Win Cons

Lately I've been focusing on our core gameplay flow, with the focus on increasing engagement between the player and the mechanics. A big roadblock we've been dealing with has been the victory condition and how the player gets there. Currently, the player finishes a level by "filling up" the sun with energy, which the player harvests from planets that they can charge up in the same fashion. The issue has been that there is no inherent challenges in this gameplay. The player is in full control of the means of production of energy, and the only stresses on their energy reserve are the enemies, which steal away unattended energy, and the player's own movement through the level. This has resulted in pretty static strategies, where the player charges up a few planets close to each other and simply waits until they build up enough energy to charge the sun and win. We've played with some ways to force the player to move around more and explore the level, but these have largely felt artificial and fairly ineffective at combating the real problem. The optimal way to play the game is to barely play it at all, and I feel like that's a big problem. We want to incentivize the players to engage with our mechanics and our content, and to make that feel natural rather than a series of roadblocks before they can reach the finish line.

We are currently testing a "Metroidvania" style level, involving a larger layout of planets than we've had before as well as several suns that must each be charged up. When each sun is given enough energy the planets around it realign, which opens up new routes for the player. The feeling of exploration and flying around the solar system has interested a lot of our testers, which this new design focuses on. It doesn't solve all the problems we have with our golden path, but it's a step forward that we will be able to iterate on further as we get some more testing done.