Well, I've decided that I'm going to attempt another 7DRL this year. This will be my third time participating.
Orb Temple (name subject to change) is going to use some of the ideas from my previous 7DRLs,
Rogue Space Marine (2015) and
Helix (2016).
Like my previous games, this will be a boiled down game with heavy emphasis on one hit-point tactical combat.
The basic concept is that the player is limited to two actions: move, or throw an orb. There are several types of orbs that can be thrown, each of which has varying effects, such as damage, stun, slow, repel, or confuse. The catch is that the player doesn't have control over which orb is thrown - the orbs will be queued up in a random order, sort of like the way blocks are queued up randomly in Tetris.
Here are some things I'd like to keep from my previous games:
- Bullet dodging
- Turn based mechanics with a real-time "feel"
- Cool-down timers on abilities
- Densely packed levels that thrust the player into immediate combat
- Punishingly high difficulty but hopefully a high level of replayability
Things that I'd like to improve upon from my previous games:
- More "readable" game state so that it is clear to the player if their attack will hit or miss
- More "readable" game state so that it is clear to the player if they will be hit on the next turn
- No crashes on level loading! (Helix was prone to this...)
I will likely be collaborating with a coworker of mine (Blake Barrett). He showed interest in learning Unity so we decided to team up. In the past, I've done my 7DRLs solo, but I thought it would be fun to try one out in a small group.
Planning on starting maybe Sunday.
-Brett Gildersleeve