Combat time!
I just released Version 0.3.1 which now is open for my current playtesters. Looking for more, so drop a comment if you are interested.
Major changes:
Combat, enemy spawn (Waves and ambient streams)
BOOM! Explosives!
Ragdolls
Trailer (already working on a new one, though...)
Ragdolls / Explosives: View game page
Expeditions
I focused solely on the expeditions in the last weeks since they became the most important part of the game. Combat was a bit stiff:
Perform tasks with robots until an enemy wave appears
Positions yourself - auto-fire - kill everything
Return to tasks
etc...
Sounds boring? Yes, it kinda was... Here are my ways to counter that.
Ragdoll
One thing I always wanted to add, was a ragdoll system to the enemies. I thought it was a lot of work but it actually took less than an hour... No more boring death animations! Still not polished but works well for an early version. It doesn't change combat conceptually but it makes it feel more satisifying.
Default robot combat abilities
Next thing was to focus on the combat abilities of the robots. This was already included BUT the robots started without any abilities, which didn't give them a strong identity and also made combat more boring, because the enemies couldn't be that strong at the start. Now, each robot type has a default starting ability that fits the archetype.
Defender: Shock Pulse (stuns all enemies within a small radius for 3s) - 2 charges per expedition -40s CD
Striker: Overdrive (+100% attack speed for 5s) - 60s CD
This way, the starting strength of enemies can be higher -> combat becomes more challenging -> The player has to make DECISIONS during fighting (in contrast to before where both starting robots just stood there like... robots and auto-fired).
Explosive objects
The grenade launcher became my favorite ability after implmenting the ragdoll system. Enemies flying through the air just doesn't get old... So I expanded on the mechanic.
Analogous to Energy Capsules, I implemented Explosives. These are objects that can be carried by a Defender (which also makes the carrying mechanic itself more important) and placed anywhere. By shooting at Explosives, they explode of course and damage enemies nearby (Ragdolls flying through the air!).
In addition, they are used to destroy pathways to either OPEN ways for the player (closed gates for example) or CLOSE ways of the enemies (tunnel entrance - spawnpoint of enemies).
Explosive objects become tactical and strategic objects. Keep them ready for large enemy waves, destroy important objectives, or keep a safety net for your retreat.
Enemy spawn - Waves
On each map, there is one or more spawnpoints of enemies. Previously, the strength of the enemy wave became higher with each wave, which means, that the player couldn't exactly get a feeling for a specific strength. Is a wave easy enough to kill or is it time to retreat?
Now, enemy groups are categorized into "Easy", "Medium", and "Hard" (more to come later).
Using a Threat Scanner, the time and strength of the next wave is shown and the player can plan and react accordingly.
I didn't like to create a randomized system, for example 50% easy, 30% medium, 20% hard or something similiar. So I went with a pool of cards. Based on the current Aggression, the Spawn Manager chooses randomly out of a deck of cards:
Based on the aggression level, the deck is mixed like this currently
Lvl 1: Easy, Easy, Easy, Easy
Lvl 2: Easy, Easy, Medium, Medium
Lvl 3: Medium, Medium, Medium, Hard
Lvl 4: Medium, Medium, Hard, Hard
Lvl 5. Medium, Hard, Hard, Hard
The Spawn Manager chooses are card from the pool and repeats the process until there's no card left, then it's shuffled again. This means, that on Aggression Lvl2, there can't be more than 2 medium strength waves back to back due to bad luck (this would be possible if it was random with some kind of percentages as shown above).
Playtesting showed that this info helps directly in planning for the wave and seeing if the player can squeeze in just one more task or if it's time to defend appropriately.
Enemy spawn - Ambient Stream
They didn't overpower humanity because they were stronger or more intelligent. They just wore them down. Attrition... Relentless attacking.
In between waves there is a constant stream of single enemies attacking the player's position. They don't pose a real threat but they will interfere with the robot's task work (robots cannot attack while working on a task). This means that the player needs to look for small windows in which tasks can be done (at least partly) or have one robot defend another one.
No more boring "Fight -> Tasks -> Fight -> Tasks -> ..." cycle! Each location has different setups:
Different amount of spawnpoints
Different amount of ambient stream (some can be collapsed permanently, others only temporarily)
Aggression
Aggression is created by the player's actions and the robots themselves. Each robot creates aggression continuously. This automatically creates a tradeoff: More robots -> more firepower -> but more aggression. In addition, explosions created by the player create large amounts of aggression as well as mining.
Once aggression is created, the player will have to deal with its consequences during an expedition. Oftentimes, there will be multiple paths to a goal:
A loud one: Explosion -> Aggression -> Danger
A specialized one: for example Hacking -> Requires a specialized bot
A dangerous one: Only Striker may reach certain locations which makes them more vulnerable
Aggression is reduced each day so the player isn't automatically soft-locked once aggression is too high.
Tutorial
Previously, tutorial screens popped up anywhere all the time. The first 2 expeditions act as tutorials anyway but still, it disrupted the gameflow. I created a separate expedition tutorial (skippable) that can be player before the first expedition to learn all basics of robot movement and everything mentioned above.
UI
An alpha version released 2 weeks ago has shown some problems on lower resolutions. World UI elements were too small and text basically unreadable if not zoomed in all the way.
I removed basically all of the world UI and moved it to the screen UI, which also made the code easier and more robust. For example, one dynamic UI panel instead of a UI panel for each interactable object.
Trailer
I worked hard on an up-to-date trailer. Feedback: "could be better", so I'm working on a better one!
Playtesting
I'm looking for playtesters! In its current state, Frost Protocol has 40-60 minutes of gameplay including all relevant mechanics and a full tutorial. I plan to release a demo in the next few months but I need more playtesting done before that.
Drop a comment if you'd like to participate.
See you in a few weeks again!