Dungeon Defenders, the quirky indie tower defense/RPG hybrid, is getting a few new treats.  To begin with, the developers, Trendy Entertainment, are releasing a set of mod tools for the game onto Steam.  This development kit essentially makes the game open source.   Trendy is stressing that all aspects of the game are able to be modded.  For a game that features the portal gun and some other cheeky Valve references, this could lead to some potentially amazing new user-generated content.  Best of all the development kit is being released free.  Also of note, for all you want-to-be programmers, Trendy is stressing that this kit is "one of the definitive Unreal reference codebases for anyone looking to create their own Unreal games."

In addition to the development kit, Trendy is also granting players the opportunity to try their game in a new way.  The normal tower-defense based gameplay is being replaced with a capture the flag mode.   In this mode, players will go head to head with up to 16 people per match to... well capture a flag and hold onto it.  Best of all, both these additions are free to those who own the game.

It's always awesome to see how indie devs keep their product alive by supporting their communities.  It worked for Minecraft and Magicka.   Hopefully it will continue to work for Dungeon Defenders, as this kind of community support really deserves to be rewarded.  I mean, they even included an FPS mod that they themselves created with the development kit, just as an example of what can be done.  I can't wait to see what kinds of wacky and creative stuff people come up with, as people usually tend to do when given these kinds of tools.

http://www.youtube.com/v/rGFXA91NsOw?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0

 

http://www.youtube.com/v/eFMSCvstvYM?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0