Golem Mancer: Strategy Options

Golem Mancer is going to be a strategy game and that comes with a couple of design aspects that are important to consider as early as possible. These are things measuring and modulating the number of strategic options put in front of new players. On the low end developers need to look at things like how concentrated tutorials can be whilst on the high end they need to be considerate of the overall number of variables put in front of players.

A strategy game with many complementary systems needs to be careful with balance of resources and difficulty but how many strategic options can a player absorb at once. The type of game plays a big role in the range of options you’ll have to account for but player absorption is a lot more subjective.

First the range of options: developers and designers will want to look at all the factors then array them in clear and segregated parts. That way they can be introduced in a sensible order. Over whelming the player is also a concern if you introduction to many mechanics with too many components in one go. If we look at other games we can see the techniques they’ll often employ to control information.

Farming Sims: (Harvest moon, Stardew Valley)

Giving the player only the most basic initial tools with the least functionality splits explanations of enhanced functionality across multiple tools while creating motivation for players to unlock more advanced tool.

Only selling seeds for the current season means the player doesn’t have to worry about extraneous options for planting. There’s no risk of buying seeds they can’t use. Most farming sims won’t even provide the full range of seeds for a season right away.

Limiting the number of available areas and services is a classic of farming sims. Locations or facilities that provide access to additional content and gameplay will be conveniently gated. Usually a game will keep these areas locked until a certain about of time has elapsed in-game or certain criteria have been meet, in either case

Card Games: (Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Slay The Spire)

The initial cards given to the player will usually be carefully selected to avoid clustering cards with overly complex mechanics or high-end strategies. The highest level cards will also be tied to progression requiring the player to purchase them at a high price or defeat difficult opponents. This works well as progression requires mastering game mechanics and in turn progression exposes new mechanics to master.

Factory Builder: (Satisfactory, Factorio, Shapez)

Factory builders generally work off of an inverted pyramid of progression. The lowest tiers of resources are readily available in their raw states. In this way players only have to contend with the subsequent tier at any given time. As they proceed further complexity is introduced naturally one layer at a time usually accompanied by new means of automation, it is a factory builder after all.

Novel playtesting is the best way to get a peek at player interactions with a system but even just quick and dirty math on the topic can be very illuminating. We can really only get a feel for variety and complexity from a few quick graphics. So let’s walk through some different mechanics system group to see how much theoretical decision making is dumped on the player;

Levels and Enemies

Golem Mancer levels will consistently introduce new hazards or enemies. Hazards like low trees, deep snow, or shallow water that impede Golem are lampshaded in advance so players have that information and can plan accordingly. Enemies; the small NPC and the stationary towers ,can also be predicted from the U.I. Icons on the level show the possible enemy type and the max height of towers. In this collection of mechanics we can see two sets that are developmentally relevant.

1. IF X, Y, and Z are the only variables of a level then how many unique levels can be made from them?


2. What does the data tell players and does that present positive feedback to the other mechanics in terms of formulating a strategy?

Golem Building

Here's the big one and the largest singular bottleneck, Golem Building. It has the most system it has the most components, if something is going to negatively impact gameplay it would be here.

Golem building is a multi-step process, introducing each step and in the optimal order is the art of it. I’ve chosen to liberally steal methods from all the aforementioned genres; Farming Sims, Card Games, and Factory builders. Players will have access to the most basic resources, the fewest uses for those resources, and only the simplest functionality.

Combat

During field combat players can use 3 Golems at a time; this bridges the two larger groups of mechanics.
It also has hidden depths, let me explain. In addition to all the skills and attributes that come out of the golem players can change ranks in the field to open players’ options. The game also has a time mechanics that seeps into combat. The various parts of Golem building consume time, and while time passes the enemies build and advance; expanding their towers and building/rebuilding new towers. But there is a small caveat to the time mechanic; knights of the kingdom are continually dispatched to aid the player. On the one hand players can take advantage of the Knight and attach in sync as part of their strategy, on the other many golem skills will hurt friendly units.

I’ve intentionally avoided talking about the effect of difficulty on strategy. It’s not that it isn’t a factor in fact I’ve always found that the higher difficulties in well-designed games showcase strategies more than lower difficulties. In this case the reason I’ve avoided the topic is the enemy A.I. I’ve been toying with a novel implementation of global enemy A.I and that will be the topic of my next article for Golem Mancer.