Open World Exploration
In my
Kickstarter updates, I've talked about two key elements I felt the single player needed to achieve the experience I envisioned for single player:
fluidity in moment-to-moment interactions and
overarching strategic planning - the sense of solving a grand puzzle. To this end, I've overhauled our game engine and transformed Summoners Fate into the first game of its kind to combine card mechanics, tactical battles, and seamless open world exploration. I passionately believe the end results will be worth the development time.
Here's a video showcasing the system in action:
How it Works: - Worlds will be procedurally generated with hand-crafted elements, providing unique adventures every time you play.
- Worlds are persistent for the duration of your adventure(s) with your Summoner. This means any environment destroyed, shop keepers killed, etc. will be permanent until you start a new adventure.
- Adventures are designed to be episodic: rather than commit 80+ hours to the same character, the idea is that an adventure can be completed within about 1-4 hours (depending on the size of the world) and completion will unlock new characters/adventures to engage your creativity.
- Battles are played turn-based on a tactical grid that can be of variety of sizes and dynamically created from anywhere in the over world (which is a massive grid itself).
- After battle, the game switches to "explore mode" and you can roam freely throughout the world by tapping or clicking (depending on your platform) where you want your Summoner to go.
- Other characters within your party will automatically follow your Summoner while exploring.
- While exploring, you can switch to tactical mode at anytime to directly control any of your units. You can also cast spells directly from your deck. This enables strategic preparation.
- You can retreat from battles - an innovation I devised to curb the randomness of procedural and grant more control to the player. This allows you to circumvent or better prepare for difficult battles (perhaps attacking from a different side of the map or with different party members).
- Retreat and resurrection (retry after defeat) will cost resources that vary based on the level of difficulty you're playing at. This makes it approachable for casual players and very challenging for hard-core rogue-like fans.
- Worlds have exterior and interior locations and you can seamlessly travel between them. There is freedom to explore off the beaten path and find hidden dungeons and treasure.
Presently, I am working on completing our procedural world generator and finalizing the other single player systems. These updates will be included with the next build release that I aim to make available in the next several weeks.
