Communicating Progression

We’ve spent a lot of posts talking about the battle mechanic and the refinement of it from an unstructured mess to a set of actions that can be built on for strategy. We’ll be going what features are implemented for progression, and importantly, how this is communicated to the player.

SampleLoop

Instant game loop, just skin it a thousand ways.

What Features Are Involved?

Each battle brings the player closer to understanding the way their fellow players strategize or expands on their knowledge of slots (abilities). This is knowledge (metagame) progression. The Player is also rewarded with gold, which allows them to buy more monsters – progression in their collection.

For Monster Roller, the following features work together in the loop:

  • Battle. This is the start of the loop.
  • Stages (for Offline Play). The player progresses each time s/he completes a level. This appeals to players who want to complete every level. Offline play also builds confidence for online play, because the player is learning about the monsters and their different abilities.
  • Leaderboards (for PVP). The player can see how they stack up against their fellow players.
  • Level Up System. The monster levels up based on role, with additional bonuses.
  • Evolution System. Monsters can evolve, and adult monsters can help gain more monsters through egg-laying rather than relying on the store. Evolutions have different stats & different abilities.
  • Store & Incubation. Earning gold gets spent here.

Some Examples!

 

(1) It has to be obvious.

mr 2015-08-27 15-21-28-38

A basic example: indicators show which level difficulties the player has beaten.

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There are also clear indicators showing how hard a stage will be.

(2) It has to be rewarding.

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People like seeing bars fill up.

(3) Player control is good.

LevelupBonusesPlayers get to choose in what way additional bonuses are distributed to a monster. While these bonuses are not large enough to turn a defensive tank into an offensive tank, the reward is in the addition of the points themselves and  getting to choose where those bonus points are spent.