DISCOURCE

A build, is a combination of skills, abilities, and modifiers that a character possesses. The combination of skills, abilities, and modifiers directly affects the player’s strategy and the success of the gameplay. Builds can be either conditionally strong or weak.

In our case, the build is a set of wagons. And that’s too simple.

Right now, conceptually, our build crafting is quite basic. “Uh, just add more wagons, uh the more wagons, the more damage, uh.” And it doesn’t really matter what kind of wagons you add to the train. The damage will always be enough.

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In my Telegram channel, I talked about what a "snowdrop" is. "Snowdrops" are gameplay features that weren’t initially part of the game design but "bloom out of the snow" during testing. "Snowdrops" can either work in favor of the final product or ruin it.

During the testing of the trains, we discovered such a snowdrop. Yes, the more wagons you have, the more DPS you deal. But the more wagons you have, the harder it is to avoid damage with all of them.

So, we ended up with a self-balancing system. Currently, the optimal number of wagons for completing the game is 4-5. They deal enough damage, and they’re still easy to control. This slightly resembles deck-building systems in card games, like in Slay the Spire. The more cards you have on average, the harder it is to draw those that deal high damage. You need to find the perfect balance, having enough cards for strong combinations while not letting the excess cards dilute your damage potential.

Now, let's step away from the snowdrops and builds. What should motivate a player to create the best build? Right, difficulty. The game should present challenges for the player. Ideally, these challenges should offer multiple ways to overcome them. Currently, the game lacks real difficulty. It’s easy to beat with almost any set of wagons, except for a couple that work really poorly. Yes, I’m talking about you, the jaws and the anvil.

First, let's think about how we can ramp up the difficulty:

1. Increasing the damage enemies deal
2. Increasing the HP of enemies
3. Increasing the number of enemies per wave
4. Increasing the variety of enemy types
5. Adding new gameplay situations created by enemies

The first three points increase difficulty, while the last two introduce new challenges. Currently, we only have points 3 and 4 implemented. I also tried something with point 5, but it didn’t turn out well.

But let’s imagine we implement all five points. What do I want to achieve? I want strange, poorly thought-out, non-functional builds to die out. In fact, most builds in the current build system should die before the boss.

Why?

Because the current build system is the first thing I’m going to overhaul.

Remember the snowdrop? Well, it’s the only thing right now that gives the project potential to grow. The optimal strategy for avoiding damage is controlling 4-5 wagons. But what if we increase the game’s difficulty to the point where 4-5 wagons just aren’t enough to beat the game in their current form, and we can’t consistently manage more wagons? The game would become unbeatable. Now, let’s make it beatable by upgrading the existing wagons.

How?

Let’s assume we have artillery. After completing a wave, we find another artillery wagon, and we can either add it to the train or merge it with the one we already have, increasing its effectiveness by an average of 1.5 times. That way, we get stronger without increasing the number of wagons.

Changelog:

1. Removed the "shooting only while moving" mechanic – this limitation was necessary for the game jam, but it's no longer needed in the game.
2. Added upgrades for all existing wagons – now you can merge wagons to make them stronger.
3. Added a convenient upgrade panel.
4. Fixed a bug where destroyed wagons would remain on the arena.
5. Rebalance game hardness