Hello fellow co-conspirators,
Well this week was all about testing out this new economy. I did a few playtests and I’m happy with how its shaping out. Being honest however, it does need some major balance before it can work correctly. Right now I went in with a hammer practically and created a few scenarios that allowed me to test my assumptions, but ideally we would want each level to be generated procedurally. I do see a few weeks of balance ahead of me (if not more). However, at least I know that this is the direction Puppetmaster is heading.
It has brought up a few problems, however. Mostly the tutorial needs reworking in order to accomodate the new system and feedback needs to be improved. Currently my tutorial is super simple, dirty and hand-holdy…just enough so I can get it out the door for playtesting. But it’s a horrible experience…..hoooorrrrible.
I’m thinking I need to redo the whole thing in a more exploratory way. Given the rouge-like influences in the game it makes sense….but that does mean probably another week in just making it happen. I’ll have to weigh how much its worth it.
In the mean time I’ve also worked a bit on the polish of the game. I really wanted to bring the feel of real world into the game with examples of media reacting to an event (i.e. surveillance pictures, maps, newscasts, etc…). I’m experimenting with using it directly as feedback for ongoing missions.
It still needs some ways to go…
I also worked on the end turn sequence, which now looks much fancier.
I feel it’s still a bit confusing, but it is much quicker than it used to, and that’s a plus. In my playtests, several players have been saying they get bored with the pacing of some of the sequences. It’s just interrupting their flow. We want players to be in the thick of the action for as much time as possible, so we need to be aware of this friction and eliminate it.
This week will be one of bug fixing so not much to report next time. That being said, I do want to keep polishing up the work so hopefully I’ll have some cool vids to show y’all.
Happy Conspiring!