Tower Defense Game Research Articles

InfecBlock: Investigating the Effects of a Tower-Defense Serious Game for Increasing Epidemic-Related Health Literacy

Serious game can potentially improve social awareness and health literacy related to the epidemic, where interactivity, such as strategic game elements, could play a crucial role in increasing learning engagement and motivation. In this paper, we present the user study of InfecBlock, a tower-defense game designed to facilitate individual users to acquire public health knowledge related to coronavirus disease and epidemic prevention. We employed a between-subject experiment design and collected a variety of quantitative data to examine players’ learning outcomes, engagement, and emotional responses. Our results confirmed the effectiveness of InfecBlock in improving learning performance and highlighted its potential to facilitate a more engaged and enjoyable learning experience. We discussed a set of implications for designing tower-defense serious games for supporting the improvements of public health literacy.

Using a NEAT approach with curriculums for dynamic content generation in video games

This paper presents a novel exploration of the use of an evolving neural network approach to generate dynamic content for video games, specifically for a tower defence game. The objective is to employ the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) technique to train a NEAT neural network as a wave manager to generate enemy waves that challenge the player’s defences. The approach is extended to incorporate NEAT-generated curriculums for tower deployments to gradually increase the difficulty for the generated enemy waves, allowing the neural network to learn incrementally. The approach dynamically adapts to changes in the player’s skill level, providing a more personalised and engaging gaming experience. The quality of the machine-generated waves is evaluated through a blind A/B test with the Games Experience Questionnaire (GEQ), and results are compared with manually designed human waves. The study finds no discernible difference in the reported player experience between AI and human-designed waves. The approach can significantly reduce the time and resources required to design game content while maintaining the quality of the player experience. The approach has the potential to be applied to a range of video game genres and within the design and development process, providing a more personalised and engaging gaming experience for players.

Playful PHI: Using Cognitive Behavioral Game Design (CBGD) to Create a COVID-19 Prevention Game, Vaccine Nation

During the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists and public health organizations such as the CDC and the WHO promoted health guidelines to the public. However, social media misinformation, social stigma, and a drastic change in lifestyle lead to reduced compliance or non-compliance with these measures. As a result, playful public health messaging emerged as an attempt to increase health literacy around Covid-19 preventative practices, one of which was the tower defense game, Vaccine Nation. This article outlines the design principles of Cognitive Behavioral Game Design (CBGD) and how they were used to design the tower-defense game Vaccine Nation, incorporating recommended health interventions including isolating, hand hygiene, social distancing, wearing masks, and eventually getting vaccinated.

Tower Defense Game Design based on Unity3D

In today's society, with the rapid development of computer technology, personal computers have been integrated into our lives, and computer games have become a way of entertainment for people. Among them, tower defense games, as a branch of strategy games, have also been loved by the majority of players. On the computer game download platform, such as Steam's download list, you can also see all kinds of excellent tower defense games listed, such as “Bloom TD” and “Plants vs. Zombies”. However, in recent years, most tower defense games lack innovation, and the level game play is monotonous. Players are beginning to get tired of the gameplay of classic tower defense games, and their popularity has begun to decline. In order to solve this problem, this article is based on the Unity3D game engine, combined with the characteristics of UGC and RTS games, and made some innovations to the classic tower defense games. According to the actual needs, a tower defense game called “The Rise of The Tribes” was developed. The main work of this paper is to analyze and design The game, realize The switching between The three scenes in The game and each interface, and solve how to build buildings, how to defend defensive buildings, and how to deploy and move soldiers and attack, how to generate, collect and consume resources, completed The debugging and testing of The game, summarized the development process and made an outlook on how to improve the game.

