Tests, Checks And Gameplay Balancing

It's that time of year again folks, when you feel like this ...

And end up looking like this ...

Of course some of us are still working hard on "muh gaem dev" - and this month it's been mostly playtesting to try and create game balance, and hunt down a few elusive bugs. And when I say "elusive", I of course mean badly/drunk coded.

Like the Rocketrix offensive smart bomb attack. It picks the most dangerous group of enemies so it can do the most damage, swoops in and ... blows the player to smithereens. Yep, pretty sure that is not supposed to happen. Turns out I was calling the attack from the enemy target instead of through the player. Simple mistake by passing the opposite variable, possibly explained by the following image:

One thing that extended playtesting has shown is that stacking powerups - repeatedly collecting the same swag - does not happen as often as I thought it would. Even with 15+ items available each level, there are a total of 108 seperate bonuses (including upgrades to weapon drones). Whilst this does not really effect offensive or defensive events (which are added to an array list for chance of activation during attacss/damage), it does mean that permanent bonuses (health, speed, energy, etc) to attributes do not happen as often as originally planned, and individual bonuses confer too little benefit to the player.

Boosting the effect of permanent bonuses is the obvious way to balance this unforeseen lack of reward. For instance increases to player health are now percentage driven rather than a stock value, and speed is now hiked much higher as the original gain was meaningless beyond the first few game levels.

Another event that did not quite live up to it's predictions is the "Momento Mori". This is a sort of "rage gauge" which fills each time the player kills an enemy, but reduces each second. Enemies killed by heavy attacks fill the gauge faster than light attacks, and all other attacks (drones, swag events, etc) even less. The bar can fill multiple times, changing colour and conferring a multiplication bonus to the player's scoring.

"Gore Gauge" - Orange Bar and x3 Text, top right

Originally the player would fill the "rage gauge/kill bar" three times - now forever to be known as the "Gore Gauge" ;) - at which point the player would be healed and for the next thirty seconds the Gauge would stick at 4, multiplying the player's scoring.

To make this more of an actual event for the player to aim for, I increased the fill trigger level to 4, at which point it leaps to score multiplication x8 (4 = death, 8 = wealth), the player is healed 100% and for the next 30 seconds whilst the Momento Mori lasts is also invulnerable to all damage, which is a really big help in crowded and frantic later game levels.

Momento Mori event triggered. Red bar and x8 text top right (GUI still needs some work)

The GUI incorporating the Gore Gauge needs a bit more work, such as an icon to show what it represents like the XP/LevelUp, health and energy bars top left (a small skull would probably be a good fit here).

Momento Mori in action from ~02:02. Gore Gauge starts at x3.

Of course, what was missing from the above video is an indicator for the player that the Momento Mori event is still on-going and not yet ended. After a quick bit of modeling, texuting and scripting, I created what I felt would be a suitable aura type object to mount on the player to signify that the event was active.

Behold, one visual indicator, brought to you in the format of GIF

There have also been numerous other bugfixes and tweaking of code and gameplay - it's not all been eat, drink and be merry this Decemeber. ;)

So, next up is more gameplay balancing, but I am at the stage of development that this requires creating the actual data for the enemies which the player will be encountering in the game worlds, and their unique attributes and characteristics for attack and movement. This also requires drawing up a list of boss types rather than the singular one which I have at the moment.

Roll on 2018 ...

Swag Em Up

New project: Swag 'Em Up.

I had been umming and ahhing about what to do as my next project. I had toyed with the idea of another strategy game, albiet less niche hardcore and more casual, but fancied putting my skills to the test elsewhere with something a bit more fast and furious with an infinitely shorter development period. Hence the Swag 'Em Up was born.

 Boxxy placeholder with ribbon trails

Swag 'Em Up as a gameplay genre revolves around rushing about, blasting enemies, and unlocking items and collecting powerups and upgrades which form the swag question. Rogue-like or possibly rogue-lite seems a good basis for this as randomizing items, placement and enemies should lead to varied challenges and unique replayability with new unlockables being available dependant on how previous play-throughs went.

Initially I'd toyed with the idea of a top down view but immediately found it rather boring visually, so I switched to a rather high isometric view of around 70 degrees. This showed off models better and gave more depth to the scene. Here's a quick visual explanation of the differences.

After deciding on my camera system I created a screen relative movement system. When input says up and right, the player's avatar moves up and right relative to the camera/screen. This works especially well with gamepad controllers which can increment the rotation of the control stick.

I coded a new cooldown system for weapons and sprinting So that abilities take a few seconds to recharge. My thoughts for player abilities were thus, light attack with no cooldown, heavy attack, evade (in this case sprint) and special object use. I created a few new systems to allow for permanent upgrades as well as temporary time based ones and a whole experience gain and leveling system which adds health and regen bonuses. Originally I had considered a cash system alongside score and XP to buy unlockable items but instead have opted for trading experience for them. This method involves the player deciding whether they'd like to spend their hard earned experience on powerups or let it accumulate for leveling, which grants upgrades of it's own.

And here's a little demonstration of what I've got after a month of coding featuring our very own cube placeholders. Camera relative control system, light attack, heavy attack, evade, cooldowns, experience gathering and leveling.

 Now it turns out that there is a minor issue with the control system - it's bloody difficult to shoot at anything accurately. This is not really helped by being a placeholder cube with no obvious centre of facing. I might add some sort of laser aiming object to help alleviate this, or I might split movement and direction into two seperate states, like in a twin-stick shooter.

In the meantime, there it is, the start of my new project: "Action Rpg Mecha Musume Catgirl Rogue-like Swag 'Em Up".