Steemit Community Game Design

Hello Steemians

I want to share my new project with you guys. As some of you might know, I'm an indie game developer based in Hamburg, Germany. I already published my first game which was more an educational project than a real indie game project. Through developing my first game I learned coding with C# and implementing the codes in the Game Engine. Now I am ready to start working on the game idea I originally had.

The IDEA

I was playing on my phone and got frustrated with the pay to win mechanics.Every nice game I liked was kinda build around this system. So I started to think about game without which can work competitively even without hard pay to win mechanics for mobile. The game I played was a "tripel A"(big budget) game called  "Heroes Tactics". I really like these kind of games which I will describe more later. 

The Game

Before I start I want to tell you that every screenshots in this section are all from my development so far. The graphics are just temporary graphics which helps me to build the core of my game and core mechanics.

 Now let me introduce you to the concept of my game. My game is build of the concept "Turn Based". This means each player has their turns and can act in them without other player being allowed to take action at all or only in rare situations. Some good example of this concept are  "Hearthstone" from Blizzard or the classic board game chess.  

First there is  the game level or in my case a game board. The game board is build of "Cells" and together they build the board or the so called "Cell Grid". The Cell grid can contain hexagonal cells or square cells. I will probably use both of them in different game levels or worlds. 

Then there are units to fight each other, of course!  I categorize units so far in 3 groups, flying, ranged and melee. There will be probably more later in the development process.  The groups will interact with each other in a Rock-Paper-Scissors concept. The range unit (paper) does more damage to a flying unit (stone). The flying unit does more damage to a melee Unit (scissors) and so on as visualized below.

Units are going to have 6 major stats. 

1. Hitpoints : HP is pretty self explanatory. Every unit has an amount of HP and if it drops to zero, the unit will die and removed from the game, unless there is an influence from outside.(like a revive skill)
2. Attack Factor : ATK indicate the strength of a unit. This factor will play a roll at damage calculation. For example if  a unit with 10 ATK attacks a unit with only 10 HP left. That unit will die. Unless it has some defense factor which leads us to the next stat.
3. Defense factor: DEF shows how tough a unit is. The more defence you have, the less damage you take from other units.
4. Movement factor: This influenced the number of cells a unit can travel. A unit with a Movement factor of 3 can move to further cells than a unit with a Movement factor of 2. For example in the game the flying units are going to have definitely  higher Movement factor than other units in average.
5.  Attack Range : AR defines at what distance a unit can attack other units. 
6. Action points: AP tells you how many times a unit can attacks every turn. Regularly the AP will be set to 1. However type of a unit or skills can change this  value.

Here is for example the stats of a wizard in the game:

Also every unit will have its own special ability which can only be used once per game. it can be buffs, debuffs or direct damage or healing skills. For example one of the melee units has the skill to attack twice in that turn  or a range unit does area damage with its skill. I am thinking about possible skills right now and making a list. Finding cool skills are sure not that difficult but I have to think about balancing too. A skill should not be too weak but not too overpowered. The real challenge will be to balance them which is only possible with constantly  testing the game.

After that I thought about extra Hero skills which the player can use during the battle. There will be a power bar and it fills when the player takes damage. As soon as it's full, the player can activate a hero skill on his/her turn. This will make the battles more exciting and open a lot of strategy tactics for the players. An example of  such a skill could be healing or  counter damage. I didn't work on hero skills yet. They are scheduled after unit skills.

Finally I want to talk about the game mods. There will be 2 major modes.First there is going to be a campaign mode which every player can play through. I have ideas about the story, however I will sit down with some other minds and talk about it and create a little world. I don't want to spoiler too much just because I want to keep people excited.

Second there will be a multiplayer mode . This will be not be unlocked for everybody at first because I want everyone to gain experience and knowledge of the game before playing competitively. Maybe It can get unlocked at the end of the first campaign or something like that. This Game mode is going to have its official currency by which you can purchase new units and skills. These purchases is going to be only available with this in game currency and no real money! I am still serious about no Pay to win concept. At last there will be probably an endless mode which you go in and fight till your squad is dead. There is going to be a high score ladder for this mode and at end of a time period ( maybe monthly or even weekly), there is going to be rewards for the top players. This is going to make this mode more engaging for the users.

Game Art

I am planing to have a cartoon style game. The graphics won't be high poly, GPU killing models. They are going to be nice and well made sprites with the cute factor with it. As you can see in the screenshots the example units are a good representation of  what it can look like.  In my opinion one of the biggest challenge will be to find good graphics for the game. They has to suit the theme and really match each other. Here is an example of a character design which I really like. It is on sale for 9.99$ on gameartpartners.com. It is simple and cute but not too childish.

The reason for my blog

After starting with the game and coding the core of the game I realized I need help if I want to make this project happen. I'm only a college student with a minor employment. I am pretty good with unity and coding stuff but I am no art designer or a sound maker. So I need to get them somehow from other people which can be pretty difficult and expensive. 

So to all Steemers out there who like my idea and want help me develop the game, I would really appreciate your help. There are tons of ways you guys can be part of this project. Feel free to contact me if you want to help in these ways:

• Game Design
• Game Art
• music
• sound effects
• Lore
• Budget

Here are some ways I will say thank you to all backers:

• Every person that help the project will be mentioned in the credits.
• The top 5 backers are going to choose a "Name" for the game.
• The budget will be shared fairly with the artists who provided assets for the game.
• Supporters from Steemit will get beta early access of the game.
• All backers are going to get regular update about the game and the purchases history for the assets.

Now It's your turn!

Thank your very much for reading this long . I hope you liked my post and I would appreciate your support.

Feel free to tell me your opinion and thoughts about this.