Miner Prototype

[jasonpickering]

yeah I really want to add more strategy. I want to add the beacons. but have not thought of a good system for adding that yet. Right now I have added crumbled areas. once you step off one of those spots it crumbles away and shows lava underneath, so that path is blocked. I am also going to change up the shop a bit. It really doesn't have much excitement to it, as you don't have many choices.

[jasonpickering]

So big update. Completely redid the engine to deal with some of the problems I was having code wise. The shop has been removed for now. I need to find a better way to do it. so after each level you get a bonus to energy and each time you go to the shop you are revived. gems are pointless at the moment, until I figure out the shop system. Then I really need to build a map generating algorithm. its terrible at the moment.

shop system coming up soon!! feedback welcome.

[st33d]

Yea, not a fan of no-shop. The whole fun of mining is micro-managing your resources. Debating on whether to spend my cash on fuel or upgrades was the best bit.

I disagree with making set challenges in this, that's not mining. Imagine if Minecraft had prefab maps or the world was made of jigsaw chunks. How boring would that be to go searching for resources? Which brings me back to the shop thing again - Minecraft's shop is its crafting screen.

You could perhaps add different types of resources - like how Starcraft has gas as well as minerals, the gas being very different to mine and offering a different tier of rewards.

[jasonpickering]

yeah. I have a new build to put up soon, but its pretty different.

I dropped the idea or rescuing guys, because I was thinking of making it so you didn't have to rescue all the guys and it took focus off the original mining idea. so I basically swapped out the survivors for Gems. with a much smaller amount of things to mine.

I added a cargo system also. the player is allowed to carry one gem at a time, but through upgrades they will be able to carry up to 3 at once.

I have made a large list of possible upgrades to add to the game, and I am thinking of maybe giving the player one possible upgrade more similar to a spell and selling them in the shop or giving the player the choice at the start of the game (different Vehicles) allowing for some difference in feel during a playthrough. (Think different Races in Desktop Dungeons)

Possible Upgrades:
- Solar Panels - Every 5 moves gain back 1 energy
- Start with extra Cargo space
- Point to nearest Crystal
(if I do different vehicles I will probably change the Energy Max to balance out the upgrades too.)

Still thinking about one thing though, and that's levels. If I should give one gigantic level with like 100 crystals in it
 or just do smaller levels you travel from place to place. I feel like the Larger Level would be better, as the player gets desperate trying to get all the crystals and having exhausted everything near your "Base". Also I am trying to think of a way to allow the player to move the base, or at least build recharge stations somehow.

[jasonpickering]

updated the build. still working out the shop system. I wanted crystal collection to be the primary goal, but then I don't know if that should also be the shop currency. Having the player make the choice of buying upgrades or banking the crstals into their score, could be interesting, but I am not sure how it will feel. The other idea is going with two types of currency. I have thought about maybe doing "Tech Boxes" scattered around. these can be spent on upgrades.

I also need to figure out the recharge system. if it should be a free action or the player should have to pay for it.

[st33d]

Only picking up one gem at a time gets a bit tedious. Free fuel was nice but it just turned into a lawn mowing game. I mean, if you've got infinite food you might as well scrub the whole area clean - just to reduce the cost of any future journeys.

[Nymphaea]

I agree, the game seems much easier and repetitive. I also miss the old meteorite sprites.

Upgrades and some kind of goal would definitely be nice. Maybe competition for the gems, making you have to somehow cause them problems with collecting gems. Could also make some of the upgrades weapons or tools to distract (A shovel to push rocks, or adding an oil slick or other traps).  Just random ideas Maybe also bridges, for placing over holes (I had some impossible levels in the old rescue version, because of crack placement)

Also... were the numbers new, or always there? I swear I don't remember them xD

[jasonpickering]

St33d:
yeah, its weird that the gems are tedious as where the people never really got tedious. I wonder why that is. might have something to do with the abundance of gems on the level. where as there were only 1 or 2 people, they felt much rarer so it felt right to only pick up one at a time. I also agree about the fuel. I jsut have not figures out a proper system to charge for fuel.

