Jacob "SaltedSquid" Howe
Technical Game Designer
Tiny Toyfare
Project Status: Finished/Released
Platform: PC
Project Duration: ~5 Months
Tech: Unreal, Blueprints
Primary Role(s): Lead Programmer/Designer
Link: Steam Link
Tiny Toyfare is a tower defense strategy game where the player is able to construct towers and plush doll squads as well as possess towers to defeat waves of enemy dinosaurs in basic household environments altered by children’s imagination.
I was the programming lead of this game in charge of three other programmers to make sure tasks were finished on time and with quality. I delegated tasks to each of them where I felt their skills would best shine while taking the tasks that were left over.

Towers
The towers were designed to take care of different types of enemies. The flame tower was for lots of small fast enemies that would run by with continuous damage overtime. The Cannon tower was good for damage against stronger enemies with more health. The snow globe was good for crowd control and slowing enemies. The implementation of the towers AI was fairly simple as they would just focus on the furthest enemy along a path and keep focus on them until they were out of range or were defeated.
There were also squads which acted as more expendable buffs to towers. There were cheaper infantry which added extra defense and consistent damage over time and the snipers which excelled at long range slower damage. These squads were meant to be a balance of investment and return as their damage solely worked with how much health they had left. If they were strategically placed on towers that were in safer locations, players would end up losing more money than they gained. The logic and implementation was the same as towers though.
Towers also had upgrades to them. They were unique upgrades that would increase the damage of the tower and give them unique abilities to make them stand out further from one another. Rather than the towers being a one trick pony, the idea was to give them more capabilities and thus giving the player more choice in what they wished to invest their currency into. Should they upgrade towers at the risk of losing larger investments, spread out towers for large amounts of weaker towers and sacrifice them, or use the low cost expendable squads to buff and defend their more expensive towers.


FPS Tower Mode
One of the more unique features was an ability for the player to temporarily take control of a tower directly. This allowed them to man a tower in a First-Person perspective and control it like a turret. This also would give a power boost to the damage and fire-power of the tower. There was a decent cooldown to the ability and the tower could be destroyed while using it. It was meant as a good way for players to interact directly during waves instead of waiting and watching for more money to come in. The ability also helped players focus on stronger enemies instead of relying on the AI of the towers and handle difficult situations more easily.
The implementation was just a simple state swap that changed the user from an overhead perspective to a FPS styled mode. Aside from the snow globe (which was an AOE ring affect normally), the actually fire function of the towers remained very similar which made it easier to reuse.


Player Abilities
The player had 4 abilities that they could call upon at the cost of some money. They helped in different situations such as calling jacks from the sky to take out a group of enemies or freeze pops to stop all enemies in place for a bit.
There was also a tower shield that protected towers as well as a squad damage buff. These were all meant as a worst case scenario as the player would spend money that they could have used for towers and squads in situations where building another tower wouldn't cut it. It helped when the player had overall failed with their placement of towers and squads but allowed them to delay the issue long enough to eventually rectify the situation and hopefully make a come back.
Overuse of the ability would mean that they would eventually run out of resources and not be able to handle the next wave so overuse was not recommended.


Other
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UI
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Team Management
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Tower Upgrade Menu
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Main Menu/Level Select
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Win/Lose State