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.