I think that different boosters offer up different ways to play the game.
You’re rewarded if you play to the boosters’ strengths via increased DPS, and may be punished otherwise. Which offers up different ways to play depending on whichever booster you have on.
That said, the boosters market has become rather dull, and has been the case since Early Access. Which is why I bring you a new booster called Energy Zones*!
Energy Zones* replaces the boost meter with a battery.
The battery slowly drains over time, or drains quicker if booster fired.
To charge the battery, move your ship to the new Energy Zones* seen scattered across the map.These zones will also move to a new randomized position after a set amount of time shown on the zones themselves.
The battery will also be charged up to a set amount at the start of each wave.
Extra considerations:
Energy Zone* placement should be the same each time in each wave so it stays consistent for competitive plays.
In practice I think its placement can just be determined based on the level’s seed.
For this reason, they’ll also appear in the same places in Multiplayer sessions.
Booster firing has no extra heat cost. This one is obvious, but should be mentioned anyway.
Design considerations:
It could be hard to show players what the Energy Zone* does without any prior explanation.
My original design would be to have the zone look like a “safe zone” but with the battery charging icon at the center.
This one could contain many Multiplayer-related issues that needs to be worked on cause adding Multiplayer is not easy. But the added gameplay value is worth it.
Stats to balance:
There are a lot of ways in which this booster can be balanced during testing. Here are some stats I chose that should be easy to tweak yet changes how you use it drastically when tweaked:
Battery capacity: Affects how much Battery you can store.
Starting Battery: Affects how much Battery you have at the start of each wave.
Booster fire drain: Affects how fast Battery drains while booster firing.
Idle drain: Affects how fast Battery drains without booster firing.
Zone Amount: Affects how many zones are visible in the map at any given time.
Zone Size: Affects how big these zones are.
Zone Duration: Affects how long these zones last.
Zone Charge Rate: Affects how fast these zones charge up your Battery.
Let me know your thoughts about this booster idea, and we’ll work on it even further!
*: I’ll admit that the name can definitely be improved.
Should I expand on the visuals?
Animating the battery texture is honestly pretty easy as it mostly is just a buncha rectangles placed together well. The charging battery icon (for the center of the zones) can just be a battery with a little power icon to the lower right.
The hard part is conveying that these zones charge your battery while you’re standing in it (also the fact that you can stand in it).
Here’s a glimpse as how it could look like in game.
Not the best at drawing things, but I hope you get the point.
PS: I think using more batteries looks better than a comically long battery since it’s easier to show that you’re getting or losing more battery power by doing certain actions.
Also: Will work on improving this stuff as time goes on. I don’t have much of it at the moment so this is all I got for now.
I’m perfecting the look and design of the battery icons first. I think this current version fits pretty well with the game’s colors, though the notches on the “powered” portion of the battery can be improved.
I’ll need to work on the “partially full” graphic as well as the animations for the batteries when it’s booster fired. And the charging zones as well.
The idea being that it’ll “shake” a bit when it’s being charged in the zone or booster fired to let you know that these two actions are tied to this battery as the wave goes on.
PS: Ideally the battery should have a gradient that gets brighter the more full batteries you have, but I don’t know how to make that bit look good yet.
Improved the shaking and experimented with some gradients.
I’m figuring out how to add gradients so it’ll apply smoothly across the 3 batteries, which should look much nicer than what I have currently.
Also, here’s the first look at the charging zone in context.
Definitely needs improvement - it needs to be distinct (so it’s easier to tell it apart from all the other things going on - especially Beaker’s projectiles) and neutral since the zone could be obstructed by enemies and stuff like that. Gonna be experimenting with this more once the battery’s at a point where it looks nice in context, first.
The broad reason for this comes down to the experience.
As I mentioned in a different thread about barriers:
Adding new tools to approach all the levels in different ways creates a lot more new experiences than simply adding new levels to the existing set. Which is good if you’re a single developer whose resources can’t always be spent on just adding new levels to the game forever. It also has a knock on effect when you add in more levels in the long run, too.
As for the booster itself, it adds a new way to approach the micro details in each level. Maybe zones appear in places where it’s nice for ya. Maybe they won’t.
It turns booster firing from something you’d often have easy access to into something you need to take into account during each wave, because not all zones that appear would be ones that you can charge the battery in.
Manage your battery level wisely and you’ll never run out of boosted firepower.
Mismanaging your battery charge means you won’t be able to boost when you need to, and that could get you into deep trouble.
It all comes back to my initial opinion about boosters - they offer up different ways to play the game (or more specifically, using different boosters on the same set of waves requires a different playstyle to handle said waves effectively).
This booster has its own playstyle that is focused on planning, movement, and resource management in a neat little package known as the battery. If you like those kinds of things, this one is for you. If you don’t? It’s fine. It still ultimately comes down to your personal preference. Your playstyle is yours to choose, after all.
PS: Also because the boosters market has been just about these two boosters for about 3 years at this point, but that’s just me.