Nymphaea:
yeah a lot of people read them as tree trunks and not rocks so I changed them.

I definetly need to add in the overall gameplay loop as well as solve the current one. I was thinking the competition, but I wanted to force that idea of lonliness, of you by yourself on this asteroid and having a bunch of other people romaing around, makes it into more of a race.

Still stuck on this though. The game felt much better when you had a limited currency for upgrades and an item to collect to move on. Thematically the gems work better then the survivors, but gameplay wise it feels very bland. I think going forward I am going to drop the level size. I am also thinking about doing away with recharging. Giving the player a larger cache of energy and sending them out. the goal being to collect as many gems as possible and get back to base before you run dry. returning to base would then send to the next level. then adding a shop in between each level. there will be no Cargo limit and the goal will be just making a large sweep of the area.

[Nymphaea]

Maybe some survival elements then, like food? Another random idea is being able to leave your tank if it runs out of energy. Seeing as how the area seems to be a desert, you could have limited time as a person before you die(food stored in tank to heal you?), but maybe if you're lucky, enough to fetch energy and bring it back.(probably not a full refill though) Would give you a use for the old human sprite, too Could also make crossing cracked tiles easier, a person wouldn't break it, so could run across and drag a crystal to the tank.

Also, have the charging station have a "short range teleport" or something, once you collect enough crystals you can go to a new area. That way you can continue gameplay, maybe eventually go to different more unique area types, looking for some "oasis"/"paradise", which could be a goal.

If these are varying from your goals for the game, what are they? (if you have any, I know this was a random weekend project originally)

[jasonpickering]

see i thought about food, but it seemed to much like energy. Climbing out of the machine could be cool, I would probably do Oxygen instead of food for that, but I would need a good situation to leave the machine. I don't really want to complicate the game to much.

and for the idea of guys weighing less. I actually thought of doing a vehicle that is a hover craft and can move over crumble areas without destroying the ground.

As for overall goal. I wanted to do it as a simple score based game. Either giving a point for each level or crystal found.

[Paul Jeffries]

Hmmm... there's almost no game to it now; provided you can count there's pretty much no reason why you'd ever run out of fuel.  Because of that the rocks feel pretty insubstantial as obstacles - they mean you have to turn back slightly sooner but other than that there's no real penalty for just steamrollering through them.

As a blue-sky idea: what if it wasn't just your survival you had to look out for?  Say, each map has several automated drilling platforms that are slowly extracting valuable ores from the asteroid and your job is to keep them running by refueling them with crystals, protecting them from hazards, buying them upgrades that make them drill faster or more energy-efficiently and so on.  As they drill deeper it could cause more and more seismic activity that alters the level; new cracks appear, rocks shift around.  Your score for the level could be based on how quickly you manage to completely mine out each asteroid.

[jasonpickering]

I might have to do that drill idea. i wanted the game to be about resource management, but I am afraid its going to be to similar to Ido's Fuel game from last years 7DRL. Also thinking about resources is a bit hard to. I wanted Energy for when you were driving around, but I need to think of some others and how they effect gameplay.

Right now I have Energy as a resource. I am thinking of making the "key" to the next room be an ever increasing amount of crystals. meaning the player must save some crystals to spend on traveling to the next floor and not dumping all of them into Energy. I am also going to change it so that Energy is refilled in chunks, instead of refueling the entire bar like it currently is.

now I could change this and go with a drilling system. The player would need to power their vehicle and also the Drill.
The drill would slowly drill and when it has mined all the valuable material the floor is "Completed" and they can move on to the next area. It would mean keeping yourself powered as well as the machine powered until it fills completely.

I think if I did this I would need to think about the extra stuff like the cargo system. if you should be able to carry as many crystals as you want. but the "Drill platform idea" might be the best idea.