Update progress
Arena generator
I’ll kick off with the arena generator. This is something I’ve been working on for the past few months. It’s not the flashiest piece of content in the game, but I wanted to get it right to prevent the repetition of the same battle screen over and over again. The arena generator will now generate (the clue’s in the title) a new arena for each encounter. This may be a desolate desert, a fallen ruin, or a galactic landscape. Not only will the setting of each area alter but also the content make-up of the scene.
Rewards UI
Once I had managed to get each battle ‘looking’ different I wanted to work on rewarding players, literally. The end of battle reward screen is now in the game, there isn’t much to be rewarded at the moment, but you can still indulge in a sense of victory upon overcoming the corrupt mechs of Ganymede.
Going forward I will be working on both the inclusion and balancing of rewards in regards to player progression. With Jupiter Moons: Mecha offering a rouge-like experience, the player progression, especially from rewards is something I want to get right.
Inventory
The final, new inclusion to the game is a really big one, the inventory screen. Jupiter Moons: Mecha works with your deck taking place as your loadout, so this was a screen/element of the game I had to get right, both visually and mechanically. As you can see in the image below, your loadout is represented with ‘Tetris’ style shapes. The management of your loadout and inventory acts as a mini-puzzle, encouraging you to play around with different builds by juggling puzzle pieces into place.
The balance of the weapons and their puzzle shapes isn’t final yet, as the current build of the game grows I’ll be able to test what works best. Out of all the inclusion in the game this month, the inventory screen is the most progressive in Jupiter Moons: Mecha becoming a fully playable experience.
Battle mechanics
Heat
Almost each attack card will produce some heat that will accumulate inside Mech. Each Mech has a statistic: Heat Capacity, which tells us how much heat the Mech can accumulate before a negative effect will appear.
Heat produced by attack depends on weapon type for example:
Energy weapons like laser or plasma will produce large amounts of heat.
Kinetic or missile weapons will produce moderate or small heat.
Melee weapons produce small or zero heat.
Heat can be weaponized by using special weapon types like flamethrower or gamma emitters that main purpose is to generate heat in target Mech.
When Mech Heat > Heat Capacity (HC) it starts taking health damage at turn start to random body part
When Mech Heat > 1.5 * HC Mech shuts down for one turn for emergency cooling, can’t do any action. At the start of the next turn, its heat is lowered to HC - 1 and can start to act again.
Heat is decreasing naturally by 10% at turn start. There will be special card effects available if the Mech is equipped with heat sink equipment that will allow removal of heat at a quicker rate.
Stability
Stability describes how well Mech is currently balanced and resistant to staggering or being knocked over.
Most kinetic weapons have recoil when fired with lowers firing Mech stability. Because of kinetic impact, they will also lower target Mech stability.
The most effective way to reduce target stability is to attack it with melee weapons. Melee weapons are a very effective tool to stagger or knockdown enemies.
At 50% Stability Mech is staggered, and will lose 1 Action Point and take 25% more damage.
At 0% Stability Mech is knockdown, and will lose 2 Action Points and take 50% more damage.
Some weapons/cards will very effective at finishing staggered or knockdown enemies and will do double bonus damage (+50% staggered and +100% knockdown)
Stability is increasing naturally by 10% at turn start. Special items: Kinetic stabilizers will provide defense against lowering stability and increase stability recovery.
Shields
Shield is produced by mobile shield emitters equipped on Mechs. Shield emitter traces incoming attacks and focuses energy at impact points to deflect attacks.
The shield emitter is activated by playing a special support card that will regenerate the Mech shield at turn start. Shield emitters also produces large amounts of heat each turn. Shield can be deactivated by playing a special ability card.
From the game mechanics perspective shield can be described as an additional global health pool that is decrease before any damage to armor or health. If the shield is reduced to 0 remaining damage is applied to armor or health for the attacked body part.
Shields have some weak spots. They can’t prevent damage from overheating. Shield can’t prevent damage from explosion based attacks like missiles: explosion energy is spread on a large area that can’t be effectively mitigated by shield emitter.
Final thoughts
These past couple of months have been incredibly productive for the game. From the new UI to the smoother mech animations, as well as everything I mentioned in this update. I’m still planning on having a playable build for you ready by the end of the year/beginning of next year. I’m not too sure if this build will be a playable demo or offer a canon experience to the full game - more on that next month.
I want to wrap this month’s update up with a big thank you to all of you. The support for Jupiter Moons: Mecha has been amazing, ever since I announced the project. I hope you, your family, and friends are well and safe in these unprecedented times.