Thanks! I appreciate the support.Looks good. Following on Steam. Good luck!
Thanks for the praise! I usually see retro-styled games featuring also retro sound and there's nothing wrong with it but I think having a realistic approach boosts immersion. I believe that sound is truly important, more than GFX, but this is due to my nature of being very sensitive to sound.That's pretty cool. I like how it has sort of a classic Ultima aesthetic but with modern touches like the sound and units splashing in the water.
Thanks for the praise! I usually see retro-styled games featuring also retro sound and there's nothing wrong with it but I think having a realistic approach boosts immersion. I believe that sound is truly important, more than GFX, but this is due to my nature of being very sensitive to sound.That's pretty cool. I like how it has sort of a classic Ultima aesthetic but with modern touches like the sound and units splashing in the water.
P.S. you also use the limited color scheme quite well, so there are no completely black/empty spaces from what I can see - staying true to the inspirations but improving upon it at the same time is definitely something to applaud you for. Reminds me of Skald in that way.
hey Ularis Badler , I don't know when you did this but the combatant tokens being covered with orbs during firing does a great job of addressing that dissonance in sprite facing and attacking projectiles' vectors.
cheers!
I really would like to hear your feedback on the following subject: 'Accessing enemy information' via mechanics.
I'm thinking of having particular mechanics concerning revealing information about enemy units. Traditionally, in turn-based games, you usually hover with the mouse or click on an enemy unit to display a popup containing information about it. What I'm thinking is having a sort of scanning tool that would be required to analyze enemy units so you could access their stats. The AP cost would be minimum, and the information on the target would be static until you scan it again. You would have information telling you which attributes or skills or wounds are outdated/have been changed so you could judge if it is worth scanning the target again or that soon.
Do you find some strategic value here or do you think it would be just annoying?
Thanks a bunch for considering providing insight on this subject!
Original X-Com had the "Mind Probe" item which did the similar thing, but I think I only used it couple of times across all my playthroughs...
My initial instinct is "this idea is great", but as shown in the previous sentence it comes as "this idea has no use". Now why that is the case with X-Com? I think the reason is that typically you can one or two shot an enemy so there's no need to check the exact vitals. Conversely, armor and cover are done quite intuitively in X-Com. Enemies obstructed by things are obviously in some form of cover (and the game doesn't even have "cover" stat), so you don't need an "inspection tool" for that, while armor does have a stat. But again, typically armor in front is stronger than the one at the back or sides, and coupled with the previously mentioned "one or two shot to kill" makes inspecting the stat not so useful. The only useful thing I can think of is determining the enemy rank (if I wanted to capture a particular enemy) or checking TUs to see if the enemy can make a reaction shot.
Sorry, I'm not of much help, but perhaps you can improve on X-Com's implementation...
Fallout also has the Awareness perk which helps you assess a target's hp and other stats.
I certainly think it should just go beyond telling you the basic stats of a unit, as that would make it useless after a couple of uses. I think it would be most useful as a tool if it's usage allows the player to make a better informed choice of fight or flight, to reduce uncertainty at the cost of a few APs. In order to accomplish this, the game mechanics should allow for:
- the traded APs to be inconsequential enough in a life or death situation, but not too insignificant that the user can just happily use them every time.
- for such situations to be able to occur for a significant number of times, yet without being too widespread that the player has to keep falling back on the tool.
I don't know how lethal shots are to the player and enemy in Archrebel, but in X-Com, I hardly used the Mind Probe since everything is deadly and I would rather use the TU to fire a couple of shots.
Yeah! Once all mechanics are in place, I will definitely add those sorts of details. I'm not sure if will create sprites specifically for wounded variants because I would need to create at least one for each type of weapon for humans. But I can add smoke and occasional sparks for droids and perhaps blood drops for humans. Regardless, you already have symbols that tell you how wounded the unit is - the heart symbol on units goes from yellow to orange and flashes red when nearly destroyed.Just wondering if there will be any wound effects? Like a smoking droid, trashed human look etc. So you at a glance can tell who is about to die.
It is very different, but the scanning tool in Chaos Gate would display the positions of all nearby enemies on a "blip screen". So it makes it closer from the motion scanner than a tool to display information, but it was quite useful, as it gave the exact location (as in, you could count the graduations on the blips and know where the opponents were).I really would like to hear your feedback on the following subject: 'Accessing enemy information' via mechanics.
I'm thinking of having particular mechanics concerning revealing information about enemy units. Traditionally, in turn-based games, you usually hover with the mouse or click on an enemy unit to display a popup containing information about it. What I'm thinking is having a sort of scanning tool that would be required to analyze enemy units so you could access their stats. The AP cost would be minimum, and the information on the target would be static until you scan it again. You would have information telling you which attributes or skills or wounds are outdated/have been changed so you could judge if it is worth scanning the target again or that soon.
Do you find some strategic value here or do you think it would be just annoying?
Thanks a bunch for considering providing insight on this subject!
It is very different, but the scanning tool in Chaos Gate would display the positions of all nearby enemies on a "blip screen". So it makes it closer from the motion scanner than a tool to display information, but it was quite useful, as it gave the exact location (as in, you could count the graduations on the blips and know where the opponents were).
You could also have equipment that would passively give stats of enemies within a given radius (or make it an officer skill).
Or combine it with a bonus to critical hits (as it could tell your soldiers which parts of the armor is damaged).
Yeah, it will be hard to make fog visible while maintining crispyness, which goes against the very nature of the effects of fog. However, the fog strength is not definitive and I will probably have an option to control its strength. I will rely on everyone's feedback for this. I think I could even also a "safe-zone" in the middle of the screen that runs along with the camera. That would prevent the center of the screen of having fog, simulating how reallife works.Looks foggy, which kind of makes it less crispy clean to look at. Also fog should not obscure the interiors? Will there be snow levels and day and night missions? Will the weather affect the combatants in a way?