Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Campaign game todo list

cliffski

Just a bit of a public brain-dump from the campaign stuff I’m working on again.

things to do:

  • Handle situation where your fleet retreats from battle, at the same turn that the AI invaded the retreat destination and conquered it.
  • Better handling of retreating mid-battle, rather than letting your fleet insta-quit the minute you see the enemy.
  • Code to scale the AI so that it attacks less at the start of the game, and puts off a homeworld invasion until much later. Also, maybe some tutorial help hints to advise you not to leave the homeworld undefended.
  • Investigate why the threat level of systems seems to rise too quickly.
  • Give a loyalty boost to any planet where your fleet just repelled an AI attack
  • Add some sort of method for the player to see which other GSB player supplied his opposition fleet, and maybe give feedback on the enjoyment.
  • Overall difficulty balancing code to prevent a cakewalk or being quickly and decisively crushed.
  • Tutorial hints needed on when and how to repair ships
  • Feedback at the end of turns on loyalty and threat changes
  • Better UI to show that the current recruitment and cash earned from systems is being scaled by loyalty

In other news, I’m apparently going to be giving a  20 minute talk at the World Of Love Indie game conference next friday in London. Eeek. Public speaking etc. Scary…

I’ll probably talk about the business side of selling direct on the PC, because not many people have succesful experience of that, so it might be interesting to some people. I hate being known as ‘the biz guy’ as much as ‘the piracy guy’. I’m a game designer and coder really, but there are lots of people who talk about those topics. Ho hum.

8 thoughts on Campaign game todo list

  1. This is starting to look a lot like a gsb version of sins of a solar empire, are we also going to be able to build buildings to defend our planets, such as hangers which let you start with a few extra fighter squadrons when defending? And what about buildings that lower enemy loyality/bolster your own.

  2. I’m trying to get the whole thing done and tested and playable before worrying about expanding it in directions like that, but it’s certainly quite a doable option ocne a working campaign is in there.

  3. I’ve always felt that such strategy games neglected to include the true challenges leaders face as their empire grows. A good example is moo2, you hit a certain point where you’re bigger than all the other empires and then it’s just a matter of time before you execute their final extinction. I would often give up at that point and start another game to regain the excitement of the early game again. Civilization deals with this by making it more likely that other empires will gang up on you if you’re ahead. (I often end up with 4 people attacking me in the mid to late game) but even that can be managed with experience. I think you could add a few more things to liven up the late game a bit: Revolutions (groups of your territories attempt to reestablish sovereignty by force) Civil Wars (one group likes their beer warm, the other cold.. boom: Civil war.) Terrorism (big societies attract jealousy and hatred, as we all know and the player may very well deserve it). Espionage (same as terrorism, a ship blows up, a world goes boom except this is done by a sovereign enemy and can be proved… good enemies might frame your friends) etc.

    That said, you are awesome, your games are awesome, and I know you have limited time to develop.. I’m sure it’ll be great no matter what.

  4. if its not too hard….. it would be nice if when retreating the fleet start turning around and leaving, and having the game ending after none of your ships are still in the field. instead of just “warping” your ships out all at once

  7. Exciting! As a campaign-only buyer I am totally fine with other players supplying the AI fleets, assuming that the game still has a win state and ascending difficulty etc – will levels be retryable, or will defeat continue to the next battle, Fire Emblem-style?

  8. Just taking a quick and fairly lazy route to state how much I’m enjoying my recently purchased copy of Gratuitous Space Battles.
    Wonderful game you’ve made, really good fun.
    Liked it so much, I bought the dlc.

    Oh, and to keep this technically ontopic, a campaign mode?
    Now that is something I’m exited to learn about.
    When playing it I constantly found myself thinking ‘if someone could weld this to a copy of Moo2, I’d be in strategy heaven.’

Comments are currently closed.