Shardpunk News

I finally spent some time adding completely new content to the game. The next tech demo will be featuring two missions, each having different looks.

First, we have the sewer levels:



The biggest change in the implementation was that map tiles now can be animated (water and water edges). Also, the water tiles are the first tile types that are both transparent (so the players can see and shoot through them) and non-walkable. It does sound obvious but required some code changes.

Sewer levels have much more closed locations than the "industrial district streets" level had. This introduced some challenges when composing level fragments. Each level is being randomly generated from predefined fragments, and I needed to make sure that fragments stick together correctly. It was easier with open spaces as they were, well, open. Here, with corridors and narrow passages present, I had to be more clever.

I ended up adding metadata to each level fragment, holding information about valid connection points with neighboring fragments. For instance, the level below can handle both low and high connection from the right, and a high one from the left:



This allowed for maintaining the same semi-randomized nature of levels and making sure that there is always a valid movement path for the player.





I've also decided to create some interior levels for the industrial level types as well, now that I had this fragments' connection thing figured out. These look pretty cool as well:



That's it for this entry - see you in two weeks!

OK, so I had a little less time working on Shardpunk for the last two weeks as I managed to get myself sick. Luckily, I already recovered.



Here's some update on the progress. Let's start with the stuff I did not describe completely the last time: the disappearing Hit Points feature.

When a character is injured during combat, they lose HP. These HPs can be "restored" by using an adrenaline injection. However, you're not really restoring them - they will be lost when you reach the shelter; you can then recover them during the shelter phase.

Now, this feature was already present in the existing demo. The problem was there was no indication that some of the HPs healed in combat will be lost after it ends, which few playtesters reported as confusing. Therefore, I added some visual cues: hit points that are "healed" during combat appear orange:



Also, the HP tooltip has been expanded to show all of this:








Speaking of visual cues, I tried removing the big magnifying glass icons from the loot points, leaving only the green tile highlight:





I believe this will make the screen less cluttered.

I am also trying to find a better style for some of the UI of the shelter phase. This is the latest iteration of the combat summary screen:



Now, I know that I need to stop spending time on tweaking the visuals and focus on the bigger picture: so adding map travel and different level types. Worry not - these things are in the works and I might be showing something more soon.

Thanks for reading!

Man, working on a game in one's spare time is difficult. Two weeks have passed from the previous blog entry and I only managed to spend ~15 hours in total of not-always-very-high-quality time working on the game.

However, this will change soon. I am taking a monthly leave from my day job in November and I will focus solely on developing Shardpunk in that period. This will allow me to see how I manage to cope with full-time development and what is my development speed when working at my full productivity.

Note that it will be a temporary change - meaning that I'll be back to part-time development in December. Still, with the experience from that full-time period, I will be able to define the game scope in a clearer way and set up a development plan - having that might help me find a publisher.

That being said, let's focus on the latest game changes!

I played around with the Stress mechanic a bit. First of all, I made sure that a character gets the "Stressed" trait (which gives some penalties) only if their Stress level is at maximum (it was a 50% threshold before that). I also introduced some random traits that make a character more/less stress-resistant by altering their maximum stress level:





These traits are randomly assigned to each character at the beginning of the game. And they're mutually exclusive, obviously.

Players now have a new way to reduce stress during battles - each character has the "Encourage" skill that lowers the Stress of a nearby ally.



Now, in order to make sure the players don't abuse that skill too much, it will have a long cooldown time (right now it is 5 turns, but it will surely be tweaked during the development). Obviously, players can still spend extra time during combat and reduce stress before going into the shelter, but due to longer wait times, it might not be the best solution - as the enemies will be swarming in all the time.

Oh, and I changed the way stimpaks handle stress. Previously using a stimpak would reduce your stress levels.

Some playtesters reported that they were using stimpaks only to reduce their stress level, as the aim penalty they got when the stress was too high was (literally, although not directly) killing them. So they used them even if their HPs were at maximum.

I didn't like where it was headed, so I made sure that using a stimpak actually increases your stress a little. This, combined with the "encourage" action and stress threshold increased to 100% should not make the game harder - and it will remove the stimpak stress reduction exploit.



