AGDG DEMO DAY 56

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A jam submission

Deep ForcesView game page

Fight demons with precognition, clever tactics, and psychic powers.

Submitted by Zorch43 — 2 days, 9 hours before the deadline

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Deep Forces's itch.io page

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FilmstarsSubmitted24 days ago (3 edits) (+1)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2138717535

Graphics: Pristine Unity Slop

Gameplay: It's genius, of course. But I'm not sure if converting from puzzle to Xcom style is beneficial. Into the Breach feels binary, like chess puzzles: Either you solve a round, or you don't. Xcom (and Deep Forces, it seems) is a numbers game: You maximize resource gain vs losses taken, so you can invest into more impressive weaponry, to snowball into even better numbers outcomes in future levels. I suspect that Xcom progression works better with Xcom combat, not ItB combat, but you may prove me wrong. May be interesting also to keep the ItB combat, but make the levels larger, closer to Xcom.

Encountered one bug, where dragging a unit with 0XP into training got me stuck in the dialogue, unable to choose a skill to learn and also unable to cancel. Fortunately game was saved and I could just quit and continue.

edit: Another thing. I noticed that usually the first round was clearly the hardest. Maybe it could be alleviated by making you assign your team members to spots after enemy movement - playing further into the "precognition" theme. Meaning, you know how your crew will be scattered, and you may choose who is scattered to which position. The set of positions and all enemy movements are decided, but you choose which crew member takes which position.

Submitted

Frontiercoven

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Zorch43Developer24 days ago

Thanks for playing, and thanks for the feedback!

Into the Breach feels binary, like chess puzzles: Either you solve a round, or you don't. Xcom (and Deep Forces, it seems) is a numbers game: You maximize resource gain vs losses taken, so you can invest into more impressive weaponry, to snowball into even better numbers outcomes in future levels.

Personally I don't see a fundamental difference. ItB also requires you minimize losses and maximize gains so that you can equip more impressive weaponry. You are right that ItB is much more all-or-nothing, as there is always the looming threat of permadeath game-over.

May be interesting also to keep the ItB combat, but make the levels larger, closer to Xcom.

It's an attractive idea, but I'd like to keep the action to what can fit on a single screen, and I've always been annoyed by the need to have units walk long distances to get to the action. At best I might add multi-stage, multi-map battles.

Another thing. I noticed that usually the first round was clearly the hardest. Maybe it could be alleviated by making you assign your team members to spots after enemy movement

Interesting idea. I'll experiment with that.

Encountered one bug, where dragging a unit with 0XP into training got me stuck in the dialogue, unable to choose a skill to learn and also unable to cancel

Thanks for the catch. I'll look into that.

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FilmstarsSubmitted23 days ago(+1)

>Personally I don't see a fundamental difference. ItB also requires you minimize losses and maximize gains so that you can equip more impressive weaponry.

I’ve formed the impression that ItB algorithmically makes every round solvable to the extent that

your mechs never need to take damage, except self-inflicted
your mechs/pilots never have to die (!)
you take at most a small hit to a city (can easily be healed)

Maybe I was just very very good or lucky at the game, but I really felt that even for the rounds that seemed very dangerous for my pilots and mechs, after thinking long enough, it turned out the game gave a very interesting way out. And the weapons you buy aren't really strictly better, they just give your more options. Which can make the game harder, as the calculation takes them all into account for forming a solution, but can also make the game easier, when your options heavily overlap and thus the calculation can no longer create situations that are solvable in just one way.

There were rounds in ItB where I could see a way for the enemy to really screw me up, but the AI did not take that route of action. Notably there is no "Hard" mode in that game either - difficulty is decided by how complicated the moveset of your mechs is to comprehend. (= Which chess pieces are in the puzzle.)

In Deep Forces the first levels felt similar, as some enemies also just did not act. But in that boss level I had to choose 1 out of 4 troopers to die straight-up round 1. I think in Xcom it’s interesting that you can play a kinda formation, knowing which troopers are more at risk and which are the valuable backline. Jumping in and immediately having random troopers in grave danger is, idk, makes me not even try to care about the names and loadout of my guys.

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FederxSubmitted25 days ago(+1)

woah, into the breach

are you sure that having demons prevent the units in danger from moving is a good idea? it really limits my options, because i can't choose who they are going to target next.

Submitted

(a)woken

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Zorch43Developer24 days ago(+1)

Thanks for playing!

Yeah, limiting your options is essentially their entire point, and so long as there aren't too many of them at the same time, they should be priority targets, but manageable threats.

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Bitwise GamesSubmitted27 days ago(+1)

10/10 voice acting

Really minor, but I found two typos here: "an unit" should "a unit", and "efect" should be "effect".

Looks really good so far.