Squars: Incremental Defense · published
I am back from the holidays, healthy and squared up! There’s a lot going on with the release of v0.1.11, so hop on board!
If you’re new here, Squars is an all-square roguelite that blends tower defense with clicker mechanics 🙂.
In the last Weekly I wrote about the Lone Tower Mode pivot. Since then I’ve had a long chat with my good friend about design problems I am currently seeing and how this mode would not necessarily tackle those problems but rather avoid them altogether. My current “main” design problem is that, during the gameplay, players invest a lot in defending a certain location. If enemies get through and towers get destroyed, there’s basically no “comeback potential”.
Now, because Squars is a roguelite designed for players to play many runs during one session, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Also, the current problem exists because of the map layout and limited number of paths that enemies can take, always clumping them up into one big wave. This is why I decided to tackle the problem with maps, halting the work on Lone Tower mode.
Please give a warm welcome to:
With the map divided into unlockable chunks, players will be able to decide which way they want to expand to. Each chunk provides new terrain and points of interest, hopefully making the base more “spread out” with enemies attacking from multiple directions, evening out the assault intensity.
This task is a big one, requiring expansion of the flow fields, changing how the enemies are spawned, how positions for buildings are calculated, and how the camera works… Well, keep your fingers crossed!
In the meantime I implemented an easy fix to the issue of “leaving your last enemy alive in order to farm some more energy” from passive energy regeneration. Such a thing is just very annoying and shouldn’t be a part of the gameplay, sandbagging the player! Now, the faster the player can get rid of the enemies, the bigger “Skip Night Bonus” of energy will be given :)
Another big thing that I am currently working on is Core Modules - a slightly twisted idea from Legacy Version times. Players will have a chance to obtain special modules of different rarities during the game. Each module grants various bonuses if inserted into the Ship’s Core. However, there’s a catch! Some powerful modules may make the core unstable, triggering some nasty things during the run. What things, you ask? Come and play as soon as it’s ready to check it out! :D
The last thing I want to write about are Map Mutators. This small change lets players tweak the gameplay to make it harder but also more rewarding in terms of the score! This might be the edge needed to get to the top of the leaderboard :)
Currently I implemented two mutators:
Big Boys - Making all enemies 50% bigger, making them significantly more chunky!
Broken Fingers - Completely disabling the ability to use Click Charges, meaning no damaging enemies or healing buildings via clicking!
Please let me know if you have ideas for other mutators that I can implement in the game! You can catch me on Discord or leave a comment down below!
And that's it! As always, have a great week and happy new year!
Changelog below 👋
Added Night Skip Bonus
Added Map Mutators