It's been a while since the last update was posted... a lot has been going on and tons of changes to the core gameplay have been implemented. It is probably a bit much for one post, so I will split up the major stuff into a few updates but will hit on the major stuff in this one.
A SHIFT IN GAMEPLAY DIRECTION
There are many reasons that I wasn't satisfied with how the playtesting was going the last few times the game was available to test. Mainly though it didn't have a strong core gameplay loop that urged the player to continue to progress. I also feel that some of the systems were a bit too complex considering the nature of the game we are making.
POWER CORES
The game now focuses on an item called Power Cores to build meaningful defenses. For each wave the player completes, they will receive an additional power core. All defenses require power cores, from spike traps to gun turrets. Upgrades do not require power cores, so even if you have maxed out the number of turrets and traps by using all power cores, you are still able to progress your base through upgrades.
This will also improve balancing waves and enemy difficulty.
This leads to the most valuable task for the player to do to increase base effectiveness being playing the game itself, versus tedious resource gathering and farming for hours to build massive amounts of traps and turrets, taking away from the strategy of the wave structure.
The available power core count will be displayed directly on the HUD, so you know how many cores are left to use. They will also be indestructible, so you will always have all the cores you've received even if buildings are destroyed.
AUTOMATION
Automation has been altered to make use of 3 primary automation bots:
- Scrap Pickup Bots
- Item Delivery Bots
- Ammo Bots
Their routes do not need to be defined like they used to be. If the player does not want to mess with routes and pathing, it will automatically make use of the bots in the most efficient manner.
Scrap Pickup Bots - These bots pick up any scraps that are dropped by enemy units and deposit them into a recycler.
Item Delivery Bots - These bots will take items from storage and machines to anywhere that an item is needed. For example, if a new machine is placed and an item is picked to craft, it will request the required items from the automation system, and the automation system will split up any available bots and cycle them through all the requested tasks. Ideally, the player will have many more bots than requests, so the result will end up being a line of delivery bots from one target to another.
Ammo Bots - these handle delivering ammo to traps and turrets
The bots will be built in Bot Factory machines and will allow the player to build hundreds if not thousands of automation bots.
BASE HEALTH / SHIELD HITS
Previously, the enemies would gather at the target point and attack Home Base. Now, they collide with the Home Base cores and the wave fails once a set amount reaches Home Base.
This feels and plays much better. Now the game is designed with the goal of destroying all the enemies in the paths leading up to the base. If a few make it to the cores, the wave ends but without any downside to the player. This way the player can test out different defenses without losing the game while experimenting. It also provides a good resource buffer if a player is behind on their defenses, allowing them to collect scraps from enemies up to the wave failing.
The number of hits your base can withstand will be upgradeable and starts at 2.
ENEMY ROUTE VISUALIZATION
A small but necessary addition is the enemy path visualization, which shows the paths enemies will take before the wave starts and will adjust in real-time as you move walls and defenses, so you know exactly where the enemies will go and what traps they will interact with.
ITEM PROGRESSION
I will dive into the big changes with item progression in the next dev log, but I will say that the items dropped by enemies have been significantly simplified and the base components for crafting items have been as well. More on that in DevLog 22.
A NEW MODE
If you are at all active on the Hostile Mars Discord, you probably know Hugo by now. He has been working on something exciting for the last few months and I asked him to write up a quick overview of what he has been developing.
Luckily for you, his writing is much more enjoyable to read than mine, so here is one of the things that we have been excited about recently, from Hugo:
EXPEDITION MODE
The intention of the main game is to have a story intermixed in the player's progression. While they have the choice of how they progress and how they build their base, this format limits what can happen to what the story is planned for.
This means the consequences of the player's actions are somewhat constrained, for example, we can't have the player completely lose their base and be unable to progress as the next wave is too hard, effectively soft-locking them. In other words, there's not that much at stake.
And this is an issue seen in many games, ever heard of a mission in Red Dead Redemption 2 failing because you strayed too far from the intended route? or in GTA V's infamous opening sequence where driving slightly off-road will reset you to the checkpoint?
Yeah, that's the same issue.
So to fix that, we added a brand new game mode!
