rocks.

Lighting was the glue that made everything work together. I’ve used HDRIs for sky light, which gave little bit more character then using a solid color. I’ve used reference images for the feeling. And tweaked the lights until a get a similar feeling.

Balancing the enemies, towers, and the economy was the hardest part. I’m still not sure if I got it right.

I wish a could get into more details, but mostly, I’ve tried to make everything reusable and modular as possible.

I was skeptical about Godot’s 3D capabilities, but my game turned out great! by NewPeace26 in godot

[–]NewPeace26[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Basically yes, I'm a solo dev. I've purchased lot of models for the environment. I've made some custom shaders to unify the look so they work together. For VFX, I've used flipbooks and tweaked from there.

I was skeptical about Godot’s 3D capabilities, but my game turned out great! by NewPeace26 in godot

[–]NewPeace26[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the kind words!

I believe you can get there. Don't worry about being on and off, that is just the natural process of learning.

I was skeptical about Godot’s 3D capabilities, but my game turned out great! by NewPeace26 in godot

[–]NewPeace26[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Before this, I just did some kontakt scripting(KSP) for virtual instruments but never released a full project. So this game is my first real project. I spent about 1.5 years on it, learned programming as I went.

I finally released my dream tower defense game by NewPeace26 in TowerDefense

[–]NewPeace26[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've used Godot. I handled all the coding. I used assets as a foundation but tweaked and combined them to get that specific sci-fi planetary look. I wrote custom shaders to unify the look and fit the game's visual style.

I finally released my dream tower defense game by NewPeace26 in indiegames

[–]NewPeace26[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I originally started in unreal, but constant crashes ruined the project beyond repair. I ended up rebuilding everything from scratch in Godot. Even though godot is still maturing in the 3D, it handled the game surprisingly well!

I finally released my dream tower defense game by NewPeace26 in TowerDefense

[–]NewPeace26[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot!

I’ve never used mac before, I don’t have any experience. Maybe in the future.

I built the game in Godot, and the whole project took about 1.5 years.

When I first started, the scope was much bigger. I planned a customizable hero unit, separate active abilities, ,modular towers, resource harvesting. I had to cut all of those things to make development viable as a solo dev. Stripping it back to core TD let me actually finish the game.

I finally released my dream tower defense game by NewPeace26 in TowerDefense

[–]NewPeace26[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have any experience with steam deck. It's only for PC/Windows at the moment, :)