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edg3
07-04-2010, 06:04 PM
Updated 7/4/2010

Game name: Unnamed
Game type: Turn based strategy

World:
The world will be made up of hexagons laid out in a grid to make up each level. Units movement will be relative to their current hexagon. Units will take up 1, 3 or 7 hexagon tiles:
http://i42.tinypic.com/6ehjz4.jpg

Units:
Cost per unit: will change in balancing stage
(1 * UnitAttack) worth of Platinum
(1 * UnitDef) worth of Steel
(1 * UnitSpeed) worth of Silicone

Cost per structure: will change during balancing stage
Planetary base: 25 units steel, 5 units platinum, 5 units silicone
Stations: 20 units steel, 8 units platinum, 2 units silicone

Unit build time:
Turns = 9 - UnitSpd
Only scouts can build

Structure build time
Planetary base: 7 turns
Station: 5 turns

1 Block
Scouts: (1 Atk, 1 Def, 8 Spd)
Fighters: (3 Atk, 2 Def, 5 Spd)
Frigates: (5 atk, 4 def, 2 Spd)

3 Blocks
Planets: (Full resource gain - 80%, 1 unit repair every 2 turn)
Moons: (Half resource gain - 40%, 1 unit repair every 3 turns)
Stations: (No resources)

7 Blocks 1 of each per every 200 hexagonal tiles
Black Holes (No pathing, Lower speed by 1)
Suns (No pathing, Increase speed by 1)
Asteroid fields (Pathing, Half Speed, increase defence by 2)

Resources
Planets and moons give: Platinum, Steel, and Silicone (Random amounts that total 80% [40 in the case of a moon] of 3 units)
Planetary bases and stations give: Unit cap (8 and 5 respectively)
Research Points: Gained from capturing planets and destroying enemy units/structures (doesnt affect actual play, at certain amounts unlocks new Upgrade Cards)

Upgrade Cards These will be revamped completely in the balance phase
You can use a single card in a game (chosen at the start of the game) which gives you a certain bonus throughout the game. Each card will also have some "lore" for the game to explain various things to the player about the game's "story"

example cards
Solar Bouncing: add and extra 1 speed near suns
Resource Efficiency: Harvest an extra 20% resources at each Planet and Moon
Production Line: units build 1 turn faster
Sonar: add 1 unit of speed inside asteroid fields

Combat
Your attack is the number of attacks your ship can make at -
Damage = Your attack - Enemy's Defence
Minimum damage is 1
Each unit has 10 base health
Each structure has 20 base health
No combat allowed in first N turns where = 2 * number of players
You may not move a ship once it has attacked

Turns
Players are shuffled at the start of a game into a random order for play, each is given one planet (with a planetary base on it) and 10 of each resource (except unit cap which they get from their planetary base)
Every turn each player gets resources and it counts to their repair and build counters

Game play types these arent final, but they are examples
Annihilate: Completely destroy all of an enemy's structures
Team Annihilate: As above but in teams of 2 or more
Arms Race: First team to have their number of units at a ratio of 2 to 1 (or better) to every other player in game, and each player that is not in the lead gets a bonus of 10% resource rate, and a bonus of 1 attack on each of their units
Conqueror: Take control of all planets and moons on the map
Defender: Keep a specific planet/moon/base alive
Race against time: Start with a number of units, and 1 planet per player and defend against wves of invaders for as long as possible.

Story:
The story will essentially be that an alien ship that traveled into our galaxy crashed on our planet, helping Earth develop new technology and advances in space exploration allowing us to move off of our own planet into the rest of the galaxy. The crashed ship gave us a new method of harvesting solar energy that gave enough energy to power ships completely (with no need for other fuels), as well as new methods of propulsion that made the interstellar distances much quicker to travel.

Unfortunately the ship that crashed was a scout for the alien race who are systematically taking control of the whole universe, galaxy by galaxy. Earth never managed to make contact with the aliens when they were noticed establishing a base on Pluto, but by the time the aliens were reaching Mars mankind had realised their intentions.

In response Earth unanimously elected a single military leader (you) to manage its space fleet as a whole and gave you the task of protecting humanity and our solar system as we knew it.

Project status
Concept: Going through C&C, and expanding the concept

What is needed:
Comments and critique, and feel free to give your suggestions.

dislekcia
08-04-2010, 02:12 PM
I say build a prototype and let's see if it works... I'm having a hard time trying to picture your combat mechanics from what you've written. Surely you can knock something together in a week or so?

edg3
08-04-2010, 03:35 PM
Dev will be slow but I am working on a prototype in my free time. With exams coming up I get like 5 mins a day to put into my dev, so dont expect this overnight ;)

Also, here is my friend's input:

As always this stuff is just suggestions, I prefer to over-critique than to say it's cool when it could be better. Here follows all the thinking i did:

Pre-PS: I may have read the damage thing wrong. Not sure if frigates at 5atk 4def would do a total of (5-2)*5=15 damage to fighters (3atk 2def) or if it's just 5-2=3 damage. Ignore 5 if the first option is true.

1. Unless your base is manufacturing fake breasts, you probably don't have much use for silicone. Silicon might be useful for computer chips etc ;-)
2. I didn't see anything about attack range - it creates an interesting dynamic if you have some units with range greater than a single cell that can effectively harass slow moving units. Obviously they have to be nerfed by having either low to mid attack damage or movement speed.
3. Also didn't see any fog of war. Varying unit's vision is awesome (scouts can see real far, snipers a bit less, and the lowest view range is set to be equal to the sniper's range (so you can at least see who's harassing you)
4. Your damage model is rather predictable. If players can accurately calculate the outcome of the next turn (or turns) by doing simple addition/subtraction, there's very little element of surprise. Predictable = boring IMO. I'd recommend a few things:
a) Use larger numbers. This allows a smooth variable when you start doing random numbers.
b) I'm having nice ideas about normally distributed attack damage models (defense is in the next point). You have a damage range (say 50-70), which indicates the +-1sigma range (sigma = standard deviation), this is where about 70% of your attacks fall. Obviously you could do 1.5 sigma or 2 sigma as well. Attacks which fall outside of this range are classified as blocks or criticals. If you don't want blocks/crits, you simplify this by having a damage range, with greater probability of damage in the middle of the range and lower probability on the edges. Even a simple triangle or semi-circle probability distribution will work.
c) I personally don't like linear defense. Percentage defense makes me much happier - something like the LoL model where if i have 100 def, it takes twice the amount of damage to kill me. 200 def means it takes 3 times the damage. This is where larger numbers become more important - 5% def on 10 HP is a bit tricky ;-)

5) Enough ranting on damage models, time for balancing. If you keep your current damage model and unit stats, there are some problems:
Scout v Scout - 1 dmg
Scout v Fighter - 1 dmg
Fighter v fighter - 1 dmg (same as scout = not cool)
Scout, Fighter or Frigate v Frigate - 1 dmg = not cool
Of course when they fight back there is a difference, but 10 turns to finish any matched 1v1 battle seems a bit long.

6) The current unit layout appears to be small-medium-big, with similar ratios in atk/def attributes, and most of the variation in movespeed. How about organising it as tank/dps/scout instead?

Guess that's about all the critique. Generally it looks like a good game, could be fun. I like the goodies in the map, and the Arms Race map mode looks sick :D (Leader must effectively run around razing enemy bases to keep his resources up... oooh yeah)

Wow, this ended up longer than i expected. (TWSS)