Playtesting!
Hey everyone. I'm looking for playtesters Later This Week so if you're interested fill out this short survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PLJGOwxhQCFFioeAL7vEiwYEuFGxHpffeyny1brpu6E
This past week I have continued to focus on the first hour or so of gameplay. I've switched around the enemy spawning mechanic quite a few times after receiving feedback. More on that below.
Drill Bot
A new enemy is in the mix! These bots do extra damage to structures and walls, so make sure they have an open path to navigate or they will attack the closest structure in their way!
Environment
I have also been working on the environment quite a bit. The models for area debris from previous attempts by humanity to land someone on the surface, which always ended in disaster. But luckily for you, their ships and scrap parts are still left behind to salvage. You can find materials, weapons, tech, and some other surprises in their cargo containers.
I'm working on a method to make the open-world exploration more immersive. It's not an easy task as a solo dev but procedural generation is helping out in that area.
The main area of play, where the player will have their base, is hand-made and done manually to ensure that the core tower defense aspect is done right. Outer areas away from Home Base will all be procedurally generated. It will be filled with interesting sites, Legacy robots (robot wildlife), and lots of stuff to gather to help you build new and exciting things at your base.
Enemy Waves
As for the enemy waves, previously it was a steady stream of enemies coming into the base to attack. I made this decision based on the fact that enemy drops are a critical part of gathering resources for base building. Players seemed to feel that this was somewhat annoying at the beginning when learning the game and figuring out how to play and what to do.
I've changed it so now the waves come whenever the player is either upgrading Home Base or downloading new data from HQ. This provides the player with room to explore and either follow the tutorial system or figure out things by themselves. I think it works much better now. The player decides when the base upgrades happen and when the data transfers to obtain new items happen as well so basically they are in control of the waves (most of the time).
More
I implemented the save system over the past week as well. I always forget how involved it is.. but it's 90% done now.
With playtesting happening, a lot of changes will also take place over this time period. The playtesting version of the game is a very limited set of mechanics including base upgrade progression, enemy waves, and character weapons. The playtest following this one will also include power management and base automation systems. There are a lot of mechanics working together in this game, so it was important to get the core combat and base progression set first before introducing these more advanced parts of the game.
And I'll leave you this week with some of the concept art that is being worked on for parts of the environment that are outside of the base area, and some of the Legacy bots as well:
Regards,
Jake