The Game

In a previous post I alluded to a game I was working on but didn't talk about the game itself.  I'll slowly be describing it over several posts.  It is meant to be a multiplayer, squad, tactical, turn-based game.  It has fog-of-war, usable items, vehicles, cloning of units, multiple worlds, A.I., and many fun objectives.

The theme of the game is currently using Stargate SG-1.  It isn't public yet, so I didn't see any harm in making the engine fun and engaging while it is still in the very early stages.  In the picture, you can see the controls on top, a friendly unit on the left and a Jaffa on the right.  The dark colored tiles indicate the fog-of-war.  The map is a Goa'uld ship.

Objectives
I've decided to start with some simple core objectives:

• Versus - Standard team games that are scored on kills and last man alive.
• Horde mode - Wave after wave of enemies come at you until you can't take it anymore.
• King of the Hill - Protect a specific location for a certain amount of time.
• Location - Get some or all of your team members to the indicated location.
• Mission - Units always start in a specific location and the objective depends on the mission.  A less procedurally generated objective, but gives a standardized test of skill for you and your friends.

Cloning Units

I think this feature is very interesting, but in no way unique because some games like Eve use the concept.  The principle is that players build up experience and spends so much time on units - only to have them killed by a silly mistake.  Well, in X-COM these deaths could be avoided by saving the game, but this isn't interesting.  Some would even consider it cheating because it has no cost to the player, can be done as often as the player wants, and has no analog to real life.  Eve got around this by allowing the player to pay credits to "save" unit's memories and DNA as a "clone".  Basically, a save point that covers all the negative affects - if the player can afford it.

Time Units

The game currently uses time units to perform actions like moving or using an item.  The new XCOM game doesn't use these at all, but provides a subset of actions that can occur each turn, much like Flotilla.  I don't think division and subtraction is as hard as Firaxis thinks it is to strategy, but I will concede that it make these games more fun for the general player.  I've played the new XCOM game and I will stick with time units for now.

Maps
Maps are built in a "Map Builder" web application that is part of the main deployment.  Emily has been making a lot of the maps that I use today: Mother Ship, Arena, Medieval Planet, Longest, and SGC.  Maps are composed of a grid and each tile has "attributes" that add things like walls, spawn points, etc.