The next step

Following the Steam Next Fest release of our demo, we have once again gathered a lot of feedback, taken a deep breath, and we are now taking the project to a whole new level. Destroyer is growing, and to give you the first glimpse of what is to follow, we would like to show you one of the new stations that has already been prepared for your upcoming fights against enemy wolfpacks.

[h2]That’s right! [/h2]

In its final form, Destroyer will be just as much about your own ship’s maneuvers, as it will be about commanding your whole escort screen against an entire wolfpack. Because of that, we need to empower the player with new systems and ways of tracking and gathering data on the steel wolves attempting to ensnare the convoy. Perhaps you can remember the two stations from our gameplay trailer that did not make their way into the demo. Well, the reason for their absence was simply because they weren’t necessary back then. In the full game, however, they will help you deal with multiple enemies and evaluate the overall tactical situation.

One of those stations is a board for keeping track of multiple contacts. It was very early in the project when I decided to use it in the game in order to let the player keep track of all the essential information on multiple foes. And well, whaddya know - it actually serves the exact same purpose as it did on an actual warship, so it’s not like we are reinventing the wheel here. Regardless, I really like how it blends with the rest of the design and how it allows the player to immediately see all the most recent information about every contact encountered.



As you can also see on the board, we are currently fighting against two U-boats and, from our initial testing, we can already tell you that the board is of great help, especially if you lose contact with one of them. The reason is that once the contact has been lost, the board still holds all the last known information about it, allowing you to plot its position from the point in time where you lost it. So, you can simply backtrack to your own destroyer’s position on the given time on the DRT, and that will allow you to roughly plot the estimated contact position based on that data.

What is also important, selecting a contact on the board switches all the reporting to that particular contact, with only the most crucial information on other contacts being given (lost, regained, etc.). This way, the player can filter among the reports to hear only reports about the selected contact. After all, the chosen contact is the one that the player will track and attack first.

With the ‘contacts’ board up and running, we are currently working on getting the tactical display working as well. This will be the last station added to the game, so once it is ready, we will no longer need to work on new stations and will be finally able to focus on perfecting and polishing everything we have done so far. At least from the destroyer side, that is, because there is still TONS of work to be done on the U-boat AI, escort vessel AI, and how they interact with one another.



[h3]That, however, will be discussed in the next devlog [/h3]

We hope that the new, tactical level of gameplay introduced by commanding your AI escorts against multiple U-boats will add a new and exciting layer of decision-making to the game.

We would also like to thank everyone who has played our demo and shared their feedback - it is much appreciated, and we will do everything we can to make the game cater to your anti-submarine cravings. We also hope that you will stay excited about Destroyer and that you will keep following the game and help it thrive with your feedback until the official release.

Thank you!
Iron Wolf Studio

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1272010/Destroyer_The_UBoat_Hunter/