Making New Unlockable Characters for my Indie Game

// Introduction

Welcome back to another blog on my game, Roguesphere, where you shove foes and conquer worlds.

I've been working on it for the past year and I'm determined to release it at the end of February this year.

However, before I can really be happy to put this game out there, I have to deal with a massive issue that it has in terms of replayability.

It's a difficult game by design and players are expected to die more than to actually beat the game.

Right now, it just doesn't give any real incentive or motivation that make players want to play again and give it another go each time they fail.

I have this ever growing list of tasks that I think should help it though and unless I actually get to them, I will never want to release this game.

For the release of the game, I'm deciding on making at least 6 characters with an ideal total of 8 if my ideas work out!

Half of them will be freely unlockable, while the other half will be paid characters. This game will come out for free on mobile so I have to make money somehow and I refuse to do that by the typical mobile game standards of forcing ads into your face.

Instead, I'm working hard to make sure that the game is not only worth the download, but also worth it in terms of the paid characters and the optional ads that it has to offer.

// Free Characters (Conquerors)

Default

I've been showcasing this character for a while now and that's because he's the default character for the game (we'll worry about naming everyone later).

He has a good balance of stats that make him perfect for getting you started with the game, get used to the controls, and just overall get a feel of the game.

Health

Since I expect you to die lots, I want the first free unlockable character to have a little bit more health and directly stretch out the gap between the start of the game and the gameover screen.

I'm using Baymax from the Disney movie Big Hero 6 as a reference to make the model for this character.

They're thicker compared to other characters and so they have slightly reduced speed as well as less upgrades to choose from by default to balance things out.

I thought it would also be cool to have the attack animation be a belly shove and it adds a little bit of personality as well.

Revive

Next up is another character to help you survive longer. He has the one time ability per run to revive with half of his health when you die.

The straightforward balance for him is to give him less health to start off with. The other is to start him off with a negative resilience stat that make all bullets that he gets hit by to actually 'connect' and never ignored unless the resilience stat gets upgraded twice or so.

A fun fact with this character is that I used a comic version of Loki from Marvel as a reference to create the model.

I think it's a fitting reference, because Loki is kind of an undying fidelity in the Marvel universe.

Fate

To continue with the theme of helping you survive longer, this next character can straight up ignore bullets (that connect) 50% of the time. The catch is that when bullets do hit, it does twice as much damage.

With the 50/50 damage ignore, I think a fair way to balance her is by starting her with only 3 health points. This way, she starts off only being capable of surviving a single bullet damage.

You will need to work twice as hard to increase her max health to an amount that actually matter, because of the fact that she takes twice as much damage.

The last thing about her is that she is the only character than can get more than the normal cap of 30% or 40% Resilience (yet to be decided) and even have the capability to upgrade it to a max of 60%.

// Moving

I'm making good progress with the characters, but the time is just feeling like it's been moving faster.

For most of this year so far, my partner Laura and I have been settling in to our new place. I've lost a lot of time from game development due to moving, unpacking, and cleaning in the old place.

Also, I finally found a job! I'll be working at a call centre in the meantime while I look for a software developer job. I'm feeling really grateful right now, but this also takes a lot of game development time away from me.

I've got to do what I've got to do though and there are no excuses. The goal is still to release the game at the end of February.

// Premium Characters (Conquerors)

Obviously, I would love to make lots of paid characters to increase my earning potential.

Only making 3 (potentially 4) paid characters for the release of the game might not seem like a lot, but I would rather make 3 really worth your money type of characters rather than having a whole bunch of just bland and basic stat changing characters.

So, my goal with these premium characters is to offer you a change in gameplay and mechanics other than just changing up the stats and re-skinning them.

Glass

Here is a reference sheet that I've found on Google for the comic version of She-Hulk, which I used to help create the first premium character.

(If it's not obvious yet, I'm hooked into the Marvel universe.)

As you will see, this character alter planets with her own glass obstacles.

You can shove these glass obstacles into enemies as well as use it for protection like the normal obstacles you would see in the planets.

The only difference with these obstacles are the fact that they break when they get shot and enemies can see you through them (you can see them too of course).

She plays fairly balanced in my opinion given the same stats as the default character.

Range

This next one up further increases the range in gameplay variance for my game LITERALLY.

It has freakishly long arms that allow you to shove enemies from further distances unlike any other character.

The ability feels a little overpowered (OP) and the best thing that I could think of to give it balance is by giving it only 3 health.

Thanks to this character, I learned how to bend bones in Blender. This video by SouthernShotty was the best one that I could find and was straight to the point.

I also used the screenshots of a 3D model made by Yuta Abe Shimpo to help create this character.

Fast

The last character I'll mention in this devlog moves around planets by rolling and he's the fastest character in the game.

The only catch is that enemies are quicker to shoot their shot and that your controls are inverted.

He's really OP once you've wrapped your head around the inverted controls.

The funny thing is that I actually modelled him after a turtle, because my original idea was for him to be slow and for him to have shielding along with explosive capabilities.

I had inspired models from Kung Fu Panda with Oogway and then Raphael from the Ninja Turtles. It's a good thing I think that I ultimately went to continue with the Raphael version.

// Giveaway

You made it to the end of the devlog!

As promised, here's how to get a promo code to unlock one of the paid characters for free.

1. Subscribe to my newsletter community
2. Comment "I was here before release" under this blog

All winners can expect their promo codes emailed to them near the release day!

I'll be giving away only 50 promo codes, but I doubt that I'll need to as I don't reach that many people yet.

Please help support and share my game with your friends and family :)

If you want to show further support consider supporting my work in which I give thanks to you by:

• Giving you promo codes to unlock all the premium characters
• An early access version of the game
• Putting your name in the credits

// Final Thoughts

There's definitely an overwhelming amount of tasks that I want to do with the game still, but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you for stopping by and reading this devlog.

// Supporters

I also want to give a huge thank you to the generous people who are supporting me and my work this month.

• Laura Milligan
• Andrew Abrook
• Armaigne Rivero
• Fritz Rivero

Catch you again soon!