Hi there,
I hope you're doing well! I've finally wrapped up “Whispers of the Old World” in which you investigate a mysterious old world bunker, and run afoul of its guardian, Hec8. Here's a brief development video covering recent work on the game, and more information can be found below.
The Mission
Whispers of the Old World is a more story focused mission, with a number of routes through a hostile environment controlled by a deranged artificial intelligence. As such, there's a ton of scripted events, and a boss fight which can be approached in a number of ways. These two factors accounted for the majority of the time spent working on the game.
The Boss
To defeat Hec8, you can either face it solo in cyberspace, while your allies protect you in the physical world, or overcome the automated security, and destroy the servers on which it resides. You can also opt for a simultaneous attack on both fronts. The battles on the cyberspace and physical layers are interconnected, so if you destroy a server, it affects Hec8 and any automated security, while damage to Hec8 debuffs automated security.
I wanted to avoid the boss battle being determined by the character with the highest stats, so Hec8 goes through a number of phases of attack, utilising special abilities which can be countered with your own cyberspace scripts.
Script Lab
To make this work, I added an interface, much like the crafting screen, which allows you to create and upgrade cyberspace abilities using the software engineering skill. The file size of the scripts increases as you develop better versions of them, and the number of scripts you can load is determined by the amount of RAM in your data warfare suite.
Combat Drone Added
Combat Drones have been added to supplement the static defenses provided by sentry guns. These are hard hitting units, which hover, and are thus unaffected by any tile affects, such as fire.
What's Next?
I'm currently working on the food convoy mission. This is the first mission which can be played from two sides, that is, supporting either the rebels or the militia. It's likely to take longer than a regular missions but it's unlikely to be as time consuming as Whispers of the Old World.
As always, please feel free to ask any questions, or share your thoughts on the game. Have a good day!
Daithi