Merchants - These are now fully implemented, giving the player the opportunity to buy and sell equipment, as well as selling cargo goods for an extra currency boost. With this in the game, implementing and balancing the economy can move forward.
Enemy AI - The enemy ships have access to the same array of systems and movesets as the player. The enemy AI has been upgraded to take advantage of equipped tactical systems, and is recognising higher value matches. A further AI update is planned to improve the move routing, which should allow for some fun and challenging match ups.
Tactical system (rewire) - The Rewire tactical system has been added, which randomly shuffles x pair of tiles on the battle grid (x depends on the system level). This can help or hinder, but particularly in a losing battle it's a dice roll which could bail you out.
And on the less technical side, debris and explosions on ship destruction are in!
Any thoughts or feedback, feel free to send it on!
Timi@AToPlay
DevBlog #2: Sector traits, cargo
A couple of updates have gone into the dev build this week:
Leapgate target sector traits - when leaping to the next sector, 3 choices are available, with the sectors having traits selected from a pool of options. The traits can influence a range of things, from scanning range to event likelihoods, so the player will need to weigh up the best choice for their current situation. In addition, the military dominance tag influences the opposition in the sector (and will also influence friendly events, to be implemented).
Cargo - Cargo items have been added to the game. These provide no strategic or tactical benifits, but have high value, so can be sold at a merchant to provide a good boost to funds.
Timi@AToPlay
DevBlog #1: Big gun, small fixes
Leapgate is moving towards the Early Access first release, but there is plenty to be done to get to that point, from content to polish to fixes. This week has involved a bit of all that, as well as scoping out what needs doing to get to that release. Lots of fixes in particular have gone in recently, but also some new content to keep the ball rolling on that front:
The Photon Beam has been added into the game, a fairly low damage but accurate beam weapon. This may end up being a weapon which has a specific damage bonus, e.g. 2x damage vs shields, but will need a bit of implementation / playtesting to see how or if that fits in.
The Pulsar Event has been implemented - landing on a Pulsar node will provide a scanning range boost from that node, which can reveal more on the galactic map, and so could inform the route taken. I'd like to get a few more events implemented over the next couple of weeks, to get more of a feel of how the finished galactic map traversal will play out.
Any thoughts or feedback, feel free to drop it down!
Timi@AToPlay
Leapgate - Steam page is live!
The Steam page is now live for Leapgate - a sci-fi match-3 roguelite currently in development.
In Leapgate, you'll need to acquire newer weapons and systems to upgrade your ship as you fight through the sectors. However, energy and power requirements will need to be carefully balanced to not leave yourself hampered during battles, as excess power provides your available moves during battle phases. Multiple routes to the Leapgate are available, so use the sensor and sector map data available to pick your paths carefully!
Leapgate development is still in progress, and aiming to be available with Early Access later in Summer. Updates and devblogs will be posted here on Steam!
