Greetings, I am Tomatoes Fried with Eggs, the sole developer of The Territory of Egg. As an IT practitioner, I make my own game independently in my spare time. I take it as my side hustle which is my greatest interest. Just like other solo indie game developer, I have done all the work by myself: Design, Art, Program…and therefore it took me one year to basically complete the development of The Territory of Egg. As the release is coming, I'd like to share my thoughts and ideas about the development journey. I hope this can help players learn more about my game and create a chance to learn from each other within indie game development community. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43711310/9185659e0fb4bdbc6ae4a02e74828ab75f1f7c62.jpg[/img] Tower defense is my favorite game genre and is also the genre I can handle by myself. It’s not a good idea for me to develop a complex game because I don't have relevant experience of art design and programming and I must learn from scratch. As a result, tower defense genre becomes the best choice. Since my first-time playing Plants vs. Zombies, I fell in love with tower defense games. After playing more tower defense games, I found that PvZ is not actually a traditional tower defense game ever. In traditional tower defense games like Kingdom Rush and Bloons TD, the towers are unable to be attacked by enemies. The core gameplay is how to make the most effective combo to deal the most damage. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43711310/95fc5efbd0772b403260ce1ca6d4c4c70bd4910d.jpg[/img] The mechanism that towers can be damaged and destroyed by enemies will bring a different experience. It combines the strategy of tower defense games and the element in RPG that you should keep the balance of attacking, defense and even healing. It is common in some base-building games and RTS but rare in tower defense genre. That’s why I set it as my direction. Another core element is the skill combos. I hope that players can enjoy their own build. In addition, I want to keep the gameplay casual to ease the burden of level design. The result is that each advanced egg has 6 optional skills but can only learn 3 skills at most. That means every tower has 20 skill combinations. Players are also encouraged to use different strategies in each game because of different evolution choices, enemy types, and tower locations. [url={STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43711310/35b1f089d86ad73a9249c8153a18dabd4485f36c.png][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43711310/0660f1a819562bc63b710c11543281363e658f2d.png[/img][/url] Besides two main mechanisms: towers that can be damaged and skill combos, there are some other features inspired by some excellent games. The minimalism style from Nanuleu, the endless mode from Mindustry and the mechanism of strong antagonistic (such as invisibility and nihility) from Bloons TD. There are also some roguelite elements in The Territory of Egg to apply randomization such as enemies’ spawn location. Certainly, it's almost impossible to implement all these ideas. It took me a lot of time improving and adjusting. Developing a game is not easy or simple. I've made quite a few compromises during development. For example, I must buy art resources from Unity asset shop and then reprocess them to fit for the game. There are times when you know that there is a better solution, but you can't implement it due to lack of capability. Although the game may not end up being what I envisioned, I hope it can bring joy to players. Thanks to my friend Fish Ball, who helped me optimize game art. I hope you can enjoy The Territory of Egg and your feedbacks are always welcomed. Please join our upcoming Discord server or Steam community if there is anything you want to tell us. Your support is my greatest strength, Thank you!