Dev Update #3
Since our last update, a lot of work has gone into redesigning some of Slaughter League’s core features and I just wanted to keep you, the future competitors, as informed as possible as we flesh these changes out. Coming from the demo, the original plan was to dive immediately in the in-game Stage Builder’s tools and create as many unique stages/concepts as possible. However, while playing with it, we felt the original scope was somewhat restrictive. Sure, you would be able to design stages for a small number of strict developer-defined game modes (race, zombies, last man standing etc.) and that would be cool, but what if we could allow players to build not just stages but game modes too?
And that is exactly what we are hoping to do!
This decision to allow the creation of game modes within the game itself fundamentally changes everything about a game of Slaughter League. So… What is the plan? How can we achieve this? What may be the potential problems?
First and foremost, please understand we are currently experimenting with these concepts and ideas so it is subject to change.
Our new plan is for players can decide to either start with a pre-defined game mode template (Race, Zombies, Land Grab etc.), ignoring any unneeded complexity, or build the stage and game mode from scratch for ultimate flexibility. To setup game modes players will use an Event Assembler system which we are currently experimenting with allowing players to decide what happens during a match. Examples of a game mode events are:
• When a player reaches this area, then award that player 100 points
• When a player pulls this lever, then kill all players in “Zombie” group
• When a player stands on this pressure pad, then award them +1 life
As you can see just from these basic examples, the flexibility of the system is almost endless!
One of the biggest changes required to make the system possible is the introduction of Player Groups or teams. Excuse the incredibly early prototype UI screenshot that is clearly not ready for public consumption but does best show the concept. Within a game mode, up to 16+ Player Groups will be able to be defined with whatever attributes you desire for each. This addition also means Slaughter League can now feature team-based game modes and not just free-for-all. In-game events may allow players to switch groups during gameplay so if you wanted to give zombies a way to cure themselves, you got it!
So, what are the challenges here?
Unfortunately, not much of the early Slaughter League spaghetti-code was ready for this level of customization so a lot of refactoring and cleaning up needs to happen. Fear not though, this gives us a golden opportunity to refine the gameplay, optimize the fps and fix as many bugs we found in the demo as possible!
It is truly difficult for me to explain just in words how great this will be for the game, especially to those of you who may not be familiar with game development, but we are hoping these features alone will keep the game alive for many years to come by offering an endless stream of creative stages and game modes!
If you have any questions or suggestions of things you would like to see in Slaughter League, don't forget to join our Discord and let us know!