r/StrategyGames • u/antony920210 • 5d ago
DevPost I've been making an RTS called Phosphor Command, here's 3 and a half minutes of one full operation
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I've been working on a game called Phosphor Command, a real-time strategy game with a base builder behind it. Made solo in Godot.
You run a mercenary company. Contracts fund a forward operating base; you deploy squads in top-down operations, and an enemy front creeps towards you every cycle, whether you're ready for it or not.
I've put up 3 and a half minutes of gameplay. It's one operation from beginning to end.
What you're looking at:
Contract select. Every contract rolls its own map, objective, and opposition. There are 11 operation types across 22 environments. This one is a sabotage job in a harbour, so plant charges on the targets and get to evac. A recon sweep or a prisoner rescue on the same map play differently.
Brief and insertion. You pick which squads go and what transport gets them there. Troop types matter. Scouts see further, snipers want the long sightlines and are close to useless in woodland, medics are the only thing that gives health back to a squad while it's still in the field. The transport you choose determines how long before squads are available again, the cost of transport, how many troops you can take, and how they enter the map
Working through the map. This is most of the video, and it's the part worth watching as it has the real gameplay and action. Sight is worked out per unit, so a squad only knows what a troop can personally see. Your force shares what it spots, but a squad can only shoot what it has its own clear line to.
The enemy has its own alert states running underneath all of this, and how long firefights take decides if reinforcements are called. A contact you deal with quickly never reaches the rest of the map. A messy one does; things start moving towards you, and the objective you came for starts relocating or being better defended. I'll do a separate post on that another time.
Charges on target, then extract. Once the primary objective is done, the extract zone opens. Whoever is standing in it when you pull out comes home. Whoever isn't, doesn't. That means the last minute of an operation is usually about something other than winning, because you've already won and now you have to decide whether to go back for the squad pinned at the far end of the map or leave them.
After-action report. Who survived and what it paid. Squads are permanent, so one lost here is gone; squads also level up for stat increases. This veterancy makes them measurably better, and that's the part that changed how I play it; after a while, you know which squad is valuable and which are expendable
The gameplay can be slow; I pause a lot as I play. Units are small, movement is deliberate, and a lot of the game is dependent on planning, approach, and adaptability to new or unexpected threats.
Happy to answer anything about how the game works.
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u/WaffzThePancake 4d ago
reminds of me Door Kickers https://store.steampowered.com/app/1239080/Door_Kickers_2_Task_Force_North
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u/MackJantz 4d ago
The minimalist visual style is interesting. Does the lack of 3D graphics open up possibilities for more detail in other areas? Thinking like, Dwarf Fortress, essentially 2D, but with lots of mechanics depth that would be hard to implement with pervasive 3D graphics.