I now have a working prototype, a proof of concept, of what the gameplay would be like. While I'm still tweaking, balancing, and deciding on lots of stuff, the basic gameplay is there, albeit full or placeholder assets and animations.
I guess a sneak preview is in order. Read on!
Gameplay
I believe I briefly touched on this two posts ago, but I'll just do a quick recap. The idea and goal of this game is to be able to find a quick 2-3 minute possibly exciting match
between 2 friends (or between you and an AI) for when, say, you're waiting for your meal to be served.
In essence, the game is a space battle. But instead of the complexities of having to maneuver your ship to avoid enemy attacks and position yourself for a counterattack, the game strips a duel into its basics - the strategic use of skills.
In this way, the game is actually closer to being a trading card game (like Magic or Hearthstone), even though it's not at all turn-based.
In real time, both you and your opponent, will have to quickly decide whether or not to use a certain skill, as doing so can turn the tide of battle. Misuse it, though, and you'll find yourself staring at a cooldown, unable to do anything else.
There are also different kinds of ships as I mentioned in my previous posts. Each ship has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Line Levitator is extremely agile and hard to hit, with skills that cause invulnerability for short periods of time. Its skill cooldowns are also generally short, though most of its attacks are also generally weak. On the other hand, the Allurcruiser has the strongest weapons and armor in the game, but it's also the slowest.
After picking a ship, the players will also pick a Captain/Pilot which will provide bonuses such as increased fire rate or increased speed. It is with these two choices that players can customize their side - they can either boost their strengths (+speed on Line Levitator, for instance) or mitigate their weaknesses (+speed on Allurcruiser).
Skill management, great strategy, and possibly luck (or not, depending on the controls as I'll describe later on) are needed to be victorious.
Features
As of now, since the goal of the game is simply to pass time, I have no plans of introducing a scoring system, currency, or even RPG-elements like upgrades. It would be like a board game - you bring it out, play with friends, then tuck it away afterwards. That said, these said features may come into play in the future depending on whether I (or someone, say, a beta tester) can think of a good idea to introduce it.
The current design of the game is that both players will only cast their skills - the ships move and fire on their own. This isn't final yet, however, and I've already received feedback that it would be great to have some control on the ship's movement. In line with this, I'm thinking of the following options:
- Ships move and fire on their own, players can only cast skills. This is the current setup.
- Ships move and fire on their own, however, players can also tap on the battlefield to force their ship to change direction. This is my preferred setup.
- Ships move and fire on their own. The player can also tap and hold on the screen to force their ship to stop. This might be problematic especially when trying to stop and use skills. Also, it might affect the balance of the game.
- Players can tap on two hotzones to order ship to move left or right, i.e., players control the ships fully. I believe this option will make the game messy, as two players will have to share the device.
I'm heavily leaning towards the second option and will probably implement this asap to see how it feels.
Current Prototype
As I mentioned, I do have a working prototype with basic assets and virtually zero animations. The laser beams are also just placeholders. But the ships (3 of them currently) all have armor and shield bars that work, and the ships can be destroyed. There's also an "AI" that just randomly casts skills.
Here's a video of what a typical battle would look like. It's a 20-second teaser, but the actual matches can range from 10 seconds to several minutes.
Timeline
Here's how I plan on working on this project in chronological order:
- Add control option to change direction.
- Add a Game Over and Main Menu screen.
- Add 1-Player and 2-Player options. A Settings screen might be added in the future, but not right now.
- Possibly add a pause button (not a priority)
- Tutorials plus a way to show skill tool tips in game (high priority)
- Improve designs of Ships - doesn't have to be final, but better if close to it.
- Improve other game assets - game buttons, explosions, sounds.
- Improve space background.
- Add basic ship animation. (Turning, firing, etc)
- Milestone: Alpha Testing (Hopefully before June 2017)
Only after Alpha Testing should I add new ships. I plan on making 9 ships total, but since each ship has to be balanced in power and skills, then designed and animated, it will take time. I don't have all 9 ships planned yet, though, so I am taking suggestions.
I'm also looking into possibly a design your own ship and choose your own skills type of feature, but it might be too ambitious at this point so I'm just considering it as a stretch goal.
That's it for now. I'll be posting again when about half of my next goals are met just to give an update and possibly more video/screenshots.
Shout out to my Beta Testing community! Thanks for your support!
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