Development update #8 - Towers!

Towers!

For those who have been following our Facebook page, we’ve been talking a lot about towers lately, and with good reason too! Towers are in many ways the most important armament in a Core Guardians disposal. They are the man-made machines programmed to be humanity’s only ally in LOEK III, the only thing standing between the Core Guardians and certain death.

If you’re going to make a tower defense game like Sanctum, towers will obviously have an extremely important role. When we first started developing Sanctum 2, we wanted to re-make old favorites from Sanctum 1 like the Lightning and the Gatling tower, but we also wanted to include all the awesome ideas we had for Sanctum 1 but never had the time or money to make. We want Sanctum 2 to generally feel bigger, better and more awesome than its predecessor, and giving players new and exciting ways of blasting, zapping and pummeling their enemies to red piles of gibs, meat and offal is a great way to start!

One of the first things players will notice is that we now have a new and more effective way of upgrading towers. For example, instead of having to pay 100 resources to upgrade a tower, players will be able to pool in money continuously to upgrade its stats. Towers still have levels, but if it costs 100 resources to upgrade a lightning tower from level 1 to level 2, and you only have 72 resources, you’ll be able to press and hold the left mouse button to “pool” your resources into the tower, and you’ll have a lightning tower that’s 72% upgraded from level 1 to level 2. This means that you’ll never have to start an action-phase with surplus money, as money can always be pooled into a tower to upgrade its stats! (Unless it’s maxed, of course)

The Focus Laser is a new tower to the Sanctum 2 lineup. It locks on to an enemy, and the longer it focuses on its target, the stronger and thicker it’s laser becomes. It’s the perfect tower for smashing through slow and heavy armored enemies, and most importantly, it looks extremely cool while doing it.

The Amp Spire is also a new tower in Sanctum 2. It functions as an energy beacon that increases the damage of all towers close to it. Upgrading it increases both the damage bonus and the range of the tower. We’ve been testing it at the office lately, and it can really give rise to very interesting strategies and maze layouts!

The Cannon Tower is maybe the most versatile tower in Sanctum 2. We showed it on our Facebook page a couple of weeks ago, but I think it's so awesome that I want to talk more about it! The canon tower is quite special, you see. On lower levels, it fires quick, light shots that are excellent in taking out small to medium-sized enemies. However, its range and attack damage is greatly increased when you upgrade it, but its fire rate is greatly lowered, which makes it less effective against small enemies, but much more effective against heavier ones. Deciding whether to build many smaller Cannon towers for quick and light damage, or to upgrade one into armor-smashing artillery piece will be very important for players who pick the Cannon tower in their setup!

That's all for now, have a lovely weekend everyone!

Kisses and hugs, 
Armin Ibrisagic