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[Joh]

Booty Warrior is a small game that was made for the gmc jam (72h) with pirate theme
I of course had much fun making it, and decided to keep working on it.

So far its an arena survival game
The goal is to survive as long as possible before the inevitable death. At the end of the map lies a chest that allows you to fill your bag with loot. The loot is used as a form of mp and allows to deal more damage, use stronger attack or be cashed in back at your ship (use the money to heal, buy upgrades)

You can try the game (jam version) its not perfect but its a start.
I want to keep this small, but at least make it as I had imagined. So im looking foward to post new updates and improvements!

First thing id like to know is where to go from here... I obviously have (more) content in mind, and polish; But im not too sure about leaving it as a pure survival game.

[Joh]

[1]
One thing I really felt was missing from the jam entry was a proper death.
As soon as you died, you would be sent to main menu before you even noticed.

The game being about survival, its kinda bad that you couldnt even see your score or let your death sink in...
Well, its the first thing I worked on!
Now dying takes note of some of your achievement and scores and display them next to your best performance. All this on a nice Wanted poster.
At first I wanted it to be in text form like:
"This man killed X by going through X waves of opponent lasting for X:XX and stealing XXXX loot, selling it for XXXXX$ his current Reward prize."

But I felt it was too hard to extract the meaningful info and couldnt compare to best performances.
I still need to add a "new highscore" text.


I also added a near death warning... I dont know why but I never see my death coming
I also made the text outlined... not sure which is better on the HUD.

Well, feel free to play the game (although not updated) and share what you think so I know on what to work next & what are the issues.

[Joh]

[2]
I always wanted to add a devastating attack that required a charge up, and thats what I did, This attack requires to charge for a while and will eat your loot, after 100 it can be used (under, its canceled and wasted your loot) at 200 it is full powered and is unleashed.
Full power releases a blast that pretty much clears the screen.(50% of loot spent is spilled to reclaim)
heres how it looks:

I should add a cue at 100 to know you can launch it.

On the side I also added a little crab enemy, I mean since the boss is "Giant enemy Crab" might as well have "small insignificant crabs".
I made another "boss" enemy that is meant to be a suprise so I wont spoil him.
I planned up many bosses and other locations, hopefully I can add them all.

Currently working on randomly generated levels, still not sure on gameplay but I think ill have random missions, with set return goal and limited treasure available.

[Joh]

[3]
I got a simple level generator working, It can create levels with some uneven floor levels and with holes, I also want to add hidden treasures and traps.

I made so it then adds some tiles over the floor, I also had to make a new background system relative to the player position since levels no longer have a predefined height.
The height and Width of the room are randomly set, I want to lets say make a mountain level a lot more jumpy and elevated, while a beach level would stay pretty much even.

It then adds the player base elements, The boat has been replaced by a chest (your chest), the shop is still there, although im reconsidering it.
Thing is, since I went randomly generated path, maybe item/upgrades should also be randomly optained: keep cool suprises for every run.

Enemies are also placed randomly, well actually enemy spawners. there are 3 types of spawners:
 -single enemy - spawns a single enemy as if he was always there (while out of view)
 -Ambush - Spawns 2 enemy when approached, while mostly obvious, i want to add some suprising ones.
 -House - contains 5 enemies, spawn 1 (or more?) at a time until emptied. spawns happen through both time and having cleared  previous waves.

The enemies/spawns are restored on each way: to go get treasure and bring it back, so no go is ever easy, the enemies also get stronger.

The way I want things to be is to have a "loot to bring back" goal, and a "total loot available" treasure. Goal would of course be to reach the goal, alive before running out of treasure (unlike now where its unlimited).

Next up, should be making the goal and level selection.

Im also curious on how people feel on backtracking? I mean going to the chest, then comming back to cash it in.(repeat however many time you want/need)

Also enemies... how strong should they be? feels odd to get killed by fodder, but its also weird to one hit them all. which way to go?

