Immediate:
-Feedback collection
At this early stage, we'll be keeping a close eye on player feedback
to identify and address bugs, balance issues, and other playability barriers.
After we determine that enough has been done to make the baseline experience smoother,
it will be time to begin adding new features and content variety.
Near-Future:
-World map visual overhaul
At the moment, the world map is comprised of only a handful of shader-recolored tiles and some trees. Larger ground tiles with more variations will be used to fill the screen a bit more. The re-coloring shader is a bit slow, so this will be removed (using just normal pre-colored tiles) to help add performance overhead for other enhanced effects on the tiles or a larger map.
New vegetation and decorations will be placed to better convey the "otherworldly" vibe.
The background and edges of the map will also have a visual touch-up to feel more like a map and less like a strange empty board game.
-Item Storage
Allow the player to manage and collect items on the world map screen. Decide what to take and what to leave for later!
-Characters
New non-playable characters will appear to provide rewards, services, and/or activities. These characters will have a reputation value that can be increased through interaction, thus upgrading their services, providing better rewards, or assigning more difficult tasks.
-New Enemies
The current single enemy type, called a "Jacklite" is a placeholder enemy that has existed since very early in development.
This will be replaced by a similarly-behaving flying enemy with better art and animation. New enemies with their own sets of mutators will also be added.
Enemies are categorized by where they appear (All Areas/Forest-Only/etc.), and their relative size (small, medium, large).
Each species will have its own set of mixable abilities, much like the current Jacklite.
These abilities will be categorized in such a way that when any two enemies fuse, their mixed abilities will seem to be related to the parents even though only one species is chosen as a result.
Example:
Enemy#1 is a small, weak flyer with a power-attack mutation.
Enemy#2 is a stronger, larger enemy with a dodge-move mutation. Enemy#2's species will be chosen as the result of fusion. It will inherit the dodge-move from its own species mutation pool, as well as a similar mutation categorized as a power-attack, but not the same exact one as Enemy#1's.
-New Items
Elixirs are meant to provide useful consumable effects, as well as enabling "weapon infusion". We will be expanding on the number of elixirs, as well as the effects they can put on weapons. An elixir of one type will have access to multiple related weapon infusion effects.
Example: Infusing a bomb elixir could get you splash damage on a weapon, or perhaps it could add other explosion-like effects that work differently.
This is because elixirs will likely have fewer consumable effect types than the number of possible weapon infusions we'd like to add, so they must be split among the elixirs based on which one seems most related to that elixir's theme. An elixir may apply a random infusion among those it has, but if an elixir is applied to a weapon with an existing matching infusion, it will be made more likely for that existing infusion effect to be enhanced rather than adding a new one of the same category.
Relics are items that provide a passive effect while held in the field inventory. They are comprised of two fused artifacts. Each artifact represents a general gameplay concept, and when two artifacts are fused, the resulting relic has an effect that relates or combines the two concepts in some way. 49 Relics have already been designed and sketched, forming from a total of 7 artifacts. Over time, these artifacts will be added to the game, expanding the pool of relics. It may be possible to expand beyond the planned 7 artifacts later.
Shrouded items are items that will be locked-off, hidden behind colorful smoke. Complete the task outlined by the shroud, and that item will be revealed, with a bonus added to it based on the type of shroud and/or type of item.
-New animations and improved effects
There are still placeholder graphics and incomplete or missing animations, once more of the game is established, we can start to touch these up.
-New tower biomes and decorations
New tower tilesets, floor-generation rules, objects, and gimmicks will be added to make each tower feel more alive and unique!
Later:
-Support for more languages
Grabbus supports loading files for multiple languages, but needs more language-specific fonts and a way to switch between them. This can be done pretty easily, but we'll wait for when more text is in the game. In the meantime, the existing Spanish translation will continue to be maintained to make sure the system continues to work up until then.
-World map buildings and mechanics
Build foundations to flatten land. Build roads, tunnels, and bridges to connect your buildings and explore further.
Rescue rats from towers! Build homes to house them, farms to feed them, resource extractors to supply them, and factories for them to help synthesize items. Micromanaging will be avoided. The idea is for you to set-and-forget most buildings, rather than having to manipulate or maintain them.
Rats will have their work speed and quality altered depending on how many rats there are, how much work is to be done, and how well their needs are met.
A hub area to handle interactions with major characters is also planned.
-Tower floor sub-objectives and mutators
As the player climbs up the difficulty ranks, towers will spawn with alterations to their enemy composition, events, objectives, floor generation, obstacles, or otherwise. Towers that are left to sit for too many turns will begin to encroach on surrounding land by growing outward, developing more alterations over time, or even growing new floors. Towers will have an appearance that matches their tileset theme.
Objectives on some floors will require you to do something more complex than simply defeating all the enemies to proceed, especially requiring grabbing, fusing, manipulation, or throwing of whatever obstacles or gadgets are involved.
-Story missions and scenes
Grabbus already has a partially-implemented cutscene editor. It is able to use expressive, lip-synced portraits and text to convey the story!
The current plan is for the story to be divided into somewhat self-contained chapters with their own subplot of characters and locations exploring some aspect of the world of Skixx. These chapters will tie into the overall narrative as they wrap-up, propelling our heroes further into the mystery...