Awesome work with the gameplay design: this is one of those game I myself would never be able to make because I lack the skills to think about a small, compact working system like this one. Tutorials were there, feedbacks are basic put present, graphics are essential. Could be a great demo for something more!
Viewing post in Fortress Swarm: Chain Attacks jam comments
Thank you! I’d say all it requires is some practice. Take some basic idea and refine it, twist it to reach something really promising, then all is left is finding some consistent element to show to the player and add some feedback elements to make it alive..
For instance I started this game with an idea of a character isolated in the middle of a grid, and he had to select the right direction (top/left/right/bot) to attack and move, while propagating its attacks to the neighbors of the target. Then I reused some elements from classic rpg (def/magical def, brut attack) to make the choice more complex (going from 4 actions to 12).. I tested a few things (At some point I had also critical damage for instance, but it didn’t work so I removed it.) but It didn’t seem to work like that, because I wanted both the player to be moving in a grid, and also that all direction would be occupied by monster so that the choices of the player really matters, and the strategy allowed him to anticipate something and feel rewarded (it all comes down to how does the player feel rewarded for its efforts).
So I refined the idea and reconsidered the player entirely, as well as the gameplay.
I needed the choices of target, but I didn’t need the character, so I put the grid at the center of the game and I found a new objectives for the monster, destroying a castle. I ended up with this castle and the grid which is pretty much clickable everywhere..
Only mental idea at start, trying to simulate the gameplay in my head and imagine what the interface of the game would look like, what would be the player actions what would happen on screen, and what were the issues with this idea. But once I had the grid idea, I tested it with a simple prototype with pieces of a board game, which can be really helpful too to help visualize ideas