Mgnum 5
2019
Last updated
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2019
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Lets all stick to the plan! Look around, set up the defenses, grab the artifact and hurry the fuck out of there. As long as everything goes according to plan we get in and out home and safe.
Your "typical" Scifi Horror Heist movie crossed with Jagged Alliance and XCom. Strategy game with deadly physicality of the world. Be restricted in your choices what to bring in, what you can and have time to take back. Scurry with heavy objects as your party is chased by a monster. Leave treasures or people behind.
There's always the first 30 minutes of the heist movie where everything goes right on the clock and perfect, until it doesn't. This is the time you are doing exactly that. Exploring, looting, adventuring, understanding your surroundings. In the second phase you have to be way more cognizant of your time while reacting to the unexpected, this spikes up the challenge and should generally push the player (this is for game development untouched folk called "untested dreaming" aka assuming way too much too early)
Initially I've graphed out the curve above to understand the pillars of the play session and correlated it to how I want the player to feel at the time. With the target experience set in paper I've started designing the gameplay around it. The XComs and Jagged Alliances were the closest matches. I knew how complicated those games are to make, but sometimes its best to leave the criticism at the table, and just chug along and try first.
You start early by planning early knowing what you are bringing in the fight you'll have to carry back (your truck is your backpack). The more you bring in the more options you'll have, but the slower you'll move in and open yourself to danger (other parties stumbling upon you mid-way through the job, security units, the nightlife).
I liked the physicality in the movies, where the characters are dragging a chunky piece of treasure only to be eaten by the monster because of their greed. Or not being careful around the corners with a piece of delicate equipment which has them rethink the way forward. I wanted to have this as a core piece of the gameplay.
Knowing I'm going for a strategy game I started with a basic grid map, slapped a dot on it and started playing around. On the leftside I'd keep a more sketchy version of one scenario that would best represent a clean cut through the experience I'm after (as per the graph).
When i had a better idea of the possible layout I've set up the pieces and started moving them around like a board game, to get a feeling for the experience as quickly as possible. This somewhat helps to also size the elements and understand the level of detail you aim to have, basically controlling your camera, which in a game of suspense sounds important.
Eventually, I ended up with almost a script for the scenario, which for what I was after made complete sense. It was meant to be a linear experience with different choices
In the scenario the premise is to get an Artifact from the depths of the underground laboratory. The artifact turns out to be a sizeable alien egg, that at least 2 have to carry. As things tend to go, the egg still has a surviving parent that wants it back and chases after you.
Early in the session, you are given the chance to prepare by setting up a generator to fix the elevator that goes to the 4th floor. You must have brought in the generator with you and sacrificed the space for any loot you might find or ended up bringing in fewer people to the mission.
At this point I had a general sense what I need to prototype and jumped into Unreal. Here's where I quickly realized a lot of the aspects that were unfamiliar to me and I had spent always a day or two at most to try to figure out if I can do them the right way (learn it), acceptable way (fake it) or the other way (redesign it).
Above I got basic unit selection and pathfinding working. Spending a day on just these basics immediately told me it'll be hard to get the feeling I was after. Why? I realized I was after realism in pathfinding. It was throwing off the feeling of the situation. People taking the most effective paths is not real. The environment will be changing and paths have to be reconstructed at real time, is actually technically not as trivial as I have thought initially. I wanted people cutting curners when in rush, but taking a long way when not. All of this is of course achievable, but a huge amount of detail that creeps into a scope.
Add to that handling physically enabled objects, any custom events to introduce randomness and build interest in the gameplay and this turned very complex very quickly. When I couldn't get the several people carry various objects properly after about 2 weeks of work I called it quits.
This project is a prime example of trying to build too much. I was thinking procedural generation, knowing what I know today about that to make it work well, I'd have made 5-10 30-minute levels with a few variations on how things can play out/routes that are open.
I had the idea making a separate simpler game beforehand, where players build various labs, which are saved in a common format to then be imported in this game. Similar in the thematic vein to Ridley Scott having the same universe between Alien and Blade Runner. I always adored that.
I got close and would probably get there, but seeing everything that went into it and that I would have to implement for a turn based game I have put this project to sleep then and there. Too big, too ambitious. Still love you, and maybe some other day.
Speaking of Alien, the new game makes me hope, that people are stumbling into the concept of strategy heists. Hopefully we'll get more of the physicality introduced, over the cold arcade-like feeling disassociating the player from their avatars.
