Meanwhile, I wasn't sure I liked the class tradeoffs of bot quantity and steps per turn. It seems like it would be better to make it a basic decision of the game. The number of bots a player places during a turn could decrease the number of steps that those particular bots could take. Players could then choose to place a different number on their next turn.
...Both of these decisions kill the subscription benefits I had planned. That's not good. I have to make sure that whatever game I am currently working on increases the worth of Fooldom Come subscriptions.
I want to add a new mechanic. I need to add extra choices for subscribers. However, one of the goals of the game is to be simple. I can't add a bunch of triggers and events behind the scenes. I want the mechanic to be seen on the map and use the same set of skills that the player uses for the rest of the game.
I think I'm going to create items to place on the map. When a bot enters a tile with such an item, the bot will have to obey its command. Planned commands are "speed up", "slow down", "turn clockwise", "turn counter-clockwise", "reverse" and "enter warp". (The last of those would allow a bot to enter a warp without carrying any gears. Normally, it would just turn around.)
Subscribers will be able to choose one item to add and one item to remove before the game starts. Non-subscribers will have those choices randomly assigned.
The actions during a turn should still be rather easy considering I removed all of the movement options from before.
- Click warps to place bots.
- Click an empty tile to place your item