What the Poop
Jun/093
In an effort not to wear everyone out before One Man Army is even released, here’s another game I’ve been working on. I guess you could call it an RTS, but since I’m not an avid fan of the genre, I’m probably not making a convetional one.
The working title for now is “poop rts”, which I need to change when I finish One Man Army and continue this. This game started out in a gamejam with cactus, pietepiet and jw where the theme was “shit”. Out of all things, I came up with guys that carry poop around. After having worked on it for a couple of days and having spent some more time on the design, the guys became bacteria (despite not having changed appearance) and the player is a disease. Instead of poop, they collect tissue. A little less spectacular perhaps, but the game will still feature plenty of poop-jokes I’m sure.
The thing with me and RTS games is that I never seem to be able to keep up with the actual strategy. Resource management is usually fine, though I’m not the best at that either. So in order to make a game for everyone who would really want to appreciate RTS games, but like me, simply hasn’t got the brainpower to be good at it, I’m making poop rts. First of all, I try not to mention any numbers. I always hated math, and i hate it even more if a game expects me to be good at it. In order for the player to know wether he can build a unit or building, the button fills up with colour. The “flag” as it is called for now, is the building where all the workers bring the poop they collect. Depending on how full this storage is, a flag is raised and piles of poop pile up. This way, the player is supposed to develop a feeling for how much a unit or building costs, and can see approximately how many units can be built at a glance. No difficult subtractions or multiplications required! I guess you could say it’s a very casual RTS, but I think it’s a great oppertunity to get people introduced to the genre.
Another thing is the combat. Poop rts will have simplified combat: your goal is to destroy a vital organ each level, and instead of armies similar to yours, your enemies will be in lesser numbers but in larger size. Some levels would have bosses as well, that would require a specific approach. Of course there’s a couple of reasons I went for this. One: I’m simply not capable of making mass AI. Two: enemies equal to your own forces would make the combat more of a gamble; especially if both parties were of somewhat equal size. Having larger enemies and giving the player a large army kind of makes the battles more predictable in that way. At least, that’s my theory. To be honest, I haven’t started working on the combat yet but I plan on prototyping several tyes of combat and see which one is most suitable. The last reason I’d like the large enemies is that I think it gives me more creative freedom. I can’t wait to think of messed up organisms inside a body that your bacteria must fight.
Well, I’m afraid that’s all the meaningful stuff I can say about poop rts. Here’s a screenie for now, and if you want you can follow the category-specific RSS feed if you’re anticipating the game!
Happy wiping!
~Brian
PS: Sorry for the text-heavy post, but having only worked on this game for four days total there isn’t much to see. Sorry!
