Hello everyone, it has been two days since the release of the EA version. During this period, in addition to fixing some obvious BUGs, I also talked with some potential players. These make me understand that it is very necessary to have an introduction to the game for players to have a preliminary understanding. Today I will briefly introduce to you how to play the game from a gameplay perspective.
Gameplay to me refers to the design that makes players feel interested in the process of completing goals. In Tank Survivor, my overall design goal is to allow players to unlock more tank parts and assemble the "coolest" parts. For this purpose, the game has designed the main menu page into a tank display room, so players can intuitively experience their "masterpiece".
Gameplay system
Silver coins are required to unlock tank parts, and the only way to achieve the sub-goal of obtaining silver coins is through combat. In the combat part, players operate the tanks they have assembled and obtain rewards by preventing the enemy from destroying the camp. This is also the main gameplay of the game. I need to add "variables" to make this process interesting. In systematics, the pleasure generated in the process of playing games can be regarded as the "emergence of the system", and the "emergence" comes from the interaction among various systems. In other words, adding the right systems that interact with each other can make the game fun. Here are the main systems for Tank Survivor:
- Tank system: Tanks are composed of tank parts. Each part has unique attributes to maximize the efficiency of killing enemies.
- Resource system: an economic system composed of two currencies, related to the camp system, soldier system, and reinforcement system
- Camp system: Consume resources to build/upgrade buildings in the camp, thereby increasing income and unlocking additional abilities for soldiers and tanks.
- Soldier system: Consume resources and recruit up to 40 AI-controlled soldiers to coordinate and defend the camp.
- Strengthening system: consume resources, extract, purchase, and synthesize cards that can strengthen soldiers, camps, and tanks. Collecting different cards will also produce additional synergistic effects (bonds)
- Monster system: Monsters continue to be generated during each wave of attacks. Killing monsters can obtain resources. After the attack, players have the opportunity to rest, or they can manually choose to face greater risks during this period to obtain additional rewards.
When the tank or camp runs out of life, it is considered the end of the game. The system will award silver coins based on inventory and kill performance, which can be used to unlock new tank parts. It can be seen that players can unlock new tanks by participating in battles to obtain silver coins, and then use the unlocked new tanks to participate in new battles to obtain more silver coins to complete the game cycle. This is the reason I said in the release announcement that "the game is complete."
Strategy
The strategy mainly occurs around the resource/economic system. The game has two types of resources: gold coins and materials, most of which come from kill rewards. The resources are settled after each wave of attacks, and the specific amount of resources obtained is determined by the units killed. For example, if soldiers in the camp kill them, they will get materials, and if a tank controlled by the player kills them, they will get gold coins. Gold coins and materials are necessary to upgrade buildings and recruit high-level soldiers, while enhanced cards can only be purchased with gold coins. This means that players need to plan the balanced acquisition of resource types and determine the priority of spending at the same time, so as to be strategic.
The design of the enhanced card system mainly refers to the synthesis/bond system of Auto Chess. There are currently 36 types of strengthening cards in the game. Each card strengthens a specialization and a unit at the same time. These cross-relationships form 12 types of bonds, and both cards and bonds can be upgraded. Players need to spend gold coins to refresh the store and spend more gold coins to purchase cards. How to use the least resources to obtain the maximum reinforcement benefits is also one of the core strategic parts of this game. The random generation of cards sometimes surprises players.
Challenge
Challenges and strategies complement each other, and sometimes the strategy itself is a challenge. The main challenge in Tank Survivor comes from the offensive pressure of the monster system. The more waves you defend, the more monsters will attack each wave and become stronger (currently there are only 4 types of enemies in the game, but more will be updated in the future). However, this kind of pressure is neither fixed every time the game is played nor is it randomly generated every time. It is left to the players to choose. Players need to evaluate their strength and decide whether to face stronger enemies in the next wave by selecting "skip wave number" between attacks to unlock additional gold coin rewards. The controllable challenge is an original design of Tank Survivor, which also enhances the strategy to a certain extent.
OK, a brief introduction is here first, and the development plan of the game will be released next, so stay tuned!