[LD-ish] Flow Tactics
This game was made sorta around the time of Ludum Dare (plusminus a day of work) and wasn't really sticking to theme. I kinda just did it. But this was my jam while we all grouped for the compo, so this is my LD(ish) entry:
(UPDATE 20 DEC) - "IT'S QUITE DIFFERENT NOW"
Android APK (best) - https://www.dropbox.com/s/2z8sscphd59oowr/FlowTactics_3-Default-0.2.12.apk?dl=0
HTML5 Web (may have sound issues) - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35525098/FlowTactic2-HTML5/index.html
Flow Tactics is an action squad shooty bang-bang where your decision-making is heavily focused on positioning your characters and executing co-op moves under fire. Character AI handles most of the chaos, leaving you to focus on more interesting ideas and emphasising key commands:
- SWIPING (or mouse drag) to move your characters between Tactical Points
- TAPPING (or clicking) on individual enemies to set priority targets
The following is an outdated 2-min playthrough video, but it gives you the basic idea:
This was borne mainly out of a desire to recreate the feels I get from playing Star Wars: Republic Commando. I've never experienced anything else quite like that game, even after all these years. Co-ordinating three teammates felt really smooth, fun and meaningful, helped along by the fact that they always did their job reliably. Plus, lower attachment to realism required cos it's sci-fi!
The Brothers in Arms series has also been influential in this game, with its concepts of suppression and flanking being quite woven in.
I've hopefully taken those things and condensed 'em into hyper-action funtimes with juuuust enough breathing room to think about what you're doing. Have fun!
Comments
I really like the level of strategic planning and being able to "just" swipe between cover. That said, I find it a little difficult to plan ahead very much. I'm not sure if that's a pro or con, but it feels like being able to plan further ahead would make it deeper (although it might be overwhelming). Maybe have some more periodic pauses where you can re-position? Have you thought of allowing the player to pause at any time?
I think it would be cool if yellow and purple had more distinct personalities. Perhaps the one moved faster, but had more health? Maybe they always get the same special weapon? Mayhaps there are some enemies that target one or the other? Maybe one can stop shooting to throw a portable defensive point?
I really like how simple it seems but how much deep potential there is. Keen to see where this goes :)
I was a bit easy, but perhaps I'm just an amazing tactician. I'd love to see more levels, bigger levels, more units to control, different enemies or a boss to defeat at the end, more structures (health station/dooms day device station that destroys all enemies but also all nearby structures) weapons that are better vs some enemies, maybe even a multi player?
but that said, I personally never enjoyed RTSs, so maybe I'm just personally a miss for the genre you've got here.
Also, playing with a mouse probably made it not as good an experience.
It's really cool, perhaps just not my cup of tea.
I think I'll have a new version in the next few days, and it'll reflect the advice given here. I want the next version of the game to really embrace the ideas it's been brushing against until now.
One thing I've realised is that the game does actually push the player away from tactics and more towards strategy! I ought to reconsider my branding.
I think people may find the pause-and-hold set pieces interesting, as they provide mid-term planning opportunities due to gradual cover decay. I've also tried fairly hard to make the visual style as info-rich as possible, to help players manage their information better and make decisions feel more intuitive.
The demo may be a bit difficult (and the boss piece pushes the chaos meter a bit), but it's not long and I'd be interested in knowing how people did after one or two playthroughs.
I beat the game on my 3rd or 4th attempt, but I got pretty close on the previous attempts (I could at least see the end on all of them). It did get fairly difficult at the end though, and those bunker-busters are so mean! ;)
I did find it quite difficult to individually select targets for my characters. I only tried on occasion, cause it's often not needed, but it proved to be quite finicky. I wonder, maybe "just" improving the AI a bit, so "don't try shoot into a shield," would make individual targeting redundant. I think the only reason I do it is to shoot shielded enemies from behind, so if it was more about flanking the enemy and less about targeting, that could be cool. I think having near-perfect targeting AI might be a good idea. It should allow the player to focus more on the strategic decision making. That said, AI is never easy to implement, so this might be very low priority.
I wonder if it would make sense to change the move orders to: swipe once to declare a move, and tap again somewhere (like on the move order line) to execute it. That way, you can kinda queue-up moves and execute them with precision. This could be way too complicated for the marginal benefit it creates (it might even detract), but maybe it gives you other ideas. This makes me think a bit of Frozen Synapse.
I know this is jumping the gun (pun intended), but I'd love to see a version with a short campaign. Something where I can choose some character upgrades between missions (damage, speed, health, ...) and a set of increasingly-difficult levels. It's probably too early to implement this, but I'd be super keen to playtest this ;) ;) ;)
I really like the feel, and the music. I felt as if the new enemies, generally having more aggressive attacks, made manual targeting pretty important. I like the spots that need visiting to continue; it makes it feel like one character has something very specific to do while the other one covers them.
I do find it pretty chaotic at the end, but when I try and figure out what it is while I'm playing, I find myself paying a whole lot of attention just not to die that I can't also tell if it's a visual hierarchy thing. :P
Refining the control system and making the chaos more manageable would be two of my primary goals for this project. I think the queue-up could be difficult primarily because I don't want an extra tap per player move.
Firing into shields is a tricky one. It has suppression value. Maybe I'll make it a low auto-target priority and reserve it for deliberate targeting when advanced players want to do that? :)
Short campaign on the way too, I reckon. :P And I'll need to swap out the music if this goes any further.
The visual heirarchy has been a great exercise for me in this project because I'm trying to become more aware of that stuff generally. This game has a lot of focus demands and finding cues which fit together well has been challenging. I think, though, that I'm happier with the presence of bigger, tougher enemies than a multitude of the smaller ones: fewer points of attention is, I think, better in creating fights which are more about thinking than the degeneracy into wild retreat swipes (which can be cool in tiny doses but not too much methinks ;) ).