Project: Satellite Down

Tightrope

Hi

Thank you for reading. I submitted this project (the version attached) for the NAG Game Jam earlier this year. I have since done extensive work on it; incorporated a resource and economic system, implemented multiple satellite orbits and designed a dynamic skill tree. Alas... all this impressive work had been done almost exclusively in my head. Therefore I am here, hoping that with community feedback and a virtual someone to account to, I might just muster enough motivation to get these ideas out of my head and into actual code.

The game is crude, unbalanced and unpolished with the visuals being the worst of it. However, I am confident in the underlying concept and I believe it has potential to be built upon. At the moment it is a rather short affair, requires 2 players and the instructions can be found ingame (experimentation is needed however). Any advice or feedback, positive or otherwise, will be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Regardt

Edit: Thanks to some helpful advice from Pieter, I've now uploaded some screenshots and a couple of gameplay snippets to give better insight as to what the game is about.

What is Satellite Down?

Satellite Down is an unorthodox RTS game where the aim is to rid the skies of your opponent's satellites. What makes Satellite Down different from other RTS games is that you control a standard sized "sphere" within which you interact with the game room unlike traditional RTS games where you manually drag and select the size of the area you want to interact with. Also, with traditional RTS games you have to issue units a command after having selected them, whilst in Satellite Down units within your sphere of control acts automatically. Lastly, with traditional RTS games you drag the size of the area you want to interact with using the mouse cursor which in turn responds to a 1:1 input from your mouse. With Satellite Down you move the sphere using directional keys but movement happens at a fixed speed.

These differences allow for two distinct types of strategic mechanics. Although the precision and swiftness of you cursor movement and the size of the area you drag affect your performance during a RTS game, it is more a question of player skill than strategic choice. The strategy side of a RTS game lies more with when and how you issue commands to units. In Satellite Down, because of the limited nature of both your area of influence and your movement, movement itself becomes a strategic resource and must be used economically.

Start screen:

Instructions:

Early game:

Late game:

pieter

Hey @Tightrope, welcome to the forum.

Some really interesting ideas here. I like how your sphere has multiple uses, like picking up new buildings, powerups and enabling your units to attack. It makes it quite a unique resource.

There does seem to be an optimal strategy which is placing all your buildings together, with satellite spawners in the middle and turrets on the edges. This way you only have to move your sphere a minimal distance to get continuous fire on a satellite with your turrets.
Maybe have a turret that attacks adjacent turrets when powered, but can't attack satellites.

I was a little confused with the powerup system. The powerups for your sphere seemed intuitive enough, but I did not really feel in control of the satellite and building upgrades. Were the applied to one or all units? And once applied, how do I know which units they were applied to?
Giving the player reliable control over where each upgrade goes would be a plus. So maybe have a queue of upgrades you've picked up on the side of the screen, and then you can apply the top one to the unit that is closest to the centre of your sphere when you press an activation button. (Maybe two queues, one for buildings, the other for satellites)

Another tweak that might be nice is having some indication of when a powerup or building is about to spawn. It doesn't have to show which powerup or building, but having some forewarning could make for some interesting decisions. Like a portal or something.

Then just something I picked up, when both players are at the centre waiting for a building to spawn, the orange player always gets the building. Maybe have a variable that alternates between giving it to orange or blue, if both spheres overlap the same building.

Good luck, and looking forward to seeing some of those features you have planned.

Tightrope

Thank you for taking the time to have a look and comment @pieter. I want to respond to your advice in detail so I am in the process of drawing up an illustration of what I envision the game to be. It'll be easier to explain some of the things you touched upon with reference to the illustration. The build I attached was my actual entry for the Jam and I have since reiterated (in my mind at least) on some of the ideas which addresses some of the issues you've mentioned. One thing I've realised, thanks to your post, is that the game needs an activation button to provide the player with greater control. Although I like the idea of having directional input as the only controls for the game I will have to incorporate and extra button :)

dammit

I played this at rAge and thought it was really cool :) Glad to see you posting it here.

Tightrope

Thanks @dammit, I appreciate the compliment.

Tightrope

@pieter, I'm finally coming back to this.

Your question regarding an optimal strategy:

I'm planning on having a greater variety of buildings later on that provides more options than simply damaging or repairing satellites. Distance (number of tiles/positions) from your HQ ("satellite spawners") will play an important factor in the functioning of the building. It can influence build times, reload times and endow certain penalties or bonuses to buildings. This together with terrain and adjacency perks ought to give the player more options to consider than simply clustering them altogether.

The issue of control:

I've decided to use your advice and give the player another button to do things like confirm upgrades etc. There will also be more visual clues indicating which satellites have been upgraded and to what. I'm still undecided on the upgrade queue idea. I want the game to be frenetic and to have as little menus as possible and I'm not sure whether a queue resonates with this idea.

Spawning of buildings:

Buildings will no longer spawn at random intervals but players will instead be presented with 4 blueprints which they can buy using currency.

Here is a mock-up of what I envision.