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[Bombini]

Hello everyone and welcome to a new dev log!

Neo-Enigma will be high-stakes platformer set in a futuristic city under siege by colossal robots with unknown origins.
The game will consist of two parts.

The city view with the attacking robots which you have to defend:





The platform levels themselves where the player takes on the role of a skilled agent tasked with infiltrating the robots, collecting crucial intel, and ultimately destroying them from within as this seems to be the only option for now:



One of the first concepts:




There will be a light xcom-like research tree to solve the mystery where the robotscome from and how to stop them finally.

Next steps:
I am currently playing around with look&feel, art, world building and prototyping of systems the robots could have. Trying to find the right color palettes, styles and fun in the levels. Its still very rough also with some place holder art.
Se you soon!

Join the community:
https://discord.gg/XukUBzs

[Bombini]

A new element has found its way into the levels. The turret



Next will be collecting intel and the enemies.

[Bombini]

I have been thinking about how to communicate to the player how the systems of the robot are, energy level, threat in general and so on. I was thinking....if I crack open an enemy huge robot and explore it...there wont be any displays I might be able to read.

So why not get a monitor from your base, hack it into the systems in the entry point of the level and see som info there instead of adding just UI bars. I still might add info like ammunition and so on for the player in a UI element but maybe I try to avoid as much UI elements as possible.

[bleeks]

Fun concept. Like the city view scene, looks cool

[Bombini]

Thanks!
More updates an a rough prototype soon

[Bombini]

I want to finish some enemies for testing before i get back into the city and overall game loop.
There should be turrets, walking enemies and floating enemies to start with.

They also should have several layers of protection as you can see in my first tests:

[Bombini]

Hi everyone,

I am currently testing the system how to win each level aka shutting down the robot you are in. There will be two ways. One is finding strange symbols which you can after scanning hack into a main cpu. The other harder way will be to destroy its structure. Here you see a symbol being scanned. The player would have to wait for the scan to be complete. Enemies will register and try to stop the scan.

Here a first test:



Here a test where you apply a scanning device and changing the code in the main CPU (all wip; code change would only work when scanned):

[bleeks]

That armor/slowly destructing like that is really good, how is that going to play out in the game? Will the enemy keep moving at you and attacking even with no head? Either way thats a cool effect.

[Bombini]

The initial idea was to have that system instead of a healthbar for better immersion.
I also want to include weak spots which make more damage (the glow red/orange parts) and i also will include that the robot loses some features like path finding when the head is off. This should be fun.
Here a nore advanced version:

[Bombini]

It is time to make the enemies smarter and i am starting with the floating ones.
Two features i wanted compared to my previous games are "the enemy should be able to find/follow you" and "the enemy should undestand if there is an obstable in the way or if the line of sight is free to shoot".


I am very happy with my first tests. Art is WIP and the lines are just to show case the line of sight which is accomplished using raycasting. I still need to finetune the moving and so on but the system seems to work. No more need for big rooms when i have enemies so they dont get stuck behind tiles

[Bombini]

The standard robot got a nasty laser which it fires when it sees you plus...a nice explosion when the robot is destroyed:




I also added a new enemy type which is awakening whe it sees you, starts running at you and explodes on contact or if fast
enough destroyed:



Adding the tile art and room unlock feature it its a nice enemy

[Bombini]

First level and playable incoming soon

[Bombini]

Hi everyone,
i am focusing on the meta gameplay now that the first level is almost complete and ripped apart by the first testers.

Have in mind that the player will gather intel to do research.
Actions between the levels would be, repairing the city, doing research, scanning th next robot...all while the robot continues to destroy the city until you shoot yourself at it to destroy it from inside.

I am thinking in two directions.

xcom chimera squad like style
Where all actions you and the robot can do a sorted by an urgency and are triggered once you did the current one.





OR...


FTL like style
Or everything plays in real time. You can do whatever you want but it just takes a certain amount of time like in the game FTL.





Do you have thoughts?

[Alex N.]

Neat aesthetic so far! I'm curious where you will take this.

[Bombini]

Neat aesthetic so far! I'm curious where you will take this.

Thanks! I will have a rough playable level soon. Any thoughts on the "turnbased" meta versus the "realtime" meta?

[Alex N.]

I'm personally not a big fan of these sort of questions "should I do this or that" because what I hear in reality is either "I don't really know what I'm doing" or "I know what I'm doing, but let's farm some engagement on false pretense".
Now to give you some sort of an answer:
- Why are you doing this game?
- Who are you doing this game for?

If you're doing this game for passion, you might be doing it for yourself therefore you already might have an answer to your own question. Pick the variant you want most to test out.
If you're doing it for money, then you are mostly doing it for others therefore you have to search online what sells best.

I know it's kind of cut and dry but again, I might not be the one to ask this sort of question, sadly.
GL with the progress

[Bombini]

One of the best feedbacks i got in my tig history!
I appreciate it

[Alex N.]

One of the best feedbacks i got in my tig history

Lol. Happy to hear that.

[Bombini]

Hi everyone!

i did some thinking and testing.
I think i found a fun solution which i will prototype now.
You might hav seen this in other games where each action ahs a specific costs and your budget constantly fills up.
You can either wait to trigger the more expensive actions or do ones with a lower cost more often.
Same for the robot. I think this will be fun!

Will get back to you once i have a vesion.

[Bombini]

Did some first tests with this idea. First learning...research does not really fit there because its a stressful situation and you dont want that when thinking about what to research. Maybe i leave the time component of it in.



I also tried working on a logo/splash screen and i am not unhapppy