Solar Showdown

About this game

Welcome to Solar Showdown

This is Solar Showdown - an edge-of-your-seat couch competitive game where you take on the roles of a farmer and a botanist, both harvesting solar power to build defenses and produce minions to attack your opponent's towers.

With a variety of strategic options at your disposal, from defensive turrets to shields, the key to victory lies in generating enough solar power to outpace your rival and activate your base's ultimate weapon.

Will you focus on building an impenetrable fortress, or unleash a swarm of minions to overwhelm your opponent? The choice is yours in this high-stakes battle for dominance.

Gather your friends and get ready to engage in intense 2-player action as you compete to blow up your opponent and claim victory in Solar Showdown!

What is Solar Showdown?

Solar Showdown is a 2-player competitive game with RTS and Tower Defense elements. It requires 2 controllers to play local multiplayer.

A BYU Center for Animation Capstone Project

This project was planned, developed, and tested over the course of a little less than a year, completely through student work. We are proud of what we were able to accomplish in that time period. However, please note that Solar Showdown is not representative of a complete game. Additionally, many of the students who worked on this have moved on to other coursework, internships, or jobs, meaning future work on this game after release is unlikely. While what we have released showcases the core mechanics and gameplay features we wanted in our game, it may contain bugs, optimization problems, and other issues that impact the overall experience. We appreciate your understanding and your feedback.

Latest news

• Announcements·14 Jun 2023Official

  Solar Showdown is out now!

  Hello everybody, we're proud to be releasing Solar Showdown and the Solar Showdown OST! Over the last couple months, not only did we do a lot of optimization and bug fixes, but we also created several new maps and a new play mode called Polar Showdown! Grab some friends and controllers and pull up the game to check out the changes and end result of our work! A big thank you to all who helped us playtest in preparation for this release! It wouldn't be this good without your contributions. Another big thank you to everyone in the BYU Center for Animation for helping guide our efforts and giving us the chance to create this! And last, we want to thank you for checking out our game, and we hope that you have a blast playing Solar Showdown!
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• Patch Notes·22 May 2023Official

  Update - Bug Fixes and Optimization

  Hey all, We've been hard at work over the last few weeks ironing out bugs that have been found in playtesting, cleaning up the graphics and effects, optimizing the code, and when they can, working on some new content! A lot of the FX have seen updates, tweaks, and reworks to make them less resource intensive and to improve visual clarity. Similar changes have taken place with lighting and shadows. On the backend, much has been rewritten into C++, which has helped the game to run more smoothly. Many of the bugs that were previously present have been patched, and work is continuously being put in to squash whatever bugs remain, and to get us to a bug-free state. Last, we've got a new map being worked on, and a couple new game mechanics that come with! No spoilers yet, but we'll have more word for you on that in a couple weeks. Thank you to those who have helped playtest! Your input has been and continues to be invaluable. We look forward with anticipation and eagerness to the full release, - The Solar Showdown Development Team
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• Announcements·4 May 2023Official

  Competitions, Playtesting, and More!

  Hello All! With the end of the semester, much of our team has parted ways, going on to jobs, new coursework, and internships across the country. Those of us who are still here are working hard to prepare Solar Showdown for entry into various competitions this summer. The first comes up this June, shortly after which we plan on releasing the game for all to play. Until then, we plan on doing more playtesting as we push out balance tweaks, bug fixes, and a graphical update or two. Playtesting was recently added to our store page, and 16 of you registered to help us. We have no way to tell who you are, but we love you and appreciate your willingness to help. Unforunately, due to the constraints of the competitions and the desires of the department, we are reverting to using the Steam Key format for playtesting, as they provide more control. With a key, we knopw who is participating, as well as having an easier time setting expectations and making clear restrictions on what playtesters allowed to do with the game and key. We hope that those who were interested before will still be willing to help us now! If anyone reading this is interested in helping us to playtest over these next couple weeks, please approach anyone you know who is working on the game and ask them to get a key for you. We look forward to your feedback as we work to make Solar Showdown truly great! - The Solar Showdown Development Team
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