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[Chris Pavia]

First pass of the Omega Plan menu:



Complete all 9 tasks to win the game. Not much more needed here other than some flavor text.

[Chris Pavia]

Inching forward on gameplay implementation:
- The player can now send hired henchmen to any region if there are empty slots available (each region can hold between 1 & 3 henchmen). I need to do some cleanup where a henchmen "reserves" the slot (the movement doesn't actually happen until the turn is processed) to prevent sending more henchmen than the region can hold.
- The player can select a mission for all henchmen in that region to undertake. For the sake of simplicity any region can only have 1 mission going there at a time, and all present Henchmen pool their traits together to complete it. The gameplay for the individual missions is not in yet, but the henchmen will progress through the stages of completion as if they were.

Next on my to-do list:
- Start implementing gameplay for missions. A pretty big task since there are over 100 so far.
- Omega Plan goals listen for their objectives to be complete and update their state accordingly.

[Chris Pavia]

Continued progress:

- Implemented 50 missions into the game (which is about half of the overall number). You can do quite a bit of stuff in the game now, but there isn't much in the way of resistance or opposition to the player. Most of the missions yet to be added will fix this.

Current tasks:

- Spawning Intel. Intel periodically appears in the world, and helps Agents track down the location of the player's Lair. If Agents capture 5 Intel, they can begin invading the Lair. The player can capture the Intel first to keep it safe.

- Agents spawn as the player's Wanted Level increases, and attempt to interfere with any Henchmen in the same Region as them.

[Wingz]

just wanted to say that this has got me seriously hype
reminds me of liberal crime squad with an interface and mechanics i can understand

[Chris Pavia]

Thanks! I've only played Dwarf Fortress from Bay 12, but I had heard of LCS before. Looked at some reviews and I can see the similarities. LCS is much more granular in its detail though. I'm trying to keep Mastermind as streamlined as possible, but once I'm at the play testing phase I'll be able to get a better picture of which parts of the game people enjoy and focus any detail there.

[Chris Pavia]

Things I have been working on:

- Implemented Regions having "Policies". Regions are basically a collection of Assets (objects the player can steal), Control Points (taking over all CP's increase your Command Pool), and Policies. Policies can put one or more Assets, Control Points, or Policies into a "Protected" or "Vulnerable" state. This increases / decreases the difficulty of any missions being performed on the affected object. If the player has any Bureaucrat type Henchmen, they can attempt to remove any Policies in a region, or institute a new Policy.

- Fleshed out the gameplay for Agents invading the player's base (game over scenario), and also folded the Base Upgrade system into it. I was watching the One Punch Man anime, and in an early episode I briefly saw this on some organization's view screen as they were "locking down" their base:



I liked the visual so I decided to steal it. Now on the Lair Tab, there are 6 "slots" that represent the empty floors of your base, with your Lair at the top. You can click an empty floor to build something in it, of which there are two types:
- Base Upgrades: These add some benefit to your base, like a Jail for keeping captured Agents, or an Armory for producing soldiers.
- Trap Floors: Their only purpose is to try and defeat invading Agents.

Previously you could build as many Base Upgrades as you had time for, but this drastically limits it creating an interesting push / pull between how you divvy up your floors between defense and new abilities.

When an Agent invades the base, they must pass through each floor from the bottom to the top. Base Upgrades provide minimal resistance, but Trap Floors have a chance to capture, repel, or kill an invading Agent. I may also add some sort of paper-rock-scissors between the type of Trap Floor built and the type of Agent. If the Agent makes it through all floors to the Lair, the player is apprehended and the game is over. The player can also assign a Bodyguard type henchmen to defend the base for added protection.


My major remaining tasks are:
- Finish implementing the new Base Upgrade and Invasion system
- Agents and their gameplay (the main obstacle to player progression)
- How Regions react to the player and Henchmen messing with them (secondary obstacle to player progression)
- Tons of writing (everything is just in game mechanics terms atm)

[Chris Pavia]

I finished implementing the new base upgrade system described in the previous post (but not the Agent invasion part). My next design task is to figure out how Agents (opposition to player) move through the world.

Currently, each Region has 1-3 slots that the player can assign a Henchmen to. The simplest solution is to have the Agents use the same system, but that has the following issues:
- The player could keep all the Henchmen slots in a Region occupied so an Agent could never get in.
- I want Agents to have the ability to be hidden from the player. So if there's an empty Henchmen slot in a region and the player can't assign anyone to it, it's pretty obvious what's going on. I'm not married to the "hidden Agent" idea, but I think it would be fun for the player to be able to place trackers on Agents to keep them from hiding.

A potential solution is that each occupancy slot in a Region can hold both a Henchmen and an Agent, but that doesn't seem like it would be obvious to the player. That will probably be my fall-back solution if I can't come up with something better.

[Wingz]

im not sure if the amount of agents in a region matters (it could if you intended to have henchmen v agent warfare or smth) but you could always make the amount of agents in a region independent

could be binary if the amount doesnt matter, or if it does, you could have the henchmen and agents do some sort of rock paper scissors stuff to decide which side stays in the region maybe

idk 

[Chris Pavia]

im not sure if the amount of agents in a region matters (it could if you intended to have henchmen v agent warfare or smth) but you could always make the amount of agents in a region independent

Definitely planning on agent vs henchmen warfare (coming up soon on my to-implement list). Generally if an agent is in the same region as a henchmen the agent can:
- Disrupt any mission the henchmen are currently on
- Attempt to capture or kill any / all henchmen
- Bribe a henchmen for Intel

Henchmen can also run missions against agents in the region:
- Place a tracker on the agent so they can't go hidden
- Attempt to capture or kill the agent
- Bribe an agent to take them out of play for x turns
- Any bodyguard type henchmen in the region will automatically attempt defend against agent attacks
- Spy on agent to reveal one or more of their traits

[Chris Pavia]

Current state of the UI, most of it is still pretty rough. All the squares with weirdly truncated text will be replaced with icons at some point.

