[PROTOTYPE] Real Time Turn Based Shooter

duncanbellsa

Hey everyone!

So I've been playing an unnatural amount of XCOM: Enemy Unknown lately, and decided to try out a similar kind of prototype.

Instead of your turns restricted to 2 "actions", you get a "movement" bar. This bar decreases depending on what actions you take.

Movement slowly depletes the bar.
Shooting takes larger chunks out.

For now, it's player vs player. Hopefully soon I can add in some AI and some extra stuffs.

You can play it in your browser at this link:
http://www.reddotlab.com/game_prototypes/RTTB/

Please let me know what you guys think :)

Sidenote: This also served as an introduction to shaders for myself - the box shadows are drawn via the shaders.

Tuism

Have you heard of Transistor's battle mechanic yet? :) What you describe here reminded me of it, and also of course our own Stoic over here has a similar vibe :)

Also has shadows of Super Hot :)

Gave it a play and it feels a bit like Frozen Synapse to me, but the gameplay feels really like it needs something else. As the aiming is essentially random, win/lose feels more like a function of how often your shots hit vs not.

Sure you can get closer for a better shot, but overall that encourages camping and shooting from afar.

Also this kind of movement is prone to making a mistake and taking a step in the wrong direction and having that as a penalty for no good reason, guess a move reset button might help. Or some kind of commit/restart thing.

I don't really like that it's hotseat style, or rather, I don't think hotseat works right now. I think if the two players took their turns "simultaneously", or we ask the next player to take their turn to close their eyes and hotseat and play out both player's moves together it'd be much more intriguing.

A good premise that I'd love to see expanded on :)

duncanbellsa

Thanks for the feedback @Tuism.

Well there are many factors I can tweak - for example if the player has been moving for longer, the worse their accuracy is.
My initial thinking is that it could go was a team-based game, where you have 3/4 players to control per turn.

Maybe perhaps there are special weapons that you can use that serve a purpose, for example a shield you can deploy after your turn that only lasts for a few turns.

As for the "commit/restart" thing - thats exactly what I want to stay away from. The great thing about XCOM is that there is no way you can undo an action. You might only realise once you've moved that it was a bad choice.

The real challenge here I guess is that fact that it's not normal turn based - its an odd combination that rewards risk & luck. I think the major difference with this and turn based games is that you cant set up for defence that easily. It's more of an aggresive playstyle. You have to move around to get the best positions.

Kobusvdwalt9

@duncanbellsa I really like this.

Here are some random thoughts.(I will provide better feedback when the game is a bit more fleshed)

I like the idea of introducing more stuff to control.
Maybe go in the way of chess where there is a lot of moves to calculate because atm it feels to easy.
I would like to see some sort of AI.

As @Tuism said Transistor also has this type of the mechanic so check that out.

konman

@duncanbellsa Cool blood and bullet casing decals. Good job.

Shader shadows... I was attempting something similar last night with sprites and a point light, but have not managed to pull it off yet. Decals have also been on the 'ol todo list for a while as well :)

I like the action point mechanic. very interesting... when you add AI it would be cool to not render enemies that are not within line of sight. In Unity one could achieve it with ray-casting. Not sure what you'd use in GameMaker? This was done in GM right?

Fengol

Have you played the original X-COM, cause that had Time Units that you could upgrade by training your soldiers. They also solved the problem of accuracy (besides having it as a skill) by having different types of shots you could take: snap shots were cheap but with a low hit chance; while aimed shots cost a lot of time units but was more likely to find its mark; auto shots used all your time units, spraying bullets everywhere without aiming.

Finally, the most important ability with turn based movement is overwatch. The new X-COM had it but it was a lot more elaborate in the older game.

raithza

This is a design space I'm quite interested in myself and I've been thinking about prototyping something in a similar vein. Some thoughts...

Obviously each player needs more than one character for any real kind of tactical depth :)

A range indicator would be cool (to see how far you can still walk with your remaining TU, even if it's a naive circle drawn around you that ignores collision. A cone displaying accuracy would also be great.

Destroyable cover is a must-have IMO.

Information really needs to be a resource, so a basic FOV mechanic would be great. For prototyping, you can have a 'switch seats' screen, but this being a turn based game, networking for a prototype is far easier than usual, if unit commands are abstracted. Frozen synapse has modes where you can enable/disable FOV and apparently the game plays quite differently. I'd be keen to join you for some Frozen Synapse, or X-Com multiplayer for "research purposes" :)

X-Com has a thing where each shot is a risk as you can very rarely move after shooting, where in your prototype you can shoot and still move to safety. I don't think this is a problem, but it will greatly alter tactics used. In X-Com, you ask yourself, "Is the risk of exposing this character in this position worth the reward of hitting his shot, given the probability of hitting?" where in your prototype, the question in "How many shots can I take from this position before moving back to cover?" or "will my TU i need to set up a shot and move back into cover be more or less than the amount my opponent needs to fire a return shot?".

I would however increase damage and the TU each shot takes by quite a bit (3-4 shots per turn max). It'd also be nice to be able to use TU's to "steady aim" for long range shots. I don't mind the inaccuracy, as long as each character had an aim stat that could be increased somehow. Looks like you already have some ideas for similar mechanics to most of my thoughts.

I'd like to play this some more, once there are more characters to control, and there is some FOV. Baiting and setting traps will be interesting.

PS have you tried enemy within and/or the Long War mod yet?

duncanbellsa

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I'll keep at it!

I've updated the game with the following changes:
- Better Accuracy
- Destroyable cover
- Movement Radius Indicator
- Bug fixes with various elements

Still to-do:
- Teammates
- Difference in accuracy depending on "movement" left
- Basic enemy AI
- FOV experimentation
- Different characters/weapons/armor

http://www.reddotlab.com/game_prototypes/RTTB/

raithza

IMO the game already feels a bit more interesting now that each decision has a bit more gravity to it. One more small suggestion: it'd be nice to see how much movement I'd have left after firing a shot. Maybe try having a second movement circle that shows how big your movement range would be after firing the next shot?

Tuism

I approve of the many TUs being employed this thread :p

Gazza_N

Most of my concerns have already been raised, but I wanted to chime in to say that, as a fan of XCOM and interesting limited-AP systems, I like this idea and where it's going. Also, you are aware that diagonal movement is faster, yes? Seems I can move further for each AP by straferunning. :P

Tuism

Ah that's probably because the movement is treated per axis and not per direction? So does that mean currently the movement circle should be a movement square? :p

Gazza_N

Nah, no square necessary. He just needs to vectorize his movement, instead of adding to each axis. Easy enough in GM with the inbuilt direction and speed variables. :)

duncanbellsa

Hey guys. Glad you guys are liking it so far. I cant reply to all your comments just yet. They've blocked all sites that contain "Games" at my work. I can't even access the prototype on my own server :(.

Will get back to you all this evening

Pomb

Hey this is playing pretty sweetly, looking forward to the team mates and the FOV update. 100% agree on a 2nd inner radius for the post shot movement. Found myself asking if I would manage a second shot or if I should just go for cover.

duncanbellsa

Wowzers... lots of feedback! I love it :D.

Alright - I've made a couple of fixes:

- Fixed 8 directional movement
- Added inner ring to movement to show radius if player shoots
- Added multiple players, left click to select, right click to shoot. Space to deselect all
- Accuracy is spot on (for now)

So far, teams all use the same movement energy. Not sure if it's a smart gameplay decision just yet!

Let me know what you guys think :)

http://www.reddotlab.com/game_prototypes/RTTB/