Hi guys, Just wanted to give some very early WIP of our next game, tentatively called "Strike Team". It's an XCOM-style, tactical RPG built on the Demon's Rise engine. It features a full RPG experience combined with tactical cover, morale, pinning and action points. As compared to Demon's Rise, it is much more action-point oriented as action points are used for movement and attacks as well as special abilities. This means that you can use up all action points for movement to move extra that turn and sacrifice shooting / abilities or remain stationary to attack more often. There's also a reaction shot mechanism where your troops can shoot back at enemies that shoot at them. There are also various levels of height with thing like stairs leading to upper and lower levels and tactical benefits to occupying the high ground. In terms of progress, the core gameplay elements are in place as is most of the graphical user interface for the battle levels. So far, we've just built one level and a handful of units. However, the game is playing very nicely and it's looking very promising. Will be posting regular updates on this thread and may do a round of beta testing with active forum members and / or Demon's Rise customers. Very tentative release date is next year Q2. In terms of storyline, the game follows the pursuits of an elite human military team trying to take a battleship back from the clutches of some vile aliens. Gameplay will be very mission-focussed with rescue missions, survival / hold your ground, assassination and other objectives for victory. There will be various types of warriors to choose from to build your team from all-rounders to specialist troops like Psi-Ops and allied Aliens with unique abilities. Screen Shot 2016-08-25 at 4.20.57 PM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Screen Shot 2016-08-30 at 12.49.55 PM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Screen Shot 2016-08-30 at 10.35.47 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Screen Shot 2016-08-30 at 12.50.44 PM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Let me know what you think .. and if you like what you see, please support us by picking up Demon's Rise or Demon's Rise 2 (coming later this month).
It would be cool if someone did a game where you played though many rooms of the ship for a mission instead of one room. Computers could be accessed to read a log which tells part of a story. Killing aliens will give you access to key cards to open doors, weapon and armour upgrades. And what they focus on gets better with practice. The more you throw gernades ,the more accurate and further you can throw. A melee specialist hits harder and has a better chance to stun or knock the enemy down as time goes on. People who use suppression fire to allow a team member to run to cover, get more accurate and hit the target more as time goes on. The healer unit can use less points to heal and heal more with practice. Targeting body parts could effect the game as well. Hit the arm holding the weapon and the enemy loses accuracy and may even drop the weapon. Hit the legs and the enemy can't walk very well making it harder to close the distance for it's Melee attack. Just a few thoughts Thanks
Well, I sure do like what I see! And you can count on my support as well as an instant purchase of DR2 when it is released. #
Hi Wave Light Games... does Pocket Tactics know you exist? I read them too... and this is right up their alley, but I haven't seen any coverage on Demon's Rise or anything WLG related. Just saying.
Looks fantastic. If beta happens count me in. Also bought Demon's Rise at full price last year. Awesome game. Really valuable products when they get as much attention as DR got. Looking forward to this and the sequel to Demon's Rise.
Unfortunately not ... tried to reach out in the past but had no luck. Maybe with the the Demon's Rise 2 launch or Strike Team's launch, I'll get noticed by them.
Thanks ... will definitely include you if I do a beta. Not sure yet. I may do a single level as a web build and let everyone play that way and give feedback that way.
The reason that this and Demon's Rise keeps the map rooms small is due to performance. By keeping the map size relatively small, I'm then able to put the mobile device resources into graphics and so forth. This is a lot better because the larger map sizes often lead to you moving your team (one-by-one) through empty corridors looking for the next room with enemies in it. Instead, the story is told in a sequence of battles / events and the in-between movement through corridors and joining areas is left as dialogue. One of the new features in this game will be hackable computer terminals to do things like open / close doors, erect energy shields for strategic purposes, take control of turrets, control defence robots and so forth. Some of the character classes will have the hacking skill and thus give the controlling player new ways to win battles using these tactics. Weapon and armour upgrades will be there in something similar to how they are in Demon's Rise. Each character has certain slots that can be used to equip items that enhance their abilities. Characters will improve over time and they gain experience from trying to do certain skills, attacks, etc. They even gain experience when they try something and fail. Pretty much what you describe. Check out Demon's Rise if you'd like to see how this works in practice. There are critical hits that can do things like reduce the target's accuracy, movement rate, cause damage over time due to blood loss, etc. Some characters have higher chances of causing critical and there are skills that can be used to increase critical chance and critical hit resistance. THere's also a morale component that will cause your troops to panic if they see a lot of their enemies die in a single turn or if enemies arrive behind them, etc. Suppression will tie into this ... so every shot fired at an enemy will increase the likelihood of him and other units in the same area to become suppressed. I'm still trying to figure out the penalty for becoming suppressed but it should involve a penalty to action points (that will affect movement, shooting ability and ability to perform special skills) and then possibly an increase to dodge skill since units that are suppressed tend to keep their heads down. Thanks for your feedback.
