Hi!
I got an idea for a game inspired by:
- Dead of winter (boardgame)
- Fallout shelter
- State of decay (the colony management part)
- Retro and modern X-COM (the colony management part)
- Day R Survival
- Rebuild 3
You run a colony of survivors. But instead of zombies or postapoc radition-freaks portals have opened and fantasy creatures invades the land; Orcs, trolls, skeletons, dragons etc. Because fun setting! There is some main mechanics:
- Manage the colony and build facilities like living quarters, infirmary, farm, crafting workshop, generators etc
- Manage scavaging expeditions ("supply runs") to get resources and new survivors
- Defend the colony against attacks
Resources would be something like:
- Food and water
- Fuel (for generators, driving vehicles and some traps)
- Medicine (to heal wounded survivors)
- Ammo (to shoot. melee weapons doesnt require ammo. For some traps)
- Materials (to build facilities and traps)
- Tools (to repair stuff, weapons and equipment)
- Electronics (for hi-tech stuff like solar panels)
- Morale/hope. If too low the survivors will flee your colony into the wilderness.
It's realtime. Time can be compressed or paused. You assign survivors to jobs like contruction, farming, crafting or send them on supply runs. Supply expeditions will find locations like "gas station" that has high chance of fuel and "drug store" that often has medicine. You can choose where to go and what to risk.
Combat
The monsters will periodically attack your colony, and may attack you when you are out on supply runs. This is simplified and also in realtime (paus to give orders). The overhead time/colony will pause during fights. Monsters get closer in lanes and your guys defend (front row with melee weapons, back with ranged weapons). Weapons have different efficiency in different ranges. If they ambushed you they start closer to you or start even right in your face. Skeletons are hard to shoot but weak against blunt weapons etc. Monsters have mostly melee weapons but can have bows, javelins etc. You can build barricades and traps in the lanes.
The colony starts with one "entrance" but gets more as it grows in size. You need to split your defences as enemies can enter in all entrances at the same time.
Questions:
- How to make the base building fun and vivid? Do you simply expand? (you are in some sort of wilderness or small town). Do you need to "gain more land" somehow? I liked in modern XCOM how you dig out new area for your buildings but that doesnt work here.
- Is scavanging done on an actual map or just abstracted (like in fallout shelter)? If real map, how do I not make the player run out of places to visit?
- What is the goal or end? Just survive against increasing attacks? Find the evil wizard, raid his stronghold and close the portals once and for all?
Thanks!
Erik
