Bacteria Tower Defense Blog

BTD v.078 Changes

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:13:44 +0000

Got some responses from some players and made some changes. Added score bonuses for beating modes which have the special features included. You get:

+ 2500 for Creep Damage
+1500 for Fog of War
+1000 for Situations

Also changed the tower projectiles so that they continue towards the last known enemy position if the enemy is destroyed by another tower (before, it just disappeared).

Sensor towers also take damage now but start with more life than regular towers (and also get more life with each upgrade). Keep an eye on those towers - if one gets knocked out, you’ll have some serious work to do!

Full-Featured Version is Released! (BTD v.077)

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:15:33 +0000

Bacteria Tower Defense v0.77 is finally out! This is the first full-featured release which contains both the original (Basic) mode well as an Advanced mode which has the Fog of War, Creep Damage, and Situations features. There is also a Custom mode which lets you pick and choose which features you like to play with. Each mode can be played on Easy, Normal, Hard, or Random difficulty.

As requested, the original high scores tables for the previous versions before this release are still up and is connected to the Basic mode. The Advanced and Custom modes have brand new high score tables. Be the first to post a high score!

As usual, all comments and ideas are welcome!

Note: Updates to the in-game instructions will be made to explain the new features. The How To Play page on this site will also be updated in a bit.

Practicing for Real Life - Neutropenia and Antibiotic Allergies

admin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:47:18 +0000

Doctors are often faced with difficult situations where patients are so sick that their immune system doesn’t work. Sometimes, patients have allergies to the antibiotic of choice. Therefore doctors need to be familiar with second and third-line agents for treatment of various diseases.

To emulate these situations, Bacteria Tower Defense v.075 now has “environmental conditions”. Periodically through the game, the patient will enter “neutropenic” mode where the white blood cell towers stop working for a while. You’ll have to rely on antibiotics to help your patient through these times (something oncologist often need to do in order to treat their cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy). Note that using WBC Stim will not help during the “neutropenic” periods as the WBC towers are non-functional.

The game will also cycle through periods where the patients have allergies to particular antibiotic classes (common ones). Just like the neutropenic periods, during these “allergy phases”, antibiotic towers that belong to the indicated antibiotic class will not function. Make sure you diversify your pharmacy enough to handle these situations!

Keep an eye on the environmental conditions indicator below the patient. It’ll tell you how many seconds of each particular phase is left. Time the waves of bacteria well to maximize your firepower.

Stay tuned for upcoming features!

WBC Stim Feature Added

admin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:51:55 +0000

The WBC Stim feature has been added to the most current version of BTD (v.073), which is available on the main page. Clicking this button supercharges your White Blood Cell towers so that they do 10X the damage. However, this effect only lasts for 5 seconds so you’ll have use it wisely. You get one FREE WBC Stim at the beginning of the game. Additional WBC Stims start costing money and go up in price. Save it for you really need it…it can really get you out of a jam!

The next release will have some new gameplay features as well (Fog of War, and damage to your towers by the bacteria, among others). Stay tuned!

Fog of War Beta - BTD v.068

admin — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:35:33 +0000

Being true to the history of tower defense games coming from games like Warcraft and Starcraft, BTD will be implementing the “Fog of War” feature. This will not only alter the way you design your maze, but also the way you build it. Check it out here - BTD v.068

Basically, fog of war means that your towers (and you) can’t see the bacteria unless they are in range of a “sensor” tower. You can’t see the gram stains/morphology and you also can’t fire at them. So, be sure to design your map to accomodate the most efficient usage of these critical towers.

Right now, BTD v.068 implements Fog of War in beta mode. It is selectable via a checkbox on the difficulty menu. Beating the game with it on gives you 1500 bonus points. In this implementation, you can see the life bars for the creep so you’ll at least know that enemies are coming.

Any thoughts or comments about this feature (or anything else) are welcome!

Maps and Formularies are Now Viewable

admin — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:00:24 +0000

I finally got around to working on the BTD website a bit and put in some new features. You can now compare formularies (pharmacies) for the different high scores easily. The selected antibiotics are sorted and color coded according to the classification they belong to. To see the actual name of the antibiotic, just hover your mouse over the appropriate colored square.

You can also see other high score maps. Just click on the score and a new window will pop up with a rendition of the high scoring map. Again, hover your mouse over the desired colored square to show the tower name.

If you have any problems viewing the maps, please let me know by leaving a comment below. Thanks!

BTD v.065 Released

admin — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:53:32 +0000

A few minor improvements in this release. Due to popular demand, a “grid guide” is now available during game play to help you plan your tower layout. Press “G” or click on the “Grid” button next to your pharmacy to toggle it on and off.

Also, there is a small example maze now available in the “How To Play” tutorial. Not the greatest maze but enough to get you started.

Game Difficulty Level Updates

admin — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:54:53 +0000

After hearing back from some players, I’ve added some more waves of fun for the normal and hard difficulties. Easy mode has the original 50 waves. Normal now has a total of 60 waves (50 old + 10 new) and Hard has 70 waves (50 old + 20 new).

Also, there have some tweaks to the towers stats themselves. White blood cells are a bit more powerful when upgraded fully. To give the bacteria a fighting chance (and to reduce the amount of slow down in the later stages), the bacteriostatic antibiotic towers slowing ability has been pared back a bit.

A few bug fixes have been made as well:
1. The wave timer doesn’t (shouldn’t) freeze anymore while playing.
2. The next button now disappears when the last wave has been sent.

If you find any bugs, please report them in the comments section below.

Bacteria Tower Defense Launched!

admin — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:13:45 +0000

Today is the official launch date of the first public version of Bacteria Tower Defense (BTD v.064). After months of hard work, it’s finally ready. I hope you find it enjoyable and useful!

There are bunch of features that are planned for future releases. Keep up to date by subscribing to the BTD RSS News Feed.

Like BTD? Donations to support development are appreciated!

Want a customized version of Bacteria Tower Defense for your hospital or location (custom antibiogram)? Leave a comment or e-mail comments@bacteriatd.com

If you would like a BTD-like game for your industry/field, please e-mail comments@bacteriatd.com