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Paul Preece, creator Desktop TD
GameCouch: So who is Paul Preece?
Paul: ASL? ;) i’m 34 years old and I live in the UK with my wife and young son. I have a degree in comp sci and have a full time job programming in VB. I like chocolate for breakfast.
GC: Desktop Tower Defense is an homage to Warcraft 3’s tower defense maps. What did you like about those and what about them inspired you to make this game?
Paul: I have always wanted to make games, don’t most people? But it wasn’t until a friend of mine, Dave Scott, created Element TD that I saw the potential of flash games as a platform. My favourite TD’s were always the ones that let you build your own maze and I felt that ability would make DTD sufficiently different to Element TD to stand apart.
GC: One of the things that always interests me in game design is balancing. How did you figure out creep hit points vs money earned vs tower upgrades?
Paul: Virtually everything in the game is mathematically generated (levels, creep properties, towers) this allowed me to create a spreadsheet that showed all the stats for the items and allowed me to tweak the numbers by changing a few parameters. But that only went part of the way. A key aspect of the game was how the towers would work together. I wanted the towers to allow many different types of playing style without a single one becoming dominant. I also wanted to create as long a learning curve as I could. To do all of that required creating as many different types of synergy as I could between the towers, the creeps, and the map. The most obvious example of this method is that nothing went into the game that didn’t have a counterpoint, for example the Typhoon Tower has easily the highest damage per second in the game but can be undone by ‘Group’ and ‘Spawn’ creeps, while Dart towers lap them up but have serious trouble with Boss levels etc etc.
GC: Currently, DTD is up to version 1.21. At what point will it be finished?
Paul: A question I am asking myself at the moment! I feel there is probably one more update to come before I work on a new version.
GC: Quoting your news page, “Games Played: 3.9 Million, Towers Built: 139 Million, Creeps Killed (my favourite stat!): 1.5 Billion, Global Playing Time: 86 Years.” Don’t you feel a little guilty?
Paul: For the creeps, or the for the people playing the game? :) I do feel a little guilty when I read on forums and in blogs that some people didn’t go to work, or missed doctor’s appointments, or failed exams because they were playing the game too much. Maybe I should put a warning on it…
GC: Seriously though, why do you think DTD is so appealing/addictive?
Paul: I have no idea, but I will try to sound like I do: I think the best games are those that allow players to express themselves, and their personalilty, in the game. You could take 50 DTD players and they would all play in quite distinct and separate ways. But on a less grand a scale, I think that the scoring system and the significant replayability of the game are two key qualities that make it ‘addictive’.
GC: With DTD being a phenomenon, have you been approached by commercial entities interested in purchasing DTD or wanting to use it in some other way?
Paul: I am currently in negotiations with a few companies that are interested in DTD.
GC: What’s next for DTD? Any exclusive info you’d like to throw our way? Maybe version 2.0 having a multiplayer component?
Paul: I am currently prototyping a multiplayer engine and I am very excited about creating multiplayer TD’s. Starting with DTD 2.0.
GC: What’s your take on the juggling controversy?
Paul: lol. This is probably the second most debated thing on the forums, after the ‘100′ challenge. I recognise it as a skill and I do not want to remove it from the game, but I have been trying to reduce the advantage it gives over non-jugglers.
GC: Finally, are you pretty good at this game? What modes do you like the most? Any strategies you’d recommend?
Paul: I’m a 6000+ player in normal mode – which would not get me on to the daily top 100 scoreboards :( Funnily enough I do not have time to play the game much as I am too busy writing code, optimising databases, posting on the forum and deleting bad scores! I do like the normal mode as it’s quick and doable in <10 mins. I am interested in trying out the new ‘fixed gold’ challenge modes I am working on tho ;)