Game Discussion > Early Dev
Auto Fire: A turn-based roguelike car combat RPG
PatrickLipo:
Auto Fire is a reinterpretation of the great auto combat games of the 1980’s: Car Wars, Autoduel, and Roadwar 2000. It combines the tactical combat planning, dynamic world-generation, and player advancement of Roguelikes with outlaw landscapes, decked-out cars and the ongoing quest for fame. Refine your vehicle, take on missions and build a name for yourself in a world where the only way to thrive is to drive.
While it uses 3D and has the trappings of a real-time game, it is really a turn-based roguelike at its core. I truly felt that this genre was the absolute best way to deliver a balance of simulation and large-scale adventure. Thus, Auto Fire fits nearly all the Berlin Interpretation criteria (it is not ASCII of course, and the overworld gives it a bit of modality).
* Play in-progress at Itch.io!
* Wishlist us on Steam!
* Vertigames Blog
* Twitter: @autofiregame
* Discord: Auto Combat Zone
Background
This game is a labor of love... something I've been dreaming about since I played Car Wars in the 1980's. I've been a game developer for over 25 years now, both as a programmer and designer... I mostly do game design these days, but I do miss programming, which has led me to work on this game over nights and weekends after I made a fairly successful prototype during 7DRL 2016.
Core Movement and Combat
You can use a keypad or more traditional roguelike keys to move your car turn-by-turn, adding and further nuance: Facing and speed. As a vehicle with momentum to deal with, you can accelerate to increase the number of moves you can execute per second versus slower-moving opponents. However, you must also make sure you do not lose control by depleting your grip.
Your vehicle has weapon mounts on different sides of the vehicle, as well as special systems such as minedroppers or flaming oil slicks. Each has a cooldown and limited arcs of fire, so it's up to you to manage your facing as well as your positioning to take out enemy vehicles.
Adventure and RPG
As you progress through various desert and decaying urban environments, you acquire loot, weapons and supplies that you'll need to keep your car running. Various tires, engines, ram plates and armor upgrades also can be recovered. However, you'll need to hit a garage to make an upgrade, so choose well. Eventually you will be able to purchase entirely new body styles that provide different advantages in their weapon mounting and stats.
In between combat zones (such as ruined cities and desert outposts), there is an overworld which must be traversed. Each overworld region is controlled by a specific group or gang that will be affected by your actions, or perhaps ambush you if you draw too much attention. However, perhaps you might discover salvage, encounter a truck caravan, or build your fame by helping a motorist in need.
Pocketed throughout each region are the citadels, corporate-controlled pockets of civilization where the wage slaves are fed video feeds of car combat, both organized and out in the wastes. These are safe haves where you can rest, purchase new gear, and take on missions or cargo.
It's still got a long way to go, but I'm pretty happy with where I am. It really comes down to scraping up the time and taking the best advantage possible. Hope you enjoy!
Updates!
You can find out more info about what's being worked on at the Vertigames Blog! And if you want to chat live about all things car combat, from Car Wars to Gaslands to Mad Max, there's also a Discord: Help us understand what makes car combat special to you... Is it about the sheer attraction of powerful vehicles? The weapons and electronics hardware? Maintaining high speed? Special maneuvers like the bootlegger reverse? Building up your ride and skills? You may just help us decide what features are next! Join us at the Auto Combat Zone!
PatrickLipo:
Also, I wanted to give thanks to Tzan for bringing me back here and giving a shout to Nookrium, who then did a great Let's Play a week back. I want to keep delivering the updates and bring this to the level I think it can reach.
Tzan:
You're welcome :)
PatrickLipo:
Version 0.5.09 has been released! Get it on Itch.io now!
Conditions
There's a condition system now, where entities can be stunned, set on fire, made to skid, be blind, etc, and that will last a fixed number of turns before automatically removing themselves. Nothing super fancy, but it allowed me to do stuff like cause a vehicle to spin out when it hits an oil slick.
It also allowed me to give the player's radar more functionality, because it now "paints" targets within a specific radius for a set amount of time. Ideally the player should be able to build up sustained fire on a single opponent, or race through a group (at high speed to avoid being shot) and hit everyone with a radar ping before swinging around and taking advantage of the higher hit rate (and eventually critical hits spurred by this).
There is a new icon system above vehicles to show their current conditions, which hopefully will teach players more about the advantages of speed and choosing targets.
Combat Calculations
I also did some work on the to-hit calculations... I was using a "Diablo-style" hit percentage generator that tended to not miss a lot... the greater the defense, the more the hit chance headed towards zero, but in an asymptotic fashion. What happened there was that it compressed the viable range of hits more than I would have liked. Improving or reducing your hit chances didn't really seem to have a big impact.
So, I switched back to a flat hit percentage generation where attack and defense are directly opposed totals (more like D&D or other pen-and-paper games). It seems a bit archaic, but I put the minimum hit chance at 10% and reward the player with crit bonuses if they exceed 100%... and you definitely notice if you're moving at speed and are harder to hit, or if you get a hit bonus from radar painting your target. You can read a bit more of the nerdery here.
Finally, I found a bug that was causing enemies to hit you 100% of the time no matter what your defense or how fast you go! Now moving at higher speed is significantly more meaningful.
Weapons!
I did a bit of work on weapon resolution to clean up some weirdness, as well as allow for effective area effects over various volumes. I can have weapons with blast radius at impact, cone effects, lines, and more. This gave me some vastly improved versions of scatterguns, flamers, and so on.
I also switched over my missiles to LeanTween (a great Unity package that's freeeee, although the Editor that goes with is worth throwing a few bucks at) so that I could use more sophisticated arcs (splines, eases, etc) for the projectile travel. This gave me some great drunk missiles and so on.
City Flow
A somewhat smaller bit of work but vastly important was looking into problems I was starting to see in my city layout.
A couple of years ago I put multiple months into a city generation method that took pre-crafted blocks and spliced them together, street-to-street, with props and so on. It worked pretty well... However, lately the cities seemed to have wayyyy too many skinny alleyways and dead-ends, even though I remember putting a fair amount of effort into reducing these. Worse yet, I'd started to see some passability and playability issues, which I know I did checks for. Ugh. I love dusty Mad Max wastes, but the cities are just as important a part of the game and they weren't fun.
I spent some time trying to re-learn what the hell the 2016 version of me had made. For a little bit I thought 2016 me was a bit of an idiot... but it turns out he was somewhat clever. It was 2018 me who introduced a number of bugs that caused loops to no longer form... that guy was a jerk. Specifically I had some code that overlaid roads over previously populated obstructions to create extra loops, and those no longer overlaid properly. In addition, my passability checks were not properly busting holes through the buildings and obstructions when needed.
I added a bit more two-lane roads and discouraged alleys from forming very often. In addition, I added some new block types to my definition that had fewer buildings, so some extra open spaces could be formed. I can pretty much make an infinite number of city block components, so I'll keep adding ones that give some more driving freedom.
User Interface
Most importantly, there is a new settings menu that can be accessed by hitting ESC. You can control the music and sound effects volumes there, as well as quit the game.
Tzan:
Nice looking missiles, I'll have to check out that LeanTween.
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