Week 5

This week was very productive. I made a ton of progress on the pen and paper version of the game (which turned out to be more work than expected.) The current version is basically playable. Just need to go through the game with someone to explain how everything works. Here's a link to my spreadsheets of the different unit and structure types and other necessary information:

Board Test 1 Spreadsheet

I also completed the final version of my proposal video.

Next week will be playtesting and refining balance within the pen and paper game.

Week 4

Sadly thesis week 4 was very slow. Due to a large project deadline and a wedding during the weekend to finish things off, very little progress was made.

I did a small amount of work on my proposal video and will have that finished soon. Next week will be largely testing and adjusting the pen and paper version of my game and possibly starting a mood board for the visual style.

Week 3

This week I composed a first draft of a formal proposal for my game. The video is in the following link:
Thesis Proposal

Apart from idea refinement, I've started creating a physical version of the game that can be played with a few cutouts and some pen and paper. This will allow me to make some broad gameplay refinements before putting anything into unreal. This "prototype" will be ready sometime this week and I'll start playtesting asap.

I made a few major changes over the course of the week:

Firstly, I've decided the game will take place over multiple rounds. This allows for a constant forward push of units within the game so that making a move is more beneficial than being stagnant. A round based system will also allow for different levels of upgrades throughout a game so that many potential levels of strength can be seen in a single game. My current guesstimate is 5 rounds for a game.

The second major change/decision I've made is to have 3 (for now) classes of unit. There will be a stealth class, a standard soldier class, and a mage class. Each class can modify the state of play in some way. Within each class there are certain abilities with your units can acquire to become customized combatants. Soldiers can attack other units and impede their progress, Rouges can infiltrate behind enemy lines and cause mayhem in the base, and Mages can control large areas of the battlefield to dictate the fight.

This week will mostly be a continuation of refining the strategy components and playtesting the paper version of the game.

Week 2 Review

Week Summary:

This week featured 7 hours of thesis work. I've settled on my turn based strategy idea and done some thinking about the core gameplay and what needs to be done to make the game enjoyable. My work this week included further development of my ideas and gameplay, but mostly I was going through the tutorial videos for the Unreal Engine Turn Based Strategy plugin that I've bought which will be the starting point for my game.

The Plugin:

The Unreal plugin contains the core mechanics of a turn based strategy game focusing mainly on combat and movement. This will be a great starting point but there are many additions I'll need to make to implement the buildings and the mechanics I want. Likely the largest challenge of this entire project will be learning how to incorporate my own blueprint code into the massive network of blueprints that this plugin features.

Updated Proposal:

As for the game itself, I've updated last weeks proposal to include some of my new ideas and concepts. 

        "Create a turn based strategy game which mimics many elements of a board game. The game's goal will be to develop a base while hindering your opponent's progress to gain advantages in the gamestate, and ultimately, destroy their base. This will be achieved by gathering resources, creating buildings, and raising an army to fight for you. The mechanic that makes this game unique is that all units will start as untrained workers. By using the various buildings, players must choose how to upgrade their units for the most effective end game strategy. The goal is to make a low cost of entry strategy game that can appeal to hardcore strategists and casual players alike. With that in mind I'd like to achieve a relatively short game time ( under 30 minutes)."

Up next:

Next week will primarily be a continuation of my research into the plugin. Until I can comfortably add my own code to the system there isn't much else to do. I'll also start working on a theme and story for the game and decide on a visual style.