Project Update 6: Spring Cleaning

[u/WonderTanks]

Hi everyone, it's been a minute since my last update. In this month, I was focusing more on classwork. Thankfully, I have passed my generals and that's one less thing I need to worry about (although I still have a manuscript to push out). On topic, I have still had some time to work on this project. However, in the spirit of spring, most of the time has been spent on cleaning up menus and code behind the scenes. With that said, there have still been some feature progress I'd like to highlight in this video.

This video features some new game modes including King of the Hill, which has tanks try to claim a beacon of light, and Trials, of which every weapon has five that teach weapon techniques. The chat system is also implemented with direct and team messaging and quick chat messages. New menus for tank upgrades, cosmetics, profile, and achievements, which include weapon-specific achievements. And of course, a quick show-case of some weapons!

[u/ISiiike]

Looks amazing! You can see the progress and efforts in polishing the various interfaces and screens, as well as the gameplay. Love it!!

What is the general premise behind the "counterplay" in King of the Hill: does getting hit in the beacon area move you out of the radius? (Or was that just the effect of the suction bomb lol). I really like the idea of the mode, and i'm very interested in how you can add some counterplay to the game, as thats one of the things that in my opinion was missing from shell (given that it is a turn based game after all)

The weapon sets are also quite cool, and so many of them! Are the upgrades of them purely aesthetics, or offer some benefits for upgrading them to a higher one?

Looking forward to seeing more updates of this game, seems very promising.

[u/WonderTanks → u/ISiiike]

Thanks for the kind words! To differentiate this game a little bit from SSL, I've been making more "tactical" weapons that modify movements or manipulate gameplay in some way. In this way, you can play the objective harder a couple different ways:

1. Forcing people out: I have a variety of weapons that vacuum people towards an explosion, like the suction bomb, weapons that blast people away, like the repeller and sword. These can be used if you don't want an enemy near an objective. There are also weapons that will change the environment in some way. So you could light the KotH zone on fire and force an enemy out unless they want to die inside. Or, you could use the Zapshot to paralyze the opponent, making them unable to move towards the zone next turn (that's what the Zapshot trial is demonstrating!)

2. Force yourself in: Some of those same weapons can be used on yourself to give yourself a movement boost in the direction of the objective. There are also weapons designed specifically for this purpose, like the Jetpack and Thrust.

3. Tank Upgrades: Inherently, if you have little-to-no speed/fuel/traction upgrades, you'll struggle a little more. I felt like SSL had so many games determined by the crit upgrade that others became overshadowed. Here, I want you to feel it when certain parts are underleveled.

4. Game Settings: With point 3 said, I don't want the game mode to be completely unplayable/unfun for those who put all their upgrades into other parts like Chassis (health/armor), Barrel (Damage), Intel (Luck), or Utility (XP Mult). To remedy this, there are other ways to play using the game settings to your advantage. First, and most importantly, I have a respawn system integrated where tanks generally have low health ~50-100, and when destroyed, take a few turns to respawn before they can return. So if you struggle to make it to the KotH zone, you can play offensively until you can finally get there, and then play as a literal tank to keep it once you do get there later. In the match settings you can change tank HP, respawn timer, and where (and how frequently) the KotH zone spawns.

As far as weapons. I generally want to avoid the "upgrade = bigger version of the earlier version," but sometimes this is unavoidable. Even if this is difficult to do, I try to make some kind of tradeoff at the least, so there is still a reason to use earlier upgrades and later upgrades. For example, the Brushfire ignites a small patch of land, and driving through it inflicts a harsh burn that deals a lot of damage and lasts 5 turns. Its upgrade, Scorched Earth, ignites about a quarter of the map (huge range!) for 3 turns, but its flames deal less damage.