Dev Blogs

March

21st March 2019

After battling a greater variety of enemies, there were many adjustments made to the player abilities and base upgrade paths. However, the adjustments did really add much improvement to the gameplay. Stepping back for a while I realised the main issue with the gameplay was that of the enemy itself. In it's current, simple form the enemy uses whatever abilities it has. Once you know the enemy, nothing should be surprising. That had to change though.

Unpredictability was one of the keys to making this game fun to play. The approach I took was to have three classes of the enemy: tank, archer and rogue. Stat distribution would be influenced by the class type. Though the most important factor was their class super powers. Just like the player has the commander abilities, the enemies would also have their own that could change the dynamics of the battle. Unexpected turns though inconvenient for the player can make for more memorable battles. There is challenge in quickly adapting to unfavorable situations, which aligned with the game's spirit.

The potency of the super powers would also need variation, so the enemy would need a means of powering up and then deciding when to use it. Making an enemy slightly more intelligent is always fun to plan and develop. Testing was a bit tedious, as well as creating new ways to animate the entities. Creating games is definitely not always fun.

Once the game was in a state to play, it was much more fun to play. And I ended up wiping several times after underestimating the enemy. Eventually I completed the first twenty battles and watched the ending. A demo is ready for testing. After a break from this project I'll review feedback and look at completing this for release.