This post will serve as an overview of: the basic game concept and setting, a rough idea of what exists already, and the next few things to be implemented might be. Note that because this game is feel-driven, much of the superficial things are likely to be changed.
Since it's a game in pursuit of 'tactical urban battling', the scenario I've chosen is a game where you act as a assassin-slash-enforcer, taking on missions to traverse the city streets and take down specific targets, and because I like the idea of infusing magic into a hard-boiled gun fight, we'll need a setting that can account for magic.
For that setting, I'm going with "a sprawling necropolis- hell itself, spilled out onto the world in city form, packed with demons and held back by a massive, encircling wall. The player acts as a mortal, come to join the guardians who inhabit the wall and hunt into the city for malevolent demons."
Since I imagine this order of assassins-slash-enforcer to be not fighting against the ruler of hell, but helping to maintain the borders, I have been referring to this project as 'Cerberus', named for the three-headed monster-dog who served Hades by guarding the gates of hell in Greek mythology. I've been mulling names like 'Order of Cerberus' or 'Cerberus Warden' as both the in-game name for the player's occupation, and possibly as title for the game as well.
Now, like I mentioned, a lot of those superficial parts above can and will change, but the core game loop hidden in there should remain solid: Customize your armaments and choose your mission at a base (the wall), Range into the urban environment in pursuit of a target, have some cool fights along the way, and then return to your base to rearm and choose your next fight.
With that in mind, the mechanics I've prototyped out so far are:
- A small array of weaponry: A long knife which can be thrown, a semi-automatic pistol, and a top-break revolver, which can be modified to shoot six different sizes of bullet.
- A procedurally-generated path system, which can generate randomized city-streets for you to battle through while being able to re-play any of them.
- A 'mission' system, which notes the mission beginning, and ends the mission after you have killed the target and returned to the starting area.
- A dynamic holstering system: You can drag-and-drop weaponry and ammunition to a shoulder harness and belt to instantly create a unique load-out.
- A basic currency system where completing contracts and taking out hostiles earns coinage that can purchase new weaponry and customization for your base, and a basic shop interface where you can do so.
- A basic 'crowd folk' AI that will move through the city streets with simple path-finding, and they've got a general aversion to the sound of gunfire, and should try and flee when a fight breaks out.
- A basic 'enemy' AI that will scout the streets, and can attack in close range with punches and kicks, or hurl fireballs. Basic path-finding, basic decision-making.
- And, just for fun, a special effect where the player can initiate a slow-motion where time slows to near zero when the player is motionless, and advances time slowly as the player moves. Wears off after about ten seconds, but can be super useful in a pinch.
While not entirely bug-free, the above functionality is pretty stable, and basically amounts to my starting line, 'Version 0.0.0' of this game. I will be batching improvements on a regular basis, and aim to have at least a little bullet list of accomplishments attached to each one.
As of right now, my current plan the next chunk, 'v0.0.1', is to work on improving the Enemy demon's AI, and make them a more dangerous adversary. Currently you can give them the slip just by walking out of their line of sight, and... well, that's just sad. Looking forward to seeing how smart I can make them in a couple weeks.
Longer term, I'm looking to create offensive and defensive tools for the player, make the missions more challenging, increase the variations of city layouts, and then double and triple check the polish on the combat gameplay before trying to pretty it up with nicer models and textures. I've got a lot of mixed feelings about exactly what things should look like, but I think that's a post for another time. Until then!
-Kytsunei
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