Posted September 28, 2024 by YYZ
Currently, the game ends once you build Faraday's Device which neutralizes the storm. That will change in v0.6, to be released in 24 hours.
In v0.6, the storm will have a health bar.
The bullets are placeholder spheres from the jam and will be replaced with more exciting VFX and sound effects! However, you can already see how the combat looks and I honestly love it. It's just like a boss fight but the boss is a weather system! I think this can be really cool if the storm can evolve to have different stages, and even have map-wide effects, like using the ocean tides or wind to blow away homeless settlers. That way you'll feel like you're literally fighting the map and the whole onslaught of mother nature, rather than a single storm cloud entity.
The boss could also have abilities - temperature drops causing sickness and disabling your farms could be a thing. Oh wait did I just say the storm can disable buildings? Now that sounds totally evil >:D
New Small Turret
A small turret will been added. It has short range and damage, but are cheap to place down.
The Dilemma: Should turrets shoot behind them too?
An obvious strategy is to shield your turrets as turrets are expensive and to allow them to continue firing after the storm passes over them.
However, I am considering if turrets should only be one-direction and deal 2x damage, so that players don't feel obligated to place a shield every time, and feel like the unprotected turrets are only half as effective without shields. In my playthrough, placing shields every 4 structures are not fun as you can't just spam a row of turrets when you feel like it. It feels disruptive. Could be solved with auto-placer but that's just more UI toggles and things for the player to learn and remember. On the other hand, if turrets can shoot behind, the combat looks more exciting as you see more things happening on screen.
Electricity consumption
Turrets will also cost electricity to shoot when electricity is added. You'll have to manage your power grid during the storm, which is key to ensuring your power-hungry structures stay working.
Once the Electricity System is ready, a Medium Turret with more damage and twice the attack speed will be added. A sniper turret with extremely long range or that can make the storm more vulnerable to other turrets could also be added for more strategic options. The sniper turret should have a really long cooldown but do a screen shake when it fires!
Shooting VFX and Sound Design
And here's a first look at the juicy new shooting VFX and lighting! Each turret will have its own unique projectile. You can't hear the GIFs, but I implemented round-robin sound effects for shooting, something new I just learnt in sound design. It is subtle but the sounds will hopefully not just be less repetitive, but more natural too.
Faraday's Turret (the big turret) will be modified to shoot way faster and shoot a volley of ammo from each of its four cannons. I think it will feel pretty epic and powerful (as it should be).
UI Changes
Lastly, the 'View Storm' button was surprisingly not obvious. A streamer I watched was confused when the storm began. He couldn't see it as he was far ahead. Thus I am changing the UI. Card generation will now be disabled during the storm, so no point displaying it and taking up precious center screen space. I want the storm to take center stage. Thus the storm UI, timer and button is moved to the center, hopefully making it more noticeable?