this week focused on levels and making it easier to make them, plus quite a bit of thought about how to do things in future.

Learning the game

How do we introduce stuff? In what order? What do we even have to introduce?

This is what we need the player to know

  • really basic stuff

    • goal of the game

    • controls

      • camera movement

      • selection pallet

      • tile placement/removal

      • undo/redo?

  • concepts

    • how bullets fly

      • more cases means further flight and speed

      • more slugs means more weight and damage

  • machines

    • Conveyors move stuff

      • switch conveyors pick different outputs each use

    • pistons join things longitudinally

    • welders join thing laterally

    • rotators turn things on their pivot

    • grinders remove components from existence

  • threats

    • you can take damage

    • fires are really dangerous

Given this information that we must deliver, what are the best options for conveying the information?

  • in the levels
  • in help boxes
  • in a tutorial
  • in game popups
  • in findables in level
  • about 50 more options that im not listing

this is of course too early to actually use thoughts like this, but a little bit of wondering me figure out how we’ll do it in future and what we do can do now, which in turn helped me make this rough level plan

we start with leve 0, a tutorial that outright explains what you do and guides you though placement. then:

  • Level 1:

    • do the same as tutorial but on your own, samma components

    • add an enemy shooting back

    • still 2x1 rounds

  • Level 2:

    • add welder, and longer range enemy

    • 3x1 rounds but savvy players can figure out that 4x1 rounds are also possible

  • Level 3:

    • check point level where enemy doesnt shoot back

    • need to achieve something difficult, like shooting over a hill or a long way

    • good level to experiment as you wont be under fire

    • possible lore or findable

  • Level 4:

    • a properly threatening, longer range enemy

    • this is a simple early boss fight where your ability to repair under fire will be tested, as well as getting the most out of your rounds

More enemies

I added a few extra enemies, such as simple cargo boxes for the first level and a larger turret for the more difficult ones. the work done on the building cell system a few weeks ago really pays off here as its all drag and drop and takes no time at all.

I spent a little time making a simple menu that allows level selection. this is mostly for the itch page.

as basic as it gets

in other news blogger is truly wretched for writing these patch notes. going to be looking for an alternative soon.