Procedural Content Generation pada Game Tower Defense menggunakan Perlin Noise dan Algoritma Floyd Warshall

To distinguish each level, tower defense games require map design, enemy travel routes, and enemy wave designs. Manually designed designs require a lot of effort and time. To overcome this problem, procedural content generation is used to create maps automatically. Not all content can be created automatically, the content designed in this research includes portal design, tower design, enemy design, and tile design. The Map is created automatically using Perlin Noise to determine the type of tiles on the map. To produce a playable map in accordance with the minimum distance requirement of 45 tiles, the position of the player portal and enemy portal need to be checked using the Floyd-Warshall algorithm. The test results show that after 100 attempts, 25 trials need to be repeated because the distance between the portals does not meet the requirements. The average map creation time is 0.99 seconds. The enemy waves on each map also vary from the number of each type and the order in which the enemies come out.

Tower Defense Game based on 2D Grid Using Goal-Based Pathfinding Method

Tower Defense Game based on 2D Grid Using Goal-Based Pathfinding Method

Comparison of Flow Field and A-Star Algorithm for Pathfinding in Tower Defense Game

Tower Defense is a game genre that uses a pathfinding algorithm. Pathfinding is a way to find a path from one point to another; pathfinding itself has many variants with different scenarios. One of these algorithms is the A-Star algorithm, a well- known and commonly used method for game pathfinding. Another algorithm is the Flow Field algorithm, which is an algorithm that is not widely known and has become the topic in this following research. This research will be carried out by comparing the time required by both algorithms to reach the target point from starting point, and time comparison will be carried out in 3 different scenarios. The result of the research is that the Flow Field algorithm reaches the target faster than A-Star Pathfinding in every scenario carried out in the simulation. This research concludes that the Flow Field algorithm can compete with the A-Star algorithm to find paths in the Tower Defense game.

Comparison of Flow Field and A-Star Algorithm for Pathfinding in Tower Defense Game

Comparison of Flow Field and A-Star Algorithm for Pathfinding in Tower Defense Game

MimicA: A Framework for Self-Learning Companion AI Behavior

We explore fully autonomous companion characters within the context of Real Time Strategy games. Non-player Characters that are controlled by Artificial Intelligence to some degree, have been a feature of Role Playing games for decades. But RTS games rarely have a player avatar, and thus no real companions. The universe of RTS games where both an avatar and a companion character exist is small. Most friendly RTS units are semi-autonomous at best, requiring player micromanagement of their behavior. We present MimicA, a real-time framework to govern AI companion behavior by modeling that of the current player. Built for the Unity engine, MimicA is a learn-by-demonstration framework that differs from existing practices in that the behavior is fully autonomous, does not rely on previous modeling exercises and is designed to be generalized and extensible. We analyze and discuss MimicA through a thirty person user study with our own demonstration game, Lord of Towers. We find that 22 out of 30 participants (73%) indicate they enjoyed the game, and this self-reported enjoyment was on par with “traditional tower defense games”. 63% agree that MimicA controlled NPCs are doing what the player would do while 20% disagree. Similarly, 53% realize the NPCs are learning from the player while 20% do not. We also show that NPC with underlying Decision Tree and Naive Bayes algorithms are better than KNN in making the player realize the learning nature of the NPC.

Strategic Tower Defence Game

This research is based on intelligent strategy game known as Tower Defence in which players have to make strategic decisions to defend their tower from their enemies. This an interesting game where people can test their wits. In this game the players can build and upgrade their tower to prevent higher damage from enemies. This game requires quick strategic decisions and is fun to play. There are wide array of weapons/equipments that the player can access by using earning points. This game is developed by using Unity platform using C#. This game is easy and understandable as compare to other tower defence games available in market and can be played by players of all age. This intelligent strategy game is highly competitive and will help sharpen your brain too.

PEMBUATAN GAME ARCADE “CITY PROTECTOR” DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN TOUCH GESTURE RECOGNIZER

City Protector is an Arcade Tower Defense Game with endless element. This game implements touch gesture recognizer feature. This game is developed with Unity game engine and playable in Android-based smartphone. To kill zombies, players must draw the symbols contained in the explosives that brought by zombies. Testing is done by blackbox testing, alpha testing, and beta testing through a survey of 32 respondents. The results indicate that City Protector has interesting features and gameplay concepts. It is provides new experiences because the Touch Gesture Recognizer feature is rarely found in general.

