Page 1 of 1

My Inspiration and Creative process for my KR fanfic content

PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 3:28 am
by NastyBird339
So since were hopefully going to be doing larger tournaments that involve the discord and the forums, I wanted to share some things I use to get inspiration for my fanfic stuff and how I go about making it, so people aren't as intimidated by the whole process (Full Discretion: I’m not an expert on this and by no means the most qualified individual in terms of making fanfic content this just how I go about it and I wanted to share it so people could maybe have a starting point) (Also I wasn't sure where to post this so sorry if it throws the Mods for a loop)

So, I’ll be posting things related to my creations like what fictional mediums did I draw ideas from and all that fun stuff.
To start off with I want to list some general mediums of fiction that I find useful for getting ideas for heroes and tower design (and just KR content in general)

  1. Dungeon and Dragons
  2. Kingdom Rush(Obviously)
  3. World at Warcraft/Warcraft
  4. Lord of the Rings(The entire universe)
  5. Dota 2
  6. League of Legends
  7. Warhammer(Both 40k and Age of Sigmar)
  8. Mythology(Specifically the Greek and Norse mythos)
  9. Fantasy/Fiction Books (Ranger's Apprentice, Throne of Glass, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson to name a few)
  10. Star Wars

All of these are excellent sources of inspiration, indicated by the fact that the devs themselves have based some the content of KR of certain creatures from these fictional works (other than KR of course)

My Creative Process for Kingdom Rush Fanfic
(If your following this as a guide, substitute the "I" words with "you" words)

Step 1: What do I want to make
Alright so I want to make some KR content. Where do I start? Well the first step I take is quite simple, and it’s that I want to determine what type of KR content I want to make. Do I want to make a tower, a Hero/Villain, a Mini Campaign, a Shop keeper, or an entire new game? Whatever I decide it should be something I decide to do, otherwise I won’t have any interest in my project which will lead to unfinished work and wasted effort

Step 2: What do I want to base this on?
So I know what I want to design, but what do I want it to be? A corrupted cultist, a valiant knight, or A sheep that practices Ju-Jitsu? This is by the far the hardest step for me as there are so man options available to pick from. SO how do I go about this? I read other fictional works or play video games. The more I immerse myself in something the more I learn about it. This generally leads to me thinking “Hey that’d make a cool KR Hero” or something along those lines. And then I have some baseline knowledge about my concept and have a direction to go in

Step 2.5: Research
Depending on what I’m basing drawing inspiration from I may do a bit of research. For instance, on my redcap tower, I investigated the mythological background behind redcaps, and attempted to see what I could integrate into the design (Not much unfortunately, as they aren’t very fleshed out in mythology). This can help expedite the design process overall and make go smoother.

Step 3: I make my idea
This is a super broad step since this will vary greatly depending on what your actually making, but now Is where I’ll do the essential parts of the making whatever I’m making, whether it be writing lore, making stat blocks, or designing maps. Essentially this the part where I’ll fully create my idea and write it out.

Step 4: I flesh it out and tweak it
This the most tedious step for me, because I generally involves lots of numbers, comparisons, and grammar checking software. This is the part where I’ll go back look intensively at what I’ve made and see how practical and well thought out it is. During this step I’ll usually look at elements of the game itself and cross reference it with whatever I’m making. A prime example of this was again my Redcaps towers, as I frequently used the wiki to look at the stat blocks for Elite Harassers and Assassins to compare to the stat blocks I had written. Another good Idea is to compare them to other members of the forum who have done this before. (Some good examples include Razorleaf, AerisDraco, Big Bad Bug, Tmnloveblue, and like a bunch of other people who I can’t remember atm)

Step 5: Post it and wait for feedback(Or submit it in the case of a contest)
This is where I’ll post or submit my completed work and wait for feedback. This is probably the easiest yet the most terrifying part of the process for myself as I’m generally terrified of royally screwing up something. But that’s not logical cause everyone here is nice and will likely give constructive criticism that isn’t harsh or cruel. And I can tweak stuff based upon the feedback and have better results the next time I make something.


And there ya have it my process of making stuff on the forum(Apologies for any bad grammar present, I tried my hardest to find all the issues)
I'll probably add a section for the specific things you can make and how I go about it, as well the process I went through some my stuff specifically(Like Hu-Hu Enha, and the Redcap tower). I may also link to some of resources I use as well just so their easy to find

Re: My Inspiration and Creative process for my KR fanfic con

PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 4:02 am
by Sirsquier
This is so helpful. By the way ranger's apprentice is awesome. (So is King Rush but I mean we wouldn't be here if we thought it wasn't.)

Re: My Inspiration and Creative process for my KR fanfic con

PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:51 am
by Ninja
My creative process for Kingdom Rush FanFic:

Have an idea for a cool concept, procrastinate until it hurts, and then hope I can flesh out the idea in time for the contest if that’s what it’s for. I think this is reflected in my contest participation frequency. :lol: :oops:

Jokes aside, my process differs from yours in that I usually try to develop the fanfic mechanically, aesthetically, and thematically at the same time so that the aspects of the idea are entwined.

Re: My Inspiration and Creative process for my KR fanfic con

PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:28 pm
by AerisDraco
Many of my heroes are based on music - I'll listen to a track I quite like and then focus on a few attributes of the song and then make a hero somewhat based on it.