Shardpunk News

The general gameplay goal in Shardpunk is to escape the sieged Capitol along with an experimental automaton unit, which is equipped with a powerful energy source. Depending on the type of automaton the player will choose at the beginning of a game, the combat tactics might be completely different.

The first automaton that I already wrote about in one of my previous entries was the support one.



It had some skills that were increasing the aim of characters, doing some weapon auto-reload stuff and it had some means of crowd control.



Now, the second automaton that I want to write about today is a medical unit.



It won't be a surprise for you if I mention that this unit has a healing ability. What is more, this healing effect affects multiple tiles and does not generate Stress for your characters. Also, this action does not require a stimpak, but it does have a cooldown timer.



Additionally, the automaton can be upgraded so that it can buff units in its area, increasing their movement range (and replenishing their Action Points, if the skill is fully upgraded).



Also, this is the only mechanical unit that can revive characters who are bleeding out.



As with any other automaton unit, this one also can spend Action Points to increase its movement range in the next turn. You can upgrade it so that it can self-heal itself, although this skill has a limited number of usages in combat - otherwise, it would be too powerful.





Now, there's a lot of playtesting and balancing that will need to be done now that such a powerful healer unit type is present in the game. I played a number of test runs with the new medical bot and I can see that its presence - and the availability of free mass healing actions - pushed me to a different approach in combat. I was able to become more aggressive and take more risks due to the fact that I knew I'd be able to heal my units more.

That being said, one must remember that Hit Points that become lost during combat need to be manually healed in the shelter phase anyway - so the "healing" done during combat is temporary (that's why I am rendering such "healed" HPs in a different color). This means that I cannot go full suicidal with my units.

That's it for this entry. I hope that you are all staying safe. Take care!

Hi again!

Let's take a bigger look at these blue-ish caves that represent a new level type in the game.



As you progress through the map, certain events get unlocked that can make your life more miserable. For instance, enemies might become armored, or your squad could become more vulnerable to stress:



The player is able to counter some of these events by completing a special mission type, indicated by a rat head on the map:



This mission is optional; however, completing it removes one of the negative events for good.

Now, this mission type is about visiting a mine. Rats have dug underground tunnels (that's how they managed to attack the Capitol) and reached the surface through the mines.



Right now, the vermin are busy stealing crystal shards. They store them in big piles inside the mines. As you might know, these shards are carrying quite a punch, so they can be used to sabotage enemy progress.



The player can use a Fusion Core to light up the pile.



And again, if there's no Fusion Core available, an automaton has a skill that can be used for the same purpose. Still, the player will have to wait for a number of turns for the skill to work.



After that, the player has a limited number of turns to escape. The pile is getting more and more unstable.



If all goes well, the character ends up in the shelter, and one negative event gets removed.

That's all for today. Have a great weekend! And do join the Discord server!

Before we get started, here's an invitation: I'm gonna be doing some live streaming on Tuesday, February the 1st:



I'll be covering all the changes I've implemented in Shardpunk in the last few monthts. Do jump in if you want to get some insight on this stuff, ask some questions or just hang out with a cool game developer ;)

Now, back to the devlog entry.

I've probably already mentioned that recently I'm spending some time adjusting the visuals of the game - and even though I am not done with this part, there's something I already want to share.

One of the issues I had with the game was that gifs/screenshots were often looking too similar.

Take a look at these two gifs:





They are representing different level types. The top one is located in the "industrial streets" level type, and the bottom one is located in the sewers.

Now, you can see that they are kinda different, but it's far from what could be achieved here.

The main problem here was that there were no "theme" colors assigned to each of the level types. As for now, there are the following level types in Shardpunk:

a) industrial streets,
b) sewers,
c) industrial buildings,
d) caves/mines.

By using different theme colors with every level type, we've achieved a nice variety. So:

Industrial streets are now warmer, with red bricks and yellow light sources:



Sewers have the greenish vibe going on:


Industrial buildings have a colder, more sterile look:
(how could she not land that shot?)

Caves have that blue glow from the crystal shards:


Combination of post-process effects and some fiddlling with lights and color palletes did the job. There will be still some adjustments being made, but in general I believe the level types have become visually distinct.

That's it for this entry. I hope you enjoyed it! And don't forget to check out the Discord server!

Take care, and we'll see each other on the stream!

Join Slawek on Tuesday, 1 February, at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST / 6 PM GMT / 7 PM CET to see him work on Shardpunk: Verminfall and share his design approach when it comes to making a turn-based tactical RPG.

The live stream will be available on Twitch, YouTube, and our Steam card.

Howdy! In one of the previous devlog entries I was figuring out how to deal with a situation in which the player somehow ran out of Fusion Cores.

For those of you that don't know what Fusion Cores are, and how they are used in Shardpunk, here's a brief introduction:

Fusion Cores are battery-like items that look like a jar with a bolt of lightning inside. They are powerful energy sources that can be used in a few different ways.

First of all, you can use them to power up and open entrances to further levels, which allows you to finish the combat phase and advance to the shelter phase:



Secondly, you can use them as lightning bolt throwers during combat. Good AOE, always hits, ignores cover:



After the automatons have been added to the game, Fusion Cores can now also be used to "revive" your broken mechanical buddy:



You can find Fusion Cores on your journey, scattered on the map, or as part of the loot from dead enemies:



Now, let's focus on the first ability - opening up entrances to shelters. It is obvious that a player can run out of Fusion Cores, so a scenario in which there was no means of opening up the shelter had to be handled.

Initially, I decided on allowing the player to pick an alternate escape route from combat - one that would still allow them to finish a mission but would punish them by not making the shelter phase available afterward. That worked pretty well, but as the game progressed, the punishment became too big - as the shelter phase has evolved so that the player can upgrade their weapons during it - and weapon upgrades are important.





So, sometime after I introduced automatons, I've decided that the player will always be able to unlock a shelter. If they don't have a Fusion Core to spare, they can use the automaton to do so. An automaton is a prototype unit, holding a unique and powerful energy source - and so it can force the shelter door mechanism into an overloaded state, which, in the end, opens them up. The only downside of such a Fusion Core-free approach is that it takes more time to open such doors - there's basically a number of turns that need to pass before the bunker opens.



The support automaton is right about to electrify that entrance. But it won't do it now, as I don't have an animation ready for it yet.

This way of handling things - while maintaining a risk/reward approach - greatly simplified game rules when it comes to entering a shelter. I could assume that there will always be a "safe place resting" phase between missions. Which also allowed me to simplify parts of the UI.

Here's how the feeding phase UI looked like before this change:



It was basically pure UI, with no resting characters rendered in the background - and that was because I was using it also in scenarios when the player was not entering a shelter (which right now is not possible anymore). I could not simply state that in such situations the player would not have to consume food, as that would lead to an exploit - players would be intentionally skipping a shelter phase to avoid hunger damage/penalties.

In the new "shelter is always there" approach, I was able to embed the feeding UI into the shelter visuals. This is how it looks like right now.



I like these new mechanics - and the refreshed feeding phase UI - a lot. The idea that there is always a resting phase after tough combat is also comforting in a way. After all, we all like to have that "safe place" vibe from time to time, right?



Thanks for reading! Take care!