Alrighty, here’s the latest: CA Shooter by EternalAmbiguity
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This one actually feels like an MVP: there’s an actual (very, very simplistic) “level” to play through, and there’s randomization at play so it can go differently each time.
There are a few different systems:
Player energy: this is used for shooting weapons, so basically ammo. It does not automatically regenerate, except when the player is standing on a powered cell (more later).
Rooms: I’ve set things up as rooms, where I go through programmatically and find walls and doors and form a room from them. There’s the ability for “nested” rooms or rooms connected to one another, but this is just a simple example without either. When a room is unpowered, the doors close and nothing can enter or exit. When the room is powered, the doors are open.
Power: The idea is that the floor is powered or unpowered. You can enable or disable power by room. As mentioned this allows the player’s energy to regenerate, and in fact how much it regenerates is based on how much free power there is - more free power, faster energy regeneration. In addition, this has a dramatic effect on blob growth - unpowered cells grow at 10% of the speed of a powered cell. There’s an object on the bottom-left side of the map allowing you to manipulate this.
Climate: this is by room as well, and affects the growth of the blob. It’s a continuous multiplier. This uses power, inversely proportional to the temperature value - cooler temperatures (meaning slower blob growth) require more energy. There’s an object on the bottom-right side of the map allow you to manipulate this.
The Blob: There’s an rng at start to determine if a blob “piece” will be created in each room. If one is, it can grow. It can reproduce itself, but it can also produce a couple variants - the moving shooter, and a moving melee attacker, both of which move randomly. As mentioned before the growth rate is dependent upon whether or not the cells are powered and the temperature.
The “blob shooter” shoots within some range. The “blob melee attacker” will pursue the player for some short range (even around corners and such) and attack when they’re next to the player.
Technically it’s not a “system” but the player’s view is limited by the light above them. You can press Q to switch the light to aim outward, rather than down, with the side effect of hiding everything outside of the light, including the player.
The effect I’m hoping for here is–for some reason Dead Space is coming to mind, but anyway. Something where the player will enable or disable power for an individual room, clear it, then move on. Something where they have to move cautiously and they’re vulnerable at any time.
I’d love any and all impressions or criticisms.
A couple things I’m thinking:
The blob itself (not the moving attackers) isn’t threatening in any way. Right now it’s just sitting there, boring, but even if I made it a little stronger so it takes longer to kill it’s still just sitting there while the player can shoot at it. I’m not really sure how to make it more dangerous or dynamic in the short term.
Lights. Right now the only light is the player’s but that seems a little unrealistic. I’m thinking maybe this should be an additional option - lights for each room you can power on or off.
I feel like the map needs to be a lot, lot bigger for some of the systems to come into play. Things like the ability to close or open doors, or setting the temperature of a room/hallway–right now they don’t seem very important, but with more expansive locations they might be meaningful. And I don’t know how “proc gen” it should be in the end–I’m considering “not at all”
Environmental hazards - another game I was thinking about a LOT as I added these features was Metroid Fusion, but only now, writing this (Thursday evening), do I remember the hot and cold rooms in that game and how they necessitated player upgrades to the suit. Maybe that’s something to be worked in–Metroidvania lite? I think it would make the temperature control more meaningful and integrated with the game (outside of just blob growth).
Just in general, does what I’m going for here work? Does what’s on display lend itself to careful, almost methodical gameplay? What could make it work better? And does that goal even seem enjoyable?
Additionally, I’m considering showing this to a wider group of non-devs. Do you guys think that’s a good idea or no? Too soon, with no juice and a bunch of little blocks moving around?