Also, another feature I'm trying to figure out is explosive objects that can be shot to cause chain reaction explosions and so forth.
Created three new player character classes this morning. Here is the Vanguard (heavy weapons / armour guy), Medic (support / healer) and Incinerator (flame thrower type): Screen Shot 2016-08-31 at 11.47.48 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Group shot. From right to left, we have Incinerator, Medic and Vanguard in brown at top. Screen Shot 2016-08-31 at 11.48.10 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Close up of the female medic. I'm glad to announce that Strike Team will not feature scantily clad women with unrealistic proportions. Screen Shot 2016-08-31 at 11.46.31 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr The Vanguard close up shot. Will be using a heavy weapon that will either fire little smart rockets or flack type weaponry. Will probably feature shoulder mounted rockets as well and some cool grenades. Let me know your thoughts and / or words of encouragement. They do help with motivation (because daily sales certainly don't )
Awesome! i think you are finally growing into your own, so to say. Anyone who bought Demon's Rise when it came out, knows how much work and progress you have put in from them to now. For anyone who doesn't know, this guy -yes, 1- is PERSISTENT and Demon's Rise grew by leaps and bounds and many many updates to its final form. From these pictures i can tell you have worked on the UI, much less complicated and uncluttered. You have my full confidence and support
I think the characters and backgrounds work really well together. I did play your first game and though I really appreciated what you were doing with lighting and other environmental effects, things got a little lost at times. With these screens, everything stands out great. The character designs are very cool.
Thanks ... the updated lighting is partly due to enhancements in the underlying game engine, Unity 5.4. The next update to Demon's Rise will include this change as well so the characters should actually pop out a bit more in that game too. I like the character designs too. I should point out that they were built by asset developers and were not made by me. I just do the coding and lighting and such. Here are two more characters I set up this morning. The first is the Psi Operative, who will have mind control and psychic powers as well as a powerful pistol. The pistol will probably change in final release. Screen Shot 2016-09-01 at 11.40.42 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr The second is a more conventional warrior with a futuristic shotgun. She'll be the medium / short range specialist that will sacrifice long range for much higher shorter range damage. I particularly like her sci-fi shotgun because it's reminiscent of a modern weapon but has the sci fi details when you get up close. Screen Shot 2016-09-01 at 11.41.35 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr
So when can we expect to play this? I know you're just getting started, but based on your experience making these games, are we looking at 2018 or will it be next year? The screen shots look absolutely stunning by the way.
Thanks! We're in a good position to make a reasonable estimate. Almost all the code changes I want in the engine are done. Some work remains on the GUI and some new special abilities I want to develop. The rest of it is building the characters, levels and story / campaign. Based on the level of effort for Demon's Rise 2, I think late June 2017 is very reasonable expectation.
That's great! I can't wait for this one. Based on your track record I have no worries. I have to admit I bought Demon's Rise but I haven't played it yet. I've followed the development and update information since release so I know how dedicated you are to the development of your games. I really appreciate how you keep updating your base engine and bringing those those updates to the oldest game. I don't think a lot of devs. would worry so much about the older stuff as they moved forward with new skills and knowledge. You da man.
Looking at these two screenshots I think you have nailed the graphics for the female characters. There is just enough difference between the male and female characters in armour to be noticeable. While scantly clad, overly proportioned females would look out of place in this style of game, I still like my pixel females to at least look somewhat feminine.
Cool ... glad you like it. The medic shown here wears a lighter form of body armour to allow her the dexterity needed for her speciality. However, the shotgun-toting girl shown earlier (with the green visor) is a front line fighter with heavy power armour. As such, it's pretty hard to differentiate her from one of the men in heavy power armour except that she is overall a smaller frame. I'm leaning hard towards realism in this game and as such, women in heavy power armour won't be very feminine but those in lighter armour will be.
