Defense Grid

Hi, I'm T.J. Martin, a game programmer at Hidden Path on the team that created Defense Grid: The Awakening.  We've just finished the final polish stages of the product, and it feels great.  I think we've got a challenging, addictive game that's fun to play and beautiful to look at.

When I think back to what the key things were that allowed us to get to this stage, I focus on two things:  1 - allowing the designers to have the ability to efficiently experiment with design concepts, and 2 - the excellent communication and problem solving techniques the team used.

The tower defense format provides a simple, but rigid, system of rules. Since this system established the basic game play, we used this rule set as a canvas to explore more subtle design ideas and play with game balance.  We wanted our designers to be able to work as freely as possible, so we thought about content creation from the very beginning of Defense Grid.  One of my main tasks was to allow the designers to create levels that were completely playable without any programmer or artist intervention. The result was a level editor that actually generated geometry for testing purposes.  Only after the level design was nailed down would the artists would go through and make it look beautiful. Since Tower Defense is a genre that is largely about optimization and efficiency, it was important to be able to tweak every little detail to make every level, monster and tower as fun as possible. We made an effort to ensure that any number or setting could be modified by a designer without having to wait for someone to change code.

One of the things I like most about Hidden Path is the rapid flow of information. We work in open environments where everyone is free to bounce ideas around. No one hides in an office and creates features in isolation. Any feature has probably been thought about and discussed by multiple people from art, programming and design. This low communication barrier also allows programmers to better empower designers. We don't simply read a document and then make it happen. We work with the designers. If we have a question or suggestion, we can bring it to them directly instead of waiting for an open slot on their Outlook calendar. This lets us make sure that our game stays fun and that we all love the final product.

One of the most interesting design areas has been assigning roles to individual towers. I have always felt that, in any game, different pieces of your arsenal should be fundamentally and functionally different. Just changing numbers and adding a new visual effect is not enough! Anytime we felt that two towers were becoming too similar, we addressed it. At one point, we had a tower that wasn't really working out. Instead of just cutting it or letting it go unaddressed, we got around a whiteboard and discussed what made the tower unique and how we could keep that element. At the end, we had completely redesigned two towers. No meetings were scheduled. No formal change requests were written. We exchanged ideas collaboratively until we arrived at the right answer, and we made it happen.

This kind of cooperation and these thought processes are what enable us to create games we are proud of.  I knew we were on the road to achieving this goal with Defense Grid when we all started competing with each other for better scores and breaking down strategy on a whiteboard to be better at our own game.   The team dynamics have really helped build a great game experience.