Currently, I am doing follow-up content development. So there is no update this week. And I would like share something about this game again.
This time I would like to talk about level design.
In Fountain, levels are designed along these two ideas: [Offense] vs [Defense], [Gathering] vs [Scattering].
Offense and defense, as the name implies, refers to whether the player attacks the enemy or defends the enemy. Gathering and scattering refers to whether the units are gathered together or scattered all over the map.
Occupy level is that player offense, enemy defense, player and enemy are both gathering. Compete level is player and enemy are both offense and gathering. Decapitate level is player offense+gathering, enemy defense+scattering. Escape level is player offense+scattering, enemy defense+scattering. Defense and protect levels are of course player defense+gathering, enemy offense+scattering. Their difference is the defense object is still or moving.
Generally speaking, some lineups are good at offense, such as cavalry based lineups. Some are good at defense, such as infantry+archers. So when choosing a level, choose the one that current lineup is better at dealing with, is the key to advance to later stages.
As for gathering and scattering, gathered units can cooperate better to make a strong combat force. Some friends said that in occupy level archers gathering around a fountain are difficult to deal with. That is a manifestation of gathering. To handle this situation, the most effective way is to cause casualties to enemy each round, make them less gathering, that can actually weaken the enemy.
Compare to gathering, the combat effectiveness of scattered units is also scattered. It's necessary to consider how to locally gather the scattered unit, to form effective combat force. And it is a big challenge. Of course it will affected by randomness. Such as an archer without effective self-protection ability is randomly placed at a corner with a lot of enemies. In this time, some team mates with high mobility are needed to come to support quickly. Or player can choose to bear certain losses and try to preserve other combat force.
This is also the main reason that some friends asked why there is no pre-combat formation phase in Fountain. It's comfort a good experience to have a well positioned formation at the beginning of combat. And it is also a challenging experience to gradually gather the chaotic formation and form an effective combat force.
From stage 4, since the unit number that player controls has increaced, we hope to make the level more complex. So we introduced a new idea of combination: combining different level types together. Such as occupy+defense, or 2 defense objects: defense+protect. Then the team is needed to be divided into 2 groups, to deal with different level objectives. How to distribute the combat force, and how to support each other, are things worth considering. This is also a extension of scattering.
By the way, let me introduce the developing content.
Currently I'm working at adding some new abilities and equipments, and adjusting some existing abilities and equipments. Hoping these can increase the richness of build ideas. At the same time, I'm also developing a brand new unit type, including its new abilities, equipments and new level types. Hope I can finish and release it successfully.
I'm doing all this at spare time. The progress is not fast, but I will definitely continue to polish the existing content and add new content.
That’s all. Wish you have a good game time.