Choices, and a Better Introduction

I got some awesome feedback about the current state of the game, and I made a little pivot to address it. Aside from some ui details like camera controls which I addressed, the major ask was to have more of a hook, something to get you invested in your party and to help you understand what the game's about. So I built out a little intro scenario that we've been kicking around for a while, where your village gets attacked and you need to decide what to do about it.

I'm really liking the idea of choices as core mechanism for jobs... I think it's in keeping with our story-driven approach, and it's a good way to engage the player: once you've made a choice, you want to see how it will turn out, whether you chose well or not. So expect to see more choices in future jobs. Many choices will be about tactics. For example, when your scout finds an enemy camp, she has the choice to try to sabotage it, risking capture (and a rescue mission) or to sit tight and wait for the party to arrive. That choice will play directly into how the combat goes; if you scouted, you might start with the map revealed, and/or have a few "traps" that you can deploy against the enemies, for example.

In this case we're going to split the party before heading toward the disturbance at the center of town, so the party select screen allows us to assign people to groups A and B.

Next, I built a mission map for the battle, and that forced me to break a good bit of new ground. A lot of this art is my terrible placeholder art, so when we have a real art pass it will look a lot better.

Bam, take out those gorgon deer.

Hey we have doors now! I'm excited about doors because they open up (so to speak) all sorts of design space for missions. Mainly, they're a mechanism that allows the player to control the pace of the battle, but in addition to that, they can be locked, and unlocking them can lead to all sorts of other objectives, like lighting beacons, finding keys, or really who knows. One of the best/scariest moments in XCOM or Descent, is when you're ready to open the next door. Should we open it this turn because we need to hurry, or wait for next turn so everyone can charge in together?

So from here I have a bit more mission work and a bit more campaign work, and then we should be racing towards a playtest, so usability, compatibility, and reporting will be top.