I will end this blog entry here. Take care! And enjoy a new character model, the female ranger:

Welcome to the next entry of the bi-weekly devlog of Shardpunk! Despite the start of a new school year (we have two children - aged 8 and 10) I managed to spend some time on the game, pushing it a little bit closer to the next release.

The next demo will be named "Map + XP", although gaining experience and map travel won't be the only new things present in the game.

Anyway, I spent some time working on the experience gain mechanism. Here's what I got so far:

Characters gain experience points after each combat mission. Each survivor receives a number of XP just for surviving. Extra points can be received by killing more enemies or healing yourself/others during combat.



When reaching a new level, characters gain a Skill Point that can be used to unlock skills.



(you do see that a lot of icons is missing at the moment)

I did a major rework of the skills/traits system, and separated ones from the others. I've ended up with:

Class-specific unlockable skills (example: "sword slash" skill which is only available for rogues). These skills have level requirements, and will always appear in the same place in the skills tree.

Universal unlockable skills: they also have level requirements, but can appear for every character. Example: "hard to hit", which makes it more difficult to become hit with reaction fire.

It is possible for a skill to be universal, but also be present in the "fixed" skill tree - of course for different classes, as it would not make much sense for a skill to appear twice for the same character.

Next, we have traits. These can be either positive or negative, cannot be unlocked (they're pre-rolled for a character), and some of them are only obtainable when the stress level is too high.



So for the XP, I have the core mechanism in place. Obviously, the skills will change as new gameplay mechanics will be introduced. Also, right now the UI only shows stuff up to the 3rd level (level 4 is a placeholder). Depending on the length of the game, the level cap will vary.

Besides the XP stuff, I spent some time tweaking the UI in general, making sure it is more readable. Here's how the combat UI looks like:



As you can see I moved some stuff around, made the current character's stats more explicit, and moved the weapon heat indicator closer. I've also un-cluttered the top parts of the screen (you can still toggle objectives and common inventory display).

The side details are now only about displaying the effective % to hit.



As for my future plans, I want to introduce some quality-of-life changes to the game (and change few systems, based on player feedback). Then I will be off to the map travel thing.

Take care, and have a great weekend!

Alright, so I released 0.3 alpha demo of Shardpunk on Steam as well!



I already received far bigger traffic on Steam than I got on itch.io up to this point.

Also, I got some interesting user comments on different aspects of the game that I will be - as always - addressing and, in some cases, describing in detail in separate blog posts.

I did start working on new game features, but I want to focus on something different this time - demo gameplay tips.

Basically, I received some feedback that the game is still difficult to play. It might be that some of you did encounter unfair enemy distribution. However, I believe that there is a number of guidelines that one can follow to maximize the chance of winning.

First, here's a gameplay video of a single, full 0.3 version run:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Every character reaches the shelter alive, and I am able to collect 4 pieces of food to keep them alive through the night.

Here's a set of best practices for 0.3 alpha demo of Shardpunk.

Stay together

It does not make any sense to split your team. To avoid cutting one of your characters off from the main group, stay close. This will also allow you to heal each other if required.

Well, the ranger can manage on his own (but stay together if possible!)

Rangers have the "multi-overwatch" ability that allows them to fire up to 3 reaction shots (depending on their weapon heat level). This should allow them to stay clear from melee enemies for a little longer.

Don't prioritize the loot

You will have plenty of opportunities to grab that loot. Focus on killing the rats first.

Don't be afraid of using explosives

Yeah, grenades attract more vermin. On the other hand, they allow you to clear lots of them at once (especially as I tweaked the grenades so that they deal minimum 3 damage, which insta-kills the machinegun rats).



Combat suit is your best friend

The soldier has a lot of useful abilities (some players report it as overpowered). Ground slam and combat suit boost both allow you to deal nice AOE damage, causing multiple kills.



Bring down rat commanders ASAP

These rats (the red ones, wielding a banner) have good accuracy and can throw a grenade. You should prioritize killing them.

Don't' forget about that fusion core!

A Fusion Core is required to open up the exit door - without it, you are unable to complete the mission. I am pretty sure I will be changing this behavior (or at least extending it) so that the players have other options.



Leave me some feedback

No matter whether you manage to get through the demo or not, do leave me feedback in any shape or form - feedback is what I need to keep making the game better.

Have a great day!