[JWK5]

Thus far the game sounds pretty awesome. I'll have to keep tabs on this one! Keep up the good work! 



Oh, and I did send you a PM on TIGS regarding the game, I had a question for you about it.

[Chris Pavia]

Came up with a good "best of both worlds" solution for my Agent movement issue explained in a previous post:
- Agents exist in the same occupancy slots as Henchmen in each region.
- By default Agents are invisible to the player
- If the player moves a Henchmen onto the same slot as an invisible Agent, the Agent performs a Sneak Attack on the Henchmen.
     - The winner gets to stay in the slot.
     - The loser may get killed, injured, sent back to the Lair, or to a random region.
- The player can move a Henchmen on to a revealed Agent to Sneak Attack them
- Once revealed, the Agent may attempt to capture any Henchmen in the region, or run away
- An Agent can hide again if given time

[Chris Pavia]

Added a placeholder main menu the player will see each time they start a new game:



- The org name and password are pre-populated, so the player only needs to hit Log In to start the game.
- The player can tap on the org name field to generate a new name from a big list. I don't know yet if I'll let the player input a custom name since each game is supposed to be played in a single sitting.
- The password is used as the random seed, so I'll probably let players input a custom string.

[Chris Pavia]

Wanted to enumerate how henchmen "health" works real quick:

- Henchmen can have up to 9 traits
- 1 trait is always reserved for the henchmen's Status, which starts at Healthy
- When a new Status trait is added, it always replaces the current one (can't have more than one Status)
- Statuses currently available are:
     - Healthy: Default
     - Injured: Each Injured henchmen imposes a -10% to the success chance of any mission they are involved in
     - Critical: Same as Injured but with a -20% penalty (all numbers subject to change of course)
     - Deceased: Cannot participate in missions. Not sure yet if they will just be removed from the game, sent back to the base, or something else

[Chris Pavia]

Currently implementing a couple systems to allow the player to increase their Command Pool. The Command Pool is the main resource the payer uses to do stuff each turn. CP is drained by:
- Hiring new henchmen
- Starting a new mission
- Paying currently employed henchmen at the start of the turn

The two ways the player can increase the pool are:
1. Building a Command Center in their base. Grants +2 CP per turn, but uses up one of the 6 base upgrade slots
2. Take control of a region. As mentioned previously, a region is a collection of policies, assets, and control points. If the player takes over all of a region's control points, they "own" that region, which gives them a CP bonus equal to the rank of the region (1-3). Note that seizing control points is a very overt act and thus generates a lot of Infamy, which attracts Agents. If an agent is in a region the player owns, they can attempt to liberate the control points. If a henchmen is stationed in the region, the agent will usually attack them first, which can act as a layer of defense (especially if it is a Bodyguard type henchmen).

I'll probably add one or two more ways to gain CP, like finding unique assets or owning all the regions in a geographic zone.

[Chris Pavia]

Just moved this idea from "Brainstorming" to "To Implement":

Allies and Rivals
- When two or more henchmen complete a mission together, there is a chance that one may become an Ally or Rival of another, represented as the henchmen gaining a new "Rival of X" or "Ally of X" trait.
- If a mission fails, there may be a greater chance to gain a Rival than an Ally
- When starting a new mission, if a henchmen's Ally is also present, they will gain a +5% to the mission success chance (stackable)
- Likewise, -5% for Rivals.
- If a henchmen gets attacked by an Agent, any Rivals or Allies in the same region may join in (for or against the henchmen)
- Could be some fun hijinks if Henchmen A considers B an Ally, but B considers A a Rival...

I may take this a step further and allow the player to designate a Henchman as their #2, which gives a flat 10% bonus on any mission they are involved with, but increases the chance other Henchmen will make him a Rival.

[Wingz]

man this sounds so good
the intrigue levels are so high
cant wait for it to be playable

[Chris Pavia]

man this sounds so good
the intrigue levels are so high
cant wait for it to be playable

I'm starting the Agents now, once that's done I'll have a functional game minus a few non-essential systems. But the presentation still needs a lot of work, since the mechanics can be pretty esoteric I need to put work into the help system. I've got an interesting idea for a tutorial being the view screen OS installation process.

Trying hard to have something playable by the time GDC rolls around in March.

[Wingz]

hype hype hype
cant wait

[Chris Pavia]

I'm currently working on the high level AI design for the agents, and how much hidden knowledge they can access. I'm more interested in creating tension than everything being "fair", as long as it's not too obvious to the player.

Agents will have a default routine where they go from region to region searching for key things to interact with. No interaction between agents.

There is also a director that can assign new states to agents based on the state of the game to create more focused opposition. Examples include:

- Attack base: when there are few / no base defenses by mid game.
- Defend assets: move to high rank assets needed for op that are visible on map
- Attack henchmen: triggered when # of healthy henchmen reaches threshold.
- Defend region: if op involves doing something in specific regions, move to defend.
- Liberate regions: move to regions owned by the player to recapture control points.

If that all works out, I can have a handful of  directors with different values and states to pick from at game start.