How to make a tower defense game
How to make a tower defense game with AI
Updated · Türkçe
Quick answer
Say what walks the path, what you place beside it and how many waves you must survive. Teleplay's tower defense builds handle paths, waves and placing towers, so that one sentence gives you a working game in the browser. Balance takes longer than the build, so plan to tune it.
Tower defense on Teleplay
A real prompt and what it decides
Grow mushroom wizards beside a winding forest trail and hold back 12 waves of armoured beetles and moths to save the glowing shrine.
This prompt made Sporelight Shrine
| Words | Decision made |
|---|---|
| "Grow mushroom wizards" | What a tower is, and that it fits the world |
| "beside a winding forest trail" | One long path with room on both sides |
| "12 waves" | A set length, so the game has an ending |
| "armoured beetles and moths" | Two enemy types: slow and tough, light and flying |
| "save the glowing shrine" | What you lose when they get through |
A balance checklist
- Can you win wave one with your starting money, without thinking hard?
- Is there at least one enemy your first tower is bad against?
- Does a good player end a wave with some money left to choose with?
- Does the last wave need more than one kind of tower?
- Does losing feel like your plan failed, rather than like the numbers jumped?
If an answer is no, use the sliders for quick experiments, then describe the fix in the editor, such as "beetles have less health in the first three waves".
Two ways to change the genre
Tower defense is older than any one game, so it is a safe genre to build on. It gets interesting when you change something basic. Let towers be moved mid-wave, for example, or let the path change between waves, or swap money for sunlight that only falls in part of the map. One change like that gives a game its own identity, and Teleplay makes it an original game with its own art, never a copy of an existing one's characters.
Questions
How many waves should I ask for?
Enough for a beginning, a middle and an end. Fewer, better waves are easier to balance than many thin ones.
Can towers be upgraded?
Ask for it in the sentence or the editor. Say what an upgrade changes: range, speed or damage.
Can enemies fly over the path?
Yes, if you describe them that way. A flying enemy that ignores the path is a good reason to need a second tower type.
Can friends defend together?
Choose With friends on Create and describe who does what. Rooms hold 2–4 players, in beta. Co-op tower defense is harder to balance, so start solo.