Well, I wanted to release a final version of Mario TD, but it's been long enough that I figured I'd better release what I have so far. There are quite a few changes since the last version I posted. I'm probably missing some features but here are at least a few of the things that have changed:
Easy/Hard modes - I was getting feedback that the game was too hard. I didn't want to just make the whole game easier since I figured that in the future people would complain that it was too easy. So I made a hard and an easy mode. The game plays the same in both modes, but you get more money in the easy mode.
Pausing at the beginning of each level - You now have as long as you want at the beginning each level before starting. So you don't have to hurry and plunk down all your stuff before the bad guys come. You can actually take a minute to think about it.
More levels - Rebecca made a couple of new levels. We've added them in and added some new enemies for some of them. It reminded me again that I should have done the enemies differently. Oh, well. Version 2, right?
Instructions - There are instructions now! Hurray! Now you can find out how to play the game. There's a button on the start screen that will show the instructions or if you wait for long enough on the start screen the instructions will show. I think I covered all the basics, but if I missed anything that you think should be in there let me know.
Sound and music - Everything has sound now. Well, pretty much everything has sound. I think I might add one or two other sounds and maybe change one or two, but the sounds are pretty much done. The bigger deal is that all the levels have new music. For some of them (especially the desert level) that makes the music MUCH more bearable. Some of the music are nice MP3 remixes and the rest are fairly high quality MIDIs. I think some of the tracks are great. If you know who arranged any of the music, could you please send me their contact info? Thanks.
Better ending - The ending was originally pretty lame. You basically got an image saying you won. It's now a little more exciting than that. Not hugely more exciting, but definitely more exciting. I like to just sit and watch the ending and listen to the music. But I am weird that way, so don't take my word for it.
Integrated settings - The settings are now embedded in the executable, so it's a little trickier to hack customize the game. When you start up the game it will still look for a settings.xml file and if it finds one it will load it. If it doesn't find one then it uses the built in settings. That way in the future when I make the level editor more usable I can release it and people can make their own levels.
Play testing - Pretty much all of the levels and enemies have been tweaked in terms of game play. So I know the whole game is doable, even on hard. Thanks to Mat and Aaron for play testing stuff!
Like I said, I probably forgot something, but that at least gives you an idea why I haven't posted a new version sooner. There are still a few things I want to tweak on this version before it's "finished", but they're not things that will change the actual game too much (unless of course I get a lot of feedback from this version about things I need to change). So hopefully I'll be able to release a 1.0 version soon. We'll see though. But enough talk, here's the download link:
Download Mario TD v0.9.8.0
(Editor's note: v0.9.8.0 of Mario TD is not currently available.)
I of course have to put in some screenshots too
You can see the startup screen looks a little different now. You can pick the difficulty and show the instructions. Sorry these screen shots don't look as cool as the others. I'm taking the screen shots on my XP machine instead of my Vista machine, so things don't look quite as cool
This is one of the new levels. There are two other new levels too.
As always, let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions.
P.S. As more evidence that my blogging software is rubbish, it's been putting large spaces on the first post it displays making people have to scroll a lot before actually being able to read anything. I'm going to see what I can do to get rid of it, but sorry for all the time it was there. Needless to say, I'm going to get rid of my current blogging software as soon as I can.