Last time I wrote about how I started building my first game Pro Bending.
This time I want to look into the game mechanics and some thoughts behind it.
First, checkout the game available on Itch.io for free. It’s generally working as intended, although a bit rough around the edges – call it character. 😀
The game ended up being quite similar to hat I had in mind. It is inspired by The Legend Of Korra by having an arena with multiple zones and two teams who have to push the opponent team back in their zones and gain territory. Pushing them off the edge leads to a Knockout and instant win.
So the players goal is to balance their strategy between offensively trying to push the enemy back, and defensely avoiding to get hit and thus increasing risk of being pushed back yourself. The whole gamplay is implemented on this balance – with a lot of room fore refinement.
Two teams face-off in an elevated arena. Players of both teams have an elemental skill – fire, water, earth. Their goal is to push their opponents back on their field, thereby gaining territory. Match winner is who wins 3 rounds by gaining the most territory in each. You have to attack to proceed, while defend against the attacks of your opponents. All players on the field have 3 critical properties: Accuracy, Balance and Power. Accuracy determines how precise attacks are, while power determines how far your range attack goes. Balance is a defensive property describing how “steady” you are when receiving attacks – loose your balance, you get pushed back more easy. Each elemental attack addresses one poverty. Fire attacks reduce power. Water attacks reduce accuracy. Earth attacks reduce Balance. This creates a game dynamic where you have to quickly strategize, see and take opportunities and switch between offense and defense.
The steering is based on WADS movement with auto-aiming to a selected enemy. I was and I am still trying different input sets. I was considering something League-Of-Legends or Heroes Of The Storm, but the characters require a different mobility. The target is still inspired by it. I am still trying how to add game controller support. Two actions I have yet to implement and try how they affect game play is blocking (defensive position to absorb projectile with minimal damage) and dashing (fast avoiding movement).
Speaking of LoL. Right now for each elemental bender only one simple attack is implemented. This is where I have plenty of ideas also inspired by LoL and HotS, I may try in the future. I would like to make the elements more different. Right now the only difference is in health effects. Water reduces accuracy which increases the margin of error when firing projectiles. This reduces their offensive capability. Earth has the biggest wooms and reduces balances, being hid by earth makes the opponent slide more, thus increasing risk of being pushed over the line. Lastly hitting with fire reduces the Power of the hit character. Power being the ability to throw an attack and the strength of the attack.
What I switched around a few times is weather this is rather a bullet hell (dozents of projectiles, each hit doing minimal damage) or more strategic (few projectiles, strong damage). Between those extremes, I’m more on the bullet hell end at the moment. With blocking and dashing, and different steering, I could imaging leaning more into the strategic aspects again.
The AI is already doing it’s thing, but here is also a lot of room for improvement, for better play, strategy, coordination and personalities.
Lastly, right now you only have the quickmatch. I could imagine having a campaign where you team has to work through the full tournament in multiple rounds to win, with a small embedded story. This is where we are in let’s-dream territory. I may add some new things over time, but for now I’m happy with the state I have now. For a 3 months project in my free time I’m proud of the result. I hope you enjoy it as much as me. 🙂