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Merus

[Dev Log] Super Good

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So I'm making a game, for real this time. This will be a Twine game about a supervillain who's received advanced warning that a team of superheroes are on their way to her island fortress, and she has to split her time between managing the crisis preparations and her crew of villains, and working on super-powered monologues to convince the heroes they're not as super good as their image suggests. Lots of snarking about superhero tropes and a couple of rugpulls where the player's understanding of the world changes.

 

The game loop is cribbed from Persona: you have a cycling series of actions, only one of which you can do each turn. If you don't spend enough time on certain actions, there are consequences ranging from losing opportunities to an eventual game over. Like Persona, certain actions will have synergies, some actions will be more effective if done at certain times, and some efforts may be wasted once you find out more information. My goal is to make it so that success, if you play with intention, is likely, but there's only one specific set of actions that will lead to the best ending. Working out how to balance this is my first challenge!

 

What I'm doing is building a prototype and test harness in Ruby. Each action in the game, including the showdowns with the superheroes, becomes a small routine that acts on a game state object. I've also got a routine that takes the current game state and works out what the valid actions are, given how many turns have taken place and what players have done. Then, I'll be able to have the script run through every possible game state, and give me statistics. I can also use the same prototype to playtest before I start implementing.

 

Once I'm happy with it, or, more likely, I've run out of time, I can take the existing Ruby code and translate it to Javascript. Then, I just have to write as much as I can. The more time I have, the more implementation detail I can squeeze in. If I do have time, a stretch goal is to make the game have a randomised setup rather than being on a set schedule, but I'm going to assume that'll be a post-jam addition.

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