Goon Game Dev Diary: Sprint 7-4/30/24

I lost about three days last week because it turns three days without sleep, and a near-constant pinching in your leg doesn’t do wonders for creative thinking or thinking in general. That lost time, however, has been made up for, mostly. I say mostly because there are still four days left, and it's yet to be seen if I’m on target (I think I am, but not counting any chickens). But also because I’ve pivoted to focus more on revamping units than just testing them. I know I’ve more or less been doing this for the past sixish years at this point, but only now is the whole idea of testing and iterating at the same time making sense. Suppose that up to this point, it's been a failure to fully understand how the process actually works, trying to adhere to a more comprehensive yet rigid system. Lesson learned now, however, and yet, it's born a troublesome little question to ponder: how much of the game (in its current state) is functional?

This little brain ache has been the cause of my most recent bout of hair loss, as testing has now shown a clear power imbalance between player units and enemy cops. Rub now is: do I do anything about it. From the start, I wanted to encourage the player to think in roundabout ways and discourage traditional head-on tactics found in other games in the genera. That idea is to be a part of the game's USP, so to that end, there will be a power imbalance on the player's end; only in a perfect state that imbalance would be noticeable but not crippling. It's something the player needs to keep in mind to properly progress but shouldn’t be the thing hampering them whenever they try to make headway or think they have a grip on the game's mechanics.

There are solutions to this, ones that I’ve pivoted to address, starting with the simple solution of retooling Goons again to better contrast enemy units. To start, I needed to form a baseline, similar to the augmented Holy Trinity that I started with when making the Goon types back in the beginning. For the Cops, it came down to Preppers, Scouts, and Threats: Preppers do things even when not Alerted, Scouts make moving up and removing units difficult, while Threats will just mince you if Alerted, so best to just avoid them or take them out before they become a problem. However, while that baseline got me going in the right direction and forced me to look at the overall power level curve among enemy units, it also exposed the lack of worthwhile tools the player had access to combat the challenges presented to them. This becomes the throughline of retooling: making better tools for players.

See, the overall power imbalance in damage or kit potential can still be present if players have tools to turn those advantages into disadvantages or turn them off altogether. This line of thinking was spurred somewhat by my time with Epic Seven, a semi-competitive Korean Gotcha Game that I mainline from time to time. A lot of my game’s design direction can probably be drawn back to the work Super Creative has done in their game, which I’m not ashamed to admit, given how if I’m going to borrow from something, it better be worth borrowing in the first place.

To make a long story short, Epic Seven’s competitive scene is in its draft mode, where two players have to build a team of four Heroes in real time to pilot against one another. Heroes on each team have three abilities that make up their kit and do a variety of things, from damage mitigation to DPS to counterplay tactics. However, for the purposes of this story, I want to focus on two Heroes: Lua and Hwayoung. Both units specialize in de-buffs, who mess with tempo and get extra turns but still function differently and counter different picks. Lua strips buffs puts a single target to sleep, and messes with ability cool-downs on the other team with her ultimate. Hwayoung also messes with cool-downs and strips but also turns off counterattacks and the passive ability of one hero. Both these units have helped me counter teams of meta heroes that are above my weight class. Martial Artist Ken (MAK) for one counter attacks when anyone on his team is hit with a crit, but Hwayoung turns off counterattacks with her alt; if she misses that counterattack ability is tied to a passive, she can turn off on MAK. Summertime Belladona gains focus each time someone on her team is hit, and when she gains 5 focus, she counterattacks the whole enemy team. Lua puts her to sleep so she can’t trigger the counterattack, and if she has Immunity, she can strip the buff with the same skill that applies sleep. Neither of these Heroes are big damage dealers, and there’s no winning a match with just them on their own. However, their ability to interfere with other heroes’ kits gives players like me (and players much better than me) time to set up their gameplay or remove power pieces.

That’s what I need in my game: not more units that just do damage, or mitigate it or buff allies. I need units that interfere with the enemy, turn strengths into weaknesses, and make straightforward plans go array. The goal in both is to ultimately remove pieces from play, but there is more than one way to do that. Or, at the very least, there will be once I’m done with the iterations.

[Side Note: some other Epic Seven Heroes that carry my dumb ass:

Celine: auto counters whenever someone uses a non-attack skill. Good for stopping Cleave set up before it can get going.

Lion Heart Cermia (even though mine isn’t great): gains buffs off of counterattacks and dual attacks, allowing you to punish greedy players.

Navy Captain Landy: Immune to Stun and Sleep, gives crit protection, gains more attack each turn, and has an auto attack that can turn into an AOE that heals her. OP as all hell; love her.]