Android arcade game “City Protector” with Touch Gesture Recognizer

City Protector is an Arcade Tower Defense Game with endless element. This game implements touch gesture recognizer feature. This game is developed with Unity game engine and playable in Android-based smartphone. To kill zombies, players must draw the symbols contained in the explosives that brought by zombies. Testing is done by blackbox testing, alpha testing, and beta testing through a survey of 32 respondents. The results indicate that City Protector has interesting features and gameplay concepts. It is provides new experiences because the Touch Gesture Recognizer feature is rarely found in general.

Optimising the tower-defense games with advanced local cultural content and a greedy algorithm

The aims of our games is preserving the local culture of Madura island that many people may have left behind. By utilizing mobile technology that is currently growing rapidly, it is expected that the promotion of local cultural content can be more effective. The game-based application is an attractive media with fun content, so it is normally more easy to attract interest and to be familiar with people. Our contribution is to participate in the campaign of familiarization of local wisdom to re-establish the living tradition of regional cultural values as a national identity. Save The Madura Island game is a strategy game which carries out the Madura culture theme. The app allows players to learn Madurese culture happily by playing a game. Save The Madura Island game is inspired by tower-defense games and uses a greedy algorithm as artificial intelligence which is inserted in character of defense to help the character of defense in determining which enemy is more effective to be attacked first. From the experiments, it was concluded that the use of greedy algorithms in the application proved effective in helping reduce the number of enemies who escaped, which decreased from 41.8% to 30.4%.

Engaging Students in a Peer‑Quizzing Game to Encourage Active Learning and Building a Student‑Generated Question Bank

Games are a great source of entertainment and are used by people of all ages; they motivate and engage people and affect their behavior. Therefore, games have been widely studied in many non‑game contexts. Education is one of those areas where gamified, and game‑based learning strategies have been implemented and explored. To engage and motivate students to quiz each other, and as a side effect, build a question bank, as well as to study the gaming and learning behavior of students, we used a peer‑quizzing game called "Tower of Questions" (ToQ). The game uses some themes and mechanics found in tower defense (TD) games. The students received points for posing and answering the questions in the game in the form of gems. Students played the game with pseudonyms for one academic term and were told not to disclose their identities to anyone. We conducted a 3‑month long study for two consecutive years in the same first‑year undergraduate computer science course. In this paper, we present the findings from our studies using ToQ, specifically findings related to the students’ self‑monitoring and quizzing activities based on the game logs and two self‑reported surveys from data collected in the second year of the study.

Pemanfaatan Game Tower Defense Sebagai Media Edukasi Digital

Game is an activity that cannot be separated from human life because human beings are playing. The growth of digital game on a smartphone rapidly and widely available in the available online which is a service provider of digital applications and games. The existence of digital games on smartphones is an application shall be owned by user that is used as a partnership be, a pastime, and as medium of education. Educational activities are learning activities and receive information on a person directly or indirectly. The information provided on recipient's are knowledge or limited a short message. Tower defense game is one kind of games that can be used as education to the recipient. With structure analysis method, elements of education on tower defense games will be analyzed to be known by both the educational element.

Analysis of Mobile App Revenue Models Used in the most Popular Games of the Tower Defense Genre on Google Play

This paper analyzes the revenue models of the most popular games of the Tower Defense genre on Google Play. A special look is taken at the quantitative distribution of the app sale model and the free model in terms of quality and download numbers. Additionally, this paper considers the qualitative implementation of the “free” model in the most popular games. First, the usual revenue models of mobile apps will be discussed and then the Tower Defense genre will be explained. Following that, the quantitative distribution of revenue models and an analysis of the most popular apps’ respective revenue models will be addressed. The analysis also identifies and explains two modifications of established revenue models. The most popular revenue model for mobile apps in the Tower Defense genre are in-app purchases. This distinguishes the genre from many other genres and games. A wide range of Tower Defense games utilizes the revenue models app sale and free. It becomes apparent that revenue models for mobile apps must be analyzed and considered specifically for their respective sector, and that no single promising revenue model for apps exists.