Presenting: Expeditions Mode
At some point after the initial learning phase of the game, the player will unlock an expedition platform, featuring a bunch of mechs and a launch pad. You'll be able to take control of a mech upon sending it on an expedition, to collect resources and equipment.
The expeditions, in contrast with the handmade world of Hostile Mars, are procedurally generated levels. They will take different forms to keep the experience entertaining: caves, canyons, cliffside buildings, underground lab... Some are fairly small, others are labyrinthic, and a few are vast and open.
Each type would feature a different generation system and environment.
In those levels you will encounter enemies from a different faction than the ones present in the regular world, allowing us to add more diverse enemies without requiring them to thoroughly fit in with the rest of the world-building. As expeditions happen possibly all over Mars in faraway places you might never return to, there can be some special enemy you've never heard of.
To balance the randomness and potentially unbalanced feeling procedural generation can give, you'll have the choice between multiple locations when picking an expedition to start. Each location represents a type of generation, enemies, and loot that you can find there.
The degree of difficulty will vary around your current level. Sometimes the canyon expedition will be marked as highly dangerous, sometimes it will be marked as a stroll in the park, or well, in the canyon. Obviously, higher difficulty means better rewards, but if you're not feeling up for the challenge, you're free to pick another expedition that suits you better. Think of Deep Rock Galactic's mission selection map for example.
About difficulty, here's a major difference: if the main game is easy to medium, this mode would be medium to hard. And the reason for that is permadeath.
The intention is to have high tensions and stakes as you try to explore these levels, and if Roguelikes proved something is that permadeath makes for a completely different experience than the typical *return-to-last-save-upon-failure*.
When your mech gets destroyed, you will lose the mech along with all the loot and equipment you sent, but you will not lose your base, technologies, or other player stuff, the permadeath is limited to the expedition mode. This said it will cost you some materials and time to build another mech to resume running expeditions.
That makes surviving and successfully escaping the trip very important if you want to profit from it.
Of course, once there, you won't be able to leave at your convenience, but you will have to explore until you find an extraction point, you'll then have the choice: whether to continue exploring around the extraction point, risking losing your entire bounty but potentially finding a rare treasure, or returning home to secure it. I recommend looking at Zero Sievert, a game that recently launched with this "open world roguelite" concept.
We're considering having an expedition type featuring smaller levels where you'd have a third option: to go on another expedition straight away with a higher difficulty but also more loot. If returning home every time you find an extraction point might be a valid strategy, if you want the goodies you'll have to risk more and more. Exciting eh?
Lastly, we added a quest system, or as we call them: contracts, given by friendly NPCs that you'll be able to fulfill during expeditions.
This adds objectives, a reason to go on an expedition, to choose one location over another, to risk some more to try and complete a timed contract, to engage with enemies you'd rather avoid.
The system we made is quite powerful and should allow us to design interesting contracts with branching choices, optional objectives, sequences of steps, and more, they can even influence the generation.
Upon returning a contract, they'll give you rewards based on the completed objectives. Maybe penalties for failed ones? Penalties are just an idea at this point, we'll see if it fits. What do you think?
The main world's exploration will feature more unique and complex story-related elements, while the expeditions provide replayability and a kind of challenge that wasn't present before.
We've already made a lot of progress on this mode and have a first iteration up and running that we're currently testing.
We're still discussing how the upgrading of the mechs will work, the idea for now is to salvage destroyed mechs during the expeditions and get parts (modifiers really) you could stick to your mech to change its stats or gain some ability for example. Over each expedition, they would get more damaged until they either not working and having to be replaced or behaved differently perhaps. If you've ever played Beacon you might recognize the concept as we're taking some inspiration from it.
This mode is still under development, so while we like the current design, parts might change as we playtest and develop the parts of the game surrounding the mode.
That is all for this update, next update I will try to cover the remaining things that have been implemented and/or changed including:
- Boss Fight 1
- Combo Kills
- Item Progression
- Tech Tree Progression
- Player Abilities
- And More!
If you want to keep up with development, join us on Discord:
https://discord.gg/Xd88eF8Teg
Take Care,
-HM