Lots more progress on SplinterTactics in the last few days (that's the name I'm landing on for the game).
I finally have a proper game loop in place. Lots of balancing remains to be done, but overall it WORKS and it's actually rather fun (at least I think so...).
Here's the latest demo:
List of stuff I've done over the last ~48 hours:
- Core game loop added: Endless Mode. In this mode, a player selects a team whose health/armor persist through each round. When they beat the opponent, they move on to the next round and pick a bonus that applies to the enemy and to their team. Enemy bonuses are always a little stronger than player bonuses, meaning inevitable doom. The goal of course is to go as far as possible.
- Added 2 new boards. There are now 3 variants: the "Stone Arena", "Sand Dunes", and "Ocean Floor". Each has a different color theme and different special tiles with various effects. Each one is procedurally generated so the map's different every time.
- Added lots of UX improvements, such as tooltips that explain how abilities work and how stats are computed (particularly since there are lots of stat bonuses that stack up in Endless Mode)
- Added a "team info" screen where players can see all active units and hover over stats and abilities to see what's going on
- Made lots of updates to abilities, such as turning "Blast" into an active skill (i.e. a spell that's cast which has area of effect) and adding new abilities I hadn't implemented yet
Here are some of the core new screens:
New lobby with Practice & Endless Mode options
In between runs, the "Choose your path" screen to select bonuses
Ocean Floor board
Stone Arena board
Sand Dunes board
Team info view
There's still tons to do, but I think I'll be opening this up for some testing in the next week or so. I want to implement some more abilities and put a basic game guide together before sharing it.
If you're interested in being part of the testing crew, let me know! :)