Temple TD (yes another one)

Terrain/Pathing: I already have a good chunk of terrain done, it will be 4 players. Runners emerge from a hole in the middle, make their way along the light colored path (splitting where it branches), do an "X" at the buildings and return along the dark path to go back into the hole. (Hole isn't in the map pic, it is made durring the opening cinematic) (Screenshot attached)

Players will have to pick to be either Light or Dark, and Fire or Ice.
-Light towers try to boost player units
-Dark towers try to weaken runners
-Fire towers try to take runners out by brute force
-Ice towers try to take runners out by slowly but steadily draining life

Players can only build 2 or 3 towers of each type from the worker unit

Towers can do either one or both of the following:
Upgrade alone
Merge with another tower to upgrade
Some tower will only upgrade to something more powerful, some towers will only merge with others to create towers, and some will do both.

*Yes I know this has the potential of requiring an insane amount of towers

While you are limited to building only the towers of your prism (Light/Dark) and Element (Fire/Ice) it is possible to get towers of the other types with the use of items that runner drop.

There are two resources in the game, gold and prisms. Some towers require both, others only gold. If possible it will cost prisms to merge towers.

Prisms are also your life count, if a runner makes it back to the hole when you have no prisms in your possesion, game over.

Prisms can either be acquired at levels end, or by being dropped by runners.

Runners also drop Crystals that are related to one of the prisms or elements, with those items you can build a (random?) tower of that type by using the item.

Tricky Stuff
Until a runner makes it to the building and is returning to the hole, it is MUCH less likely that it will drop either prisms or crystals. This means you have to work out if you are going to blast all the baddies when they are clumped at the start, or take your chances with spread out towers.

Some tower combinations may result in useless towers, or even in towers that explode.

Other things:
Runners on each level will be random from a set of possilbe choices.
They may spawn in groups or stager out 1 at a time.
There will be "bosses".

Thats all I remember right now. Oh, and here is the little story I had in mind to go with it. Skip it unless you actually care about stories in a TD.

In the middle of the desert is an ancient temple. Four groups of priests live within the temple and watch over the powers of Light and Dark, Fire and Ice. They are immortal; enternal guardians of the powers of the universe. It is a blessing and a curse. Long ago the doors of the temple were covered over, leaving no entrance and no exit to the temple, in order to prevent the theft of the power that was housed in the temple. After many centuries of peace, an evil man was finally able to gather the strength and army he needed to raid the temple. After months of digging and preparing, the temple was finally breached at it's core, the only weak spot. The priests knew their plan: With as many creatures as possible, storm through the temple and make way to the rooms of power. Grab as much prisms and crystals as possible, and race back to the safety of the tunnels. The priests began doing the only thing they could, create instruments that unleahed furry upon the invaders in hopes of overcoming their overwhelming numbers. But even the priests did not know if they would be succesful.

Soooooo..... Tell me what you think, and any ideas / suggestions.

Heh funny, a story for a TD. But anyways, looking forward to it, since it's coming from the maker of Minotaur's Labyrinth. I was, however, wondering how you are going to work the merging of towers. I was planning out a sort of bonding system for my TD, which I need to get working on again, but that really was not involved with actually upgrading the towers.

LOTS of triggers and LOTS of towers.... I think I like punishing myself.....

heh, i think it sounds pretty unique and should be fun to play.
i like your design for the terrain it looks simple, so a noob can learn easy, but still has alot of room for strategy of better players.

Should have worded it different, I meant how you were going to have it work from the player's end.

From the players end it will just be a button on the towers, pretty much like the automatize thing in Mino2. So they just hit the button, pick a tower and see what happens.

heres a suggestion for the paths the creeps take!!!
You might want 2 lanes for the creeps when they start, and 1 lane that they reach the ending goal with. If you didnt get that, what im trying to say is, since you should start with more than you end up with, you should give the creeps 2 lanes to start on, and 1 lane going to the finishe line, rather than the opoosite, lol.

This sounds pretty cool. I like the idea and the original layout.