In case you missed it this weekend, the rewrite's beta was released! I think it went pretty well, a lot of stuff I thought wouldn't worked at all worked wonderfully, and I didn't have too much of a hard time fixing stuff. The game is now at beta version 4.1 and I think its in a stable state to leave alone for a little while so I can work on the next big thing which will hopefully be the map editor.
Something I've kept under wraps until now is a new experimental battle royale mode called Boring Royale! While the idea is starting to get stale at this point, I thought it'd still be fun to make and play, and if you're not into it that's OK because I'm not going to let it take over the original game. But I am hoping it brings in new players. I didn't think I'd make this game mode until later, but I changed my mind because I thought figuring out a game mode that would need to handle a lot of players should be started early in development.
So if you've played it already, its probably not too different from all the other BR games you've probably played. I do have plans to make it unique and I'd like to share what I'm thinking. Right now there is only 1 server and if there is a match in progress you have to wait for it to restart. I may make some sort of matchmaking system but I need players first and with the small player count I think this is the best thing to do for now.
But first I'm going to explain how it works for those who haven't. In Boring Royale, you are loaded into a big, crappy version of Varia Mines, its just a huge map I made by making small changes to the one existing map and copy pasting it a bunch. This is not the final map of course, as I have a much better map in mind but development needs to come along first before I can start working on it. I'm gonna keep this map idea close for now, as I'm not sure it will work yet, but I will start working on it when the map editor takes some sort of form.
You can select a preset spawn point to spawn your guy. There isn't a fancy battle bus or cargo plane to drop out of or something yet, but I think I have an idea to make spawning more fun. On the spawn screen, you can see a general idea of where other players are spawning with the red Xs.
Once you select a spawn point, you start with an empty inventory and have to find chests which contain weapons.
The weapons have very scarce ammo, as for right now this is the only way B-Man can offer looting. Ammo boxes, which restore ammo for all weapons on your person, are very rare and can ultimately decide games unless your opponent is very resourceful. I have already received feedback that ammo boxes may be dropping too frequently, but we can figure that out as we go along
Boring Man now has server synchronized dropped weapons/ammo, so you can find used weapons and what not all over the map.
So! While you're looking for a usable weapon, you are also pressured by a shrinking play area, similar to other battle royale formats. There is a dangerous field of energy enclosing on the map dubbed "The Emission", and it is the ultimate show of The Man's power. If you are inside the Emission, you will take damage overtime. There is a basic map screen in the game you can use by pressing the Scoreboard key, and it can show you the safe zone and where the emission is headed. It looks cool, I think!
As the match progresses, the Emission will increase in damage and ultimately consumes the entire map, if the safe zone gets too small it will simply disappear and players have limited time to make sure theyre the last ones alive when the shows over.
Boring Royale matches are designed to be very fast paced, and to only last a few minutes because I don't plan on having perfect server support for it. This is so players can be cycled in and out of BR matches at a decent pace without making them wait too long. Boring Man's naturally fast time-to-kill would make a BR match pretty confusing and boring if its made too complicated, but I do have a couple more mechanics I would like to introduce and hopefully stick with.
Right now, chests are just scattered through out the map to be mindlessly pilfered by players, but I would like to introduce unique ways of getting certain chests.
This could involve requiring a certain weapon to either reach the chest or meet some kind of demand.
For example, you could find some random NPC guy running a shooting range booth who will give you 2 chests if you destroy the targets with a certain weapon
Or maybe something more simple like a lone chest high above you that you can't really reach with acrobatics, and need a mobility weapon like the grapplehook
Some chests would only be obtainable by solving a puzzle, a quick puzzle that takes 2 or 3 seconds to complete and its more of a test of speed then it is of puzzle solving skills.
I think these concepts would add to the value of weapons that aren't as reliable at killing as others, as they could grant you access to more chests then other players who are trying to build a loadout by finding easy to get chests only.
But before I can add all of that, I need to add items or something that makes looting more valuable. To solve this, I've been thinking of a very basic storage system, where you can store 1 item on your character. This could be a medikit, or an ammobox, or even a weapon. I may even add storable items that grant a passive ability, like a radiation suit that reduces Emission damage or a flak jacket that prevents 1 instant death from a direct hit from an explosive. I'm not quite sure yet, because like I said I can't make it too complicated because then these mechanics would probably get ignored since the possibility of death is so high.
I still have some other ideas up my sleeve, but I'm taking it slow for now. Not many players are playing it due to the paywall (the BR server has bots on it to help games get going) but if you'd like to try Boring Royale, you can play it now on the v2.0.0 rewrite beta if you own any of the following DLCs:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/346170/Boring_Man_Premium/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/Boring_Man_Platinum_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/Boring_Man_Burning_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1
https://store.steampowered.com/app/626491/TACCORP_VIP_Access/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1
You can launch the beta in the Steam launch window with the "v2.0.0 beta (Requires DLC!)" option.
Thanks for reading! And keep the feedback coming. -S