itch.io

Abstraction and the Fourth Wall

Did some more playtesting and got feedback from a fellow gamedev (thanks Steve!). He brought up a very good point. The game has a lot of arbitrary numbers with no physical counterpart: hit points, credits, etc.

Originally, every game element was explained by the story. Over time things have become more abstract. Which is fine, except that it's more difficult and less impactful to think about "credits" than something more concrete like "ammo".

The reason for the abstraction is that I plan to break the fourth wall pretty severely in this game. In fact, at the moment, there really is no fourth wall. Everything is unapologetically arbitrary and "video gamey".

My friend made me realize that in order to break the fourth wall, you must first establish it. Otherwise you're just non-fiction.

So I'm backtracking a bit and bringing in some of the fiction elements that previously played a larger role. This way, there will actually be a fourth wall for me to break later in the game.

I'm starting with simple stuff. Instead of "HP", it's "armor". Instead of "earning credits" by "capturing control points", it's "collecting energy" from "energy ports". I made this a little more concrete with a simple animation showing your sensor pod collecting the energy:

I have a lot of world-building and backstory built up for this game, but I dropped it in favor of more self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking stuff. I didn't want anything in the way of the mechanics and character arc. But now I'm realizing that world-building is super important for immersion.

Invincibility

The other major feedback I got was that the health/invincibility mechanic was confusing and frustrating. It made no sense that just because someone has higher HP than you, you can't damage them at all.

I need some kind of mechanic for this though. I don't trust players to run away and live to fight another day. And I don't want games to end in 2 hits.

Here's what I'm trying now:

• When you get hit, you are shielded for 8 seconds
• If someone hits your shield, the shield goes down, but they become stunned and unable to move for 3 seconds
• If you are shielded and hit someone, your shield also goes down

Here's what it looks like in action. I show the remaining shield amount as a progress bar. The "SH" is the first two letters of the world "SHIELD".

Hopefully this slows things down and encourages people to buy upgrades to gain an advantage.

I leave for SF on Sunday and then NYC a week later. Work will continue, but updates will probably slow down a bit.

Anyway, here's a funky color scheme I liked because it felt a bit 70s