Hello again fellow devs, another week, another update on my game. Spent most of last week on a big refactor on my round system to prepare my game for a bright future, that is time based rounds instead of zombie amount to progress. Also added game feel to the round start / end that was really plain (and intend to add more in the near future). Here is the list of new stuff
It’s not much but i wanted to give players the possibility to track their progress every time they jump to help me playtest. Also establishing the base code for more leaderboards in the future.
Zombies per round was very restrictive and made the first rounds extremely boring since you had to only kill 10 and 15 for round 1/2 respectively. Now you have 1 minute on those rounds, zombies respawn as soon as you kill them so if you kill faster you get more money out of the round, that makes you progress faster. Felt it was fair to reward skilled players who try hard .
And for this week agenda.
Make zombie stats scale with the rounds (for now only quantity of zombos scale).
Rework the map, because i’ve had it since the very first public build where you could not even leave the base so it feels really dry and empty. Also not being able to see the zombies right away sounded good, but now that you get more for killing more zombies.
If you want to give it a try all feedback is very appreciated, both constructive and destructive i have some time today so i’ll be online to play with some of you all. Thank you!
One little bug:
Resetting resets the ammo upgrade in your gun (comes back after buying another upgrade, and during other situations iirc when unlimited ammo buff ends)
Damage seems to not reset and don’t know for sure if reload speed resets as well.
Really nice work ~ I found the game fun. A nice twist on the “horde defense” genre.
Besides the apparent lack of datastores (would be nice if money & upgrades saved), I would recommend a lobbying system, allowing players to join their friends. That would also provide a crucial downtime, and better imply the round-based nature of the game (so people don’t expect their stats to save between sessions).
If you really want to go the tower defense route, you may also consider allowing players to where hire “survivor” npcs to help defend your fortress.
Tldr; you need to reward players for joining (and rejoining). Give players clear, attainable goals and their accompanying rewards, encouraging them to “grind”. If no rewards save, that leads to frustration and low retention.
This game is amazing! Pretty addictive as well.
These are my feedbacks:
Add lobby system.
Faster game pace (I’m not sure about this since I do not know much about Defense Games but I felt the game was too easy at the beginning and repetitive)
Shop to buy guns! How about giving starter player only a pistol gun, and make them buy new guns as they progress?
Boss troop (I only played the game for 5 minutes, so I might have missed it. But, if there is no boss troop, I suggest adding it)
Hey thank you for the feedback, yup definitely DataStores are in the near future, im already using an ordered one for the Kill Leaderboard. I have not yet used data saving because i intend to add also “Level” (the empty bar below the health will display the exp), so i want to have the full data model defined before setting the data saving.
And regarding the “survivor” npc to hire, im working on a blueprint build system to place turrets, landmines and caltrops, already have the barebones of it, but looks doable, will create a post here when i have it definitely need some playtesters to balance it.
Lobby is a great idea, i did not implement it yet because it’s a lot of code and the game is still barebones, once i have a more “complete” game i’ll add a lobby, definitely before spending on ads for the game, so great recommendation!.
Yeah right now im working mostly on the game feel, no balance yet, i do agree it starts a bit slow (it started slower, but still working on making it fun from the get go), i’ll keep at it.
Definitely after i finish the alpha stage i need to balance the progression and have players start with the pistol and buy weapons as they get money, at that point things you buy will persist of course.
Boss troop every 5 levels is in my todo list for sure, also plan to have bosses drop a unique currency to be used for cosmetic lootboxes (like weapon skins and auras).
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yup definitely DataStores are in the near future, im already using an ordered one for the Kill Leaderboard. I have not yet used data saving because i intend to add also “Level” (the empty bar below the health will display the exp), so i want to have the full data model defined before setting the data saving.