Creating a Circular Tower Defense Game: Development and Game Experience Measurement of Orbital Defense X

In this paper, we propose a new style of tower defense game by using the circular placement of the tower. In this game, dubbed Orbital Defense X, the player must protect the earth with a circle of defensive tower circled around it. The game is developed using game development lifecycle from initiation phase through alpha version. To test the quality of the developed game, we measure the game experience using game experience questionnaire. The questionnaire is divided into three: core, social presence, and post-game questionnaire. The results show that male participant gains a significantly higher score than female participants. Overall, the game experience is received better by the male participant in the core and social presence components, with an average score of 2,27 vs 1,92 and 2,15 vs 1,86. However, in post-game experience, the female participant scores higher with 2,15 vs 1,95. The participant that previously played another tower defense game gave score more in the core, social presence, and post-game experience than the participant that haven’t played it before. Their score is 1,93 vs 2,37 in core, 1,67 vs 2,39 in social presence, and 2,07 vs 1,91 in post-game experience. The result also suggests for more attention in the challenge regarding the enemies (variety and difficulty) rather than more complex tower management system. The social ranking also suggested by the participant to improve the overall experience of this game.

Evaluating Photoplethysmogram as a Real-Time Cognitive Load Assessment during Game Playing

ABSTRACTAccurate evaluation for user experience during computer game playing is very important in optimizing game design to improve the gaming experience. When evaluating user experiences, the concept of cognitive load is crucial for dynamically responding to game players’ mental status. In our former studies, the photoplethysmogram (PPG)-based Stress-Induced Vascular Response Index (sVRI) shows better sensitivity and reliability in measuring cognitive loads compared with heart-rate variation, blood pressure, and galvanic skin response. In this study, we use memory matrixes and Pop Cap’s tower defense game Plants vs. Zombies as cognitive tasks and use sVRI to assess players’ cognitive load dynamically during the real-time computer games. Evaluations on cognitive tasks verified the usability of sVRI in comparison with other indexes derived from PPG, such as heartbeat interval, area under curve, digital pulse amplitude, reflection index, and inflection point area ratio. Our findings indicate the potential of sVRI for assessing game players’ mental workload in real time.

The perception of control as a predictor of emotional trends during gameplay

The present study investigated the effect of perceived control on trends of discrete achievement emotions during learning using a tower defense game designed for teaching human liver functionalities. A total of 124 students (Mage = 22.89 years; SDage = 3.01 years; 54.8% female) were randomly assigned to play one of three game versions (high, moderate or reduced control condition). The perception of control and achievement emotions, namely enjoyment, boredom, anger, and frustration, were assessed via questionnaire after each of three rounds of gameplay. Overall, autoregressive model analysis results revealed a significant relationship between control perception and each emotion in every round of play. Moreover, a closer look at the different game versions revealed significant interactions between game versions and rounds of play for control perception and for each of the four emotions. Compared to students in the game version with reduced control, students in the high and moderate control game version reported a higher perception of control and enjoyment and lower frustration and anger. However, these effects were not persistent over time of gameplay, which indicated an increase in gameplay competencies. As both the perception of control and discrete emotions dynamically change over time, an auto-dynamic adaptation of provided control to the actual changes and needs of players is a consideration for future research.

User eXperience Management from Early Stages of Computer Game Development

The video game industry is becoming increasingly important due to its revenues and growing capabilities. User eXperience (UX) is an important factor which contributes to the acceptance of a video game. The UX is usually assessed at the end of the development process, and for this reason it is difficult to ensure an adequate level of interactive experience between computer game and players. Cancelation of projects or even bankruptcy of a company can be caused by bad management of UX. In this paper, we propose the game experience management (GEM), a method to evaluate, manage, measure and track the UX from early stages of computer game development. In order to compare the proposal against a method comprised by conventional approaches, teams of master degree students were formed for developing six tower defense games for teaching basic multiplication operations; surveys were conducted to compare the UX of games. In this setting, we find that games developed with GEM significantly improve UX by increasing the puppetry and consequently reducing player frustration.