The Path to a Demo
Welcome to my first update since publicly announcing No Gods of Men! Now that the trailer is out, I am back to actual game development…yay! The next major milestone for No Gods of Men is a publicly available demo. So here’s my plan and what I’ve been up to.
The Vision
The demo should be a complete, horizontal slice of the game. I like to think of product development in terms of cakes (yum). Ultimately, I want my product to be a big delicious cake with layers of flavor and frosting! But in the beginning…this will not be possible (I am a solo dev after all). As a first release I want to avoid offering a big half-constructed, half-baked version of the final product…lacking frosting and flavor with a soggy bottom (yuck). So instead, the demo should be a well-frosted, well-flavored cupcake! Small enough to be achievable but also simulate the final product in a delicious, bite-sized way.
Fortunately the game is designed in a way that can easily align with this cupcake analogy. The game consists of two gameplay loops that come together in one macro loop.
Gameplay loop 1: The player builds and manages their towering citadel. Disciples come to live there, the player puts them to work, and ensures they are taken care of.
Gameplay loop 2: The player dives into action roguelike levels. Each roguelike level is a 2D platformer with waves of enemies the player must defeat, and if successful, will reward them with resources and experience to help them continue building & managing their citadel.
My goal is for the demo to offer each of these loops together in a polished, self-contained way. The game is designed in a way that the player must build their citadel taller to enter subsequent roguelike levels and receive stronger rewards. The demo will offer the first level of the roguelike gameplay, then allow the player to build their citadel up to the second level, but once the player gets to the second level, the demo will end. Simple. Cupcake. Yum!
Progress
As of the announcement a few months ago, both gameplay loops were in a reasonable state of polish. I have not yet done difficulty or economic scaling on the enemies or reward systems, but the infrastructure is already there. The biggest missing piece has been a tutorial & new user experience. I have been working on this for the past month now. The player will enter a dilapidated Citadel, be introduced to their first few disciples, there will be a narrative tee-up, and the player’s hand will be guided to build their first few rooms and manage their first disciples. Afterward, the player will be nudged to enter the roguelike realm to find more resources to continue building their citadel and to attract more disciples.
So far I’ve developed the opening narrative tee-up and am starting to work on the tutorial user interface. Based on my experience, I am assuming this new user experience will undergo a lot of evolution as I get feedback from actual players. These experiences sometimes may be too heavy handed in how much hand-holding they do for the player and in others they may be too light, so finding the balance will be key before full release…but for the demo, I have to start somewhere!
I am targeting the demo release by end of this year. In the meantime, Wishlist and Follow No Gods of Men as I'll be keeping this page up to date with the latest developments!
Until next time!
Bobby @ Long Tooth Llama