Shardpunk News

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!

For starter, here's a reminder that the 0.3 "Shelter and Stress" update is already live. You can download it on itch.io at https://bryqu.itch.io/shardpunk#download, and the Steam version should be available in a few days.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This is the third time I've "released" Shardpunk. It does feel nice to have such an iterative approach and to be able to gain player feedback for the ever-increasing slice of the game. As usual, I will make sure that I respond to every person who has participated in the post-game survey.

Releasing a game (well, a piece of it) does take time. I basically spent the last two weeks doing no game development at all - it was all about playtesting, creating new screenshots, putting the trailer all together, updating the webpage, etc. etc.

I also had to get familiar with the Steamworks stuff to be able to upload and release the demo to Steam. It turned out to be fairly easy to use and well documented.



I knew that being an indie game dev requires wearing a lot of hats, but it turns out it's even harder than I thought.

Anyways, life goes on, and it's time for me to focus on my next goals. These are: creating the next alpha and increasing the amount of the time I spent on game development.

Let's talk about the next version first. I've named the 0.4 update "Map and XP", which means that two new major features will be map travel (being able to select the next mission, as right now it is not possible) and leveling your characters.



Besides these two major features, I will be surely addressing any reported issues and filling some gaps in gameplay mechanics. For instance, I need to figure out how to solve an issue with the player not having any fusion core available (and these are necessary for finishing a level). I will write more about this in my future entries.



As for increasing the amount of time I can spend - this will be a tough one. I am not able to quit my day job, as I have a family to feed. Going full-time indie would require me to secure some funding, so I'll be pitching the game to publishers. I've been working on a game pitch document (well, a presentation) that I will be sending over in few places.



I am also participating in two competitions in Poland which should increase awareness about Shardpunk.

Lastly, I am considering giving a mixed approach a try. First of all, I could consider taking a month break from my day job and see how much progress I am able to make when focusing purely on game development. It should allow me to flesh out the estimates I have for the remaining work on the game. If this works well, I might be reducing my day job to half-time - but only if I'd be sure that I can deliver the game in a reasonable amount of time AND if I would see that the game would be able to sell well (I guess it will all be about the number of wishlists I will have by the end of 2020).

So yeah, we will see how it goes. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Shardpunk will get recognized during the competitions. And one way or the other, I am starting to work on the next feature. It will be a slow but steady process. Heck, it will be especially slow in September, as the children are going back to school so this period is extra time-consuming.



Take care, everyone! And go play that demo!

Ok, let's keep this one short. I've released the 0.3 alpha demo of the game.

You can grab it on itch.io already, and the Steam version of the demo should be available in the near future as well.

I am looking forward to your feedback!

Also, here's the v0.3 trailer I made. Enjoy!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]