Overview: Player Resources
As mentioned in the last post, I wanted to talk a bit about the player resources.
Remaining Lives and Energy
Drodian’s (De)fault leans toward an arcade style game loop, so the player has so many lives to get as far as they can in a run. We’ll probably stick with a traditional 3 lives with more earned as you play.
A more unusual resource though, is the player’s energy bar (shown on the far right). If the player has their sword out when they run into an enemy they’ll hurt the baddie, but they also lose energy. When they run out they lose a life, think of it more as an endurance meter. It should deter the player from trying to kill every enemy on the screen, since the goal is to get through each floor quickly. We plan to use it for various enemy designs, such as energy sapping traps.
Upgrades
While the primary objective of each floor is to get the key and reach the door, they each have a hidden objective as well. These vary greatly and consist of ideas like “step on these two tiles” or “Block 5 projectiles”. This gets a lot more in depth but for accomplishing each objective an upgrade pickup will appear on the screen.
If the player picks it up they will get an upgrade that will last them the rest of the run. The upgrades range from a boost to your stats, to easier enemy behavior and other oddities.
Wall Hacks
Things are really stacked against our hero, so they brought along their own cheating mechanic! When the player presses the ‘B’ button while facing a wall they will digitally dissolve that wall. They have one use per floor to start with and can get more as they play, sure comes in handy while stuck in a maze.
That about sums it up. Not sure what we’ll have next week but there’s been some cool updates so we’ll catch you soon!
~ Nathan Kilthorne