[Matt Rohr]

It might be kinda cool if you could just one hit most enemies. Might establish some flow, allowing the player to be constantly moving?
I can see how that could be a bit boring at a certain point, though so I think it might just be a classic balancing problem.

Depends on the type of experience you are going for.

Looks promising!

[Joh]

Well the way it is right now is fodder takes 2-3 hit to kill at lv 1 with 0 loot, the loot is used as a damage bonus, so If you have 200/200 loot, the 5% cost would be 10 loot hence add 10 dmg (subject to change).
So with a bunch of loot you pretty much one hit everything.
Which I guess is fair game since when you do have loot, all you want to do is get back to your chest and crush everything in your way.

Now im having problems with enemies killing me, I make them really weak but through number (and lv) they always end up killing me.
ill have to experiment more with balancing.
Bosses however should not be 1 hittable, theyll be a decent challenge.

Did anyone make a beat em up/ action game with "perma death" in the sense that you start from the begining with nothing when you die (new game).
Its what id aim for, but when fodder is able to kill you, or push you to death (in a hole) or you make your way to the treasure with little life only to realize you have to make your way back...
I see a number of reason why such a treatment would be too unforgiving.

[Joh]

[4]

So I finally moved away from the endless wave survival goal on to set goals!
The way I have it is:
The game gives you 3 next level choices, each with a set goal (ammount to bring back) and a set amount of treasure available and danger.(and location although not yet)
In the best case youd want lowest goal, the highest treasure amount and lowest danger.
Obviously it will rarely go that way... I set it so theres always a "less dangerous", "more dangerous" and a entirely random (danger) one. the goal, and treasure amount are affected by it, but its still random.


During a mission you have to bring back the goal loot, when you do you are free to end the mission or overstay your welcome for bonus cash/Xp... just dont die.
You're actually free to leave at any time, but doing so before reaching the goal will cause a failure. (keep the cash/ items, but no progress)

I say progress, because the goal would be to go through 7 days (7 successes) to win the game.
The missions obviously get harder as the days go by day.

I guess next up is items, as I said before id like this to be a great random experience with always more to find out, so If anyone has item/upgrade ideas to spice things up please share them.
Im already thinking
-parrots (support with different attacks.)
-gems that add element effect to attack
-various throw upgrades

[Joh]

[5]
So I made up a whole new item system, its now a lot more easy to add items and upgrades, im hoping to have a great variety available.
Although I didnt make a new sprite for it, here is the new shop:


This shop will be available in a "SHOP/Market" location available in your next mission selection IF lucky.
In this map in addition to your traditional crew shop, selling basic upgrade and item such as:
Exchange rate upgrade, bag number, Heal, and maybe (might remove) bomb, cannon strikes and potion(might add).
there will be a Special shop selling special upgrades and items. his shop will contain a random ammount of item that may vary in rarity.
In the screenshot is shown:

• Cannon strike, like whats available in the current demo
• Golden rope, will save you from a fall to death.
• Potion, refills your health when in critical state (not sure if I should make it manual)
• Excalibure, "temporary super mode"
• Racoon, will pick up gold and find hidden treasures
• Bomb, to be thrown, like in the demo but manually.
  
• Hermes boot, give super speed (like really super)
  

I also have invisible cloak to hide, parrot that fight along you and many player upgrades such has his throws (faster, more at a time etc), element imbues (add elemental effect to attacks), health regen etc.
A ton of upgrades that will hopefully allow everyone to have their unique pirate depending on what they came across.
Oh items/upgrades should also be obtainable from (random) chests on mission and ambulant shops in mission.

Oh and now space is not just for the cannon strike, it will simply use the currently selected item. it can be changed with control.

Pretty satisfied with where its going.
This time im not really sure whats to come next think ill work a bit more on items, making sure to have a great variety, then move on to adding other location/enemies... I guess the base gameplay will be essentially done.

If you have any suggestion, ideas or impression feel free to share.