During the planning stages of Eiffel Tower Defence I created a rough timeline I will be attempting to stick to. This being the first week of production I followed the timeline and created the assets for the enemies, turrets and the Eiffel Tower. I also sourced a cobble background from Itch.io (BTL games, 2020. Available online: https://btl-games.itch.io/topdown).

Firstly I made a slight change from my original plan. When I searched for any imagery for the early German tanks I found very limited resources which I could use. Eventually I decided I would use the free to play game ‘Warthunder’ as my source material; Gaijin Entertainment (2016) Warthunder [Video Game] . This is because the game provided highly detailed models of which I could easily capture a top down view. However as the game does not feature a model of a Panzer 1 tank I instead changed this to be a Pz.35t Tank.

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After I had sourced my images to base my designs off I recreated them using paper at first and then creating them in Adobe Illustrator before exporting them as a PNG file. Ready to be used as in game assets. I used different shades of grey, given how they were the colours mostly used by the Nazi military except on the tiger asset. This was because the most famous images of the tiger tank inclosing the one used as reference show it in a pale beige colour and as this asset if for the highest level enemy I thought some visual distinction would work well.

After I had my enemy assets completed I turned my attention to the other assets needed for the game. I needed a Eiffel Tower asset as well as three anti tank turret assets and an anti aircraft turret asset. Again, the biggest issue I found with this task was finding suitable top down views of the subjects. In the planning documentation I listed the names of the different French artillery models sourced from the game ‘Hearts of Iron IV’; Paradox Development Studio (2016) Hearts of Iron IV [Video game.

The issue was a lack of top down images of these turrets. In the end I decided i would make generic top down turrets and simply use the names for the turret designs I created.

I found it difficult to create assets that fit with my asset art style while also managing the size so as to not make them take up too much room on the game board. I used subtle differences to make the different turrets appear visually varied. Different colours, sized complexity gives an impression of improving technology as the war progressed. With the AA turret asset the most important thing for me was to make it perfectly square, this was to make sure that they didn’t take up too much room on the player board.

I am going to use these generic turret designs for my game, only using the names sourced to inform the player of the different turrets used by the French military in WW2.

Next I had to find an appropriate image I could use a base for my Eiffel Tower Asset. This was in a way the most important asset I had to create, as it is the object the player will be defending throughout the entire game. Again, it was a struggle to find an appropriate image of the tower for me to use. While I could find plenty of images taken from the top of the tower looking down I could only find one drone image which showed the entire tower in a top down fashion.

Trying to recreate this design of the Eiffel tower was very difficult in a 2d manner. The Eiffel Tower is a very complex design which would easily become overly complex considering the final design is quite small. Also it was very difficult to draw the top of the tower. Given how the peak of the Eiffel tower is a spike to draw a spike coming straight at the viewer proved quite challenging.

This is the design I finished with. I ultimately think it was more important to make a shape that was interesting and close enough to the real Eiffel Tower that the player would recognise it. If I had tried to do a like for like recreation I would have ended with an overly complex design that distracted the player. As is I think the design to be attractive enough that the player wont mind staring at it throughout the game.

At this stage I had all the assets I needed. The only thing left was the background. I had originally planned to have the background resemble that found in the sourced picture above but thought that it wouldn’t work with the mechanics of my game.

The enemies in my game are not going to follow a set route to the tower. They will instead aim straight for it. This is so the player can funnel the enemies through strategic placement of their turrets. This however meant that having a background with streets and trees in it simply wouldn’t look professional enough.

I decided to source a background block of a repeating patter which wouldn’t be distracting to the player. I found a free copyright free pack of 2d home tile sets, (BTL games, 2020), from this pack I will be using the repeating brick texture to give the player an impression that they are looking down at a cobblestone gathering area outside the Eiffel tower. I feel like this will work better with the enemy mechanics and not make the player screen overly complex.

Reference List:

BTL games, 2020. Available at: https://btl-games.itch.io/topdown [Accessed 08/11/2020]

Gaijin Entertainment (2016) Warthunder [Video Game]. Available online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/236390/War_Thunder/ [Accessed 08/11/2020]

Paradox Development Studio (2016) Hearts of Iron IV [Video game]. Paradox Interactive. Available online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/394360/Hearts_of_Iron_IV/ [Accessed 08/11/2020]

u/alfi7 (2019) [Reddit Post]. Available online: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/c7rdj7/birdseye_view_of_the_eiffel_tower/ [Accessed 08/11/2020]