Match 3's and Multiplayer

 Ahoy, all you sky raiders!

New logo! 

We are officially a full-time game company! It took a little longer than we wanted, but for this year we'll just be working for ourselves, and trying to keep ourselves from going insane. I've been full-time for a few weeks now and have already been working on re-hashing the bilge game, and Russ' last day at his old job was last week- so now we're both full-time game developers!

Honestly, we're both excited and anxious, but trying to focus on the excitement. I'll be trying to keep you all as up-to-date as possible, though if the choice is between finishing some game programming or posting an update or video, I'll land on the game programming.

Speaking of programming- over the holidays I started building the bilge from scratch. The original had some good points, but there were some deep-rooted bugs and design issues that I wanted to address. I'm already two thousand lines of code deep and have addressed multiple issues that were haunting the old design. I've also been working to build in the extra parts needed for the multiple variations. This will be a feature of all our games. While the core mechanics will remain similar, variations will let the rules and playstyle change. 

        This is the current design for bilge, which we are calling Hydronautics.

Hydronautics

    Classic - Any salty bilge-rats will be familiar with this one of course, but we'll have a few twists and tricks to make it more dynamic and hopefully fun! Your goal with any hydronautics game is to keep the water full in the ship’s core. This will keep more of the puzzle aspect of play as you try to find the biggest move possible, taking your time to do so.

While the core is going to remain the same we will be adding parts to it. Blockers and collectibles will be more frequent and damage during battles will impact the board directly. There will also be power-ups/boosters that change the rules of what can be done. Before play, you will select yours out of a group and when they are ready you can temporarily do things like move pieces without counting against moves, or move them in different ways than normal. Managing these powerups and using them tactfully will be the keys to being an incredible hydronaut. 

    Classic Plus - This will be much like classic above, however the speed will be slightly faster, combos worth a little more, and will have a bigger selection of powerups. This will also have board goals for bonus points- such as collecting specific items on the board or clearing specific tiles. 

    Match 3 - This should be familiar to everyone. It will have similar play to games like Bejewelled and Candy Crush. We'll have our own twists, however, like selectable powerups and dynamic boards. The rating and scoring will be adjusted to match. One twist to watch for is that deadlocked boards will NOT automatically shuffle- you will need to utilize your powerups to make sure the board keeps moving. Clearing obstacles, blocker pieces, and collectibles will be important to keeping your board clear and moving.

    Clear - This game mode is all about clearing the board fast and effectively. You will start with a big board that will not refill. Planning ahead and moving quickly will both be tested in this shorter play style. Triggering combos and clearing entire columns of pieces will be well rewarded. To assist, moves are faster than normal and will not switch back if they aren't a match. There will be no penalties for moving pieces. 

The real pressure is from the clock, as clearing in a fast time and with as few pieces remaining as possible will be the goal. Clearing everything will give a big fat bonus to your score and rating. A wide array of powerups will be available, however due to the speed of the board it'll be unlikely you'll get to use them more than once! Do you use them early to get lots of pieces cleared, or try to save them until the end when things are harder? Strategies and tactics will vary!

All of these new game modes will be in play for all players. After reaching a goal or target level the board will clear and switch to a new game mode. You will be allowed to practice each mode individually and select a specific mode as a favorite. The favorite system will increase the chances that your favorite mode comes up. This will keep the play fresh for long voyages as well as let players find the one they're the best at.

In addition, you'll be able to select from an assortment of powerups! These will vary from game mode to game mode. Each mode will have three slots which you can fill with a powerup like a bomb or booster. The more powerful the powerup the longer the cool down it will have. Various buffs on the ship or even the player will affect this timer as well.

Multiplayer updates

As Russ settles in, he’s been working on updating our multiplayer functionality! Here’s his update:

Unity 6 was released late last year and it has a number of features I think we could really benefit from- both for the game but also during development. I had previously published a small turn-based app where most of the multiplayer features were built by hand. I’m currently porting it to use the new features in Unity 6, and am pretty pleased so far. I’d rather make mistakes and spin wheels on something small like this so I have a more realistic plan when moving forward on Raiders. 

One of the highlights of Unity 6 is the ability to have multiple ‘players.’ If I wanted two versions of the project running previously, I had to build one out, launch it, and then use the Unity player for the other. Now, I just select that I want a new player and Unity spins up a new player window complete with console output! This will save SO much time when working on Raiders!

We have a solid plan for the next few weeks, and in the next post we'll be talking about the alternative Sword-Fighting game. We're excited by the concept and challenge and hope you all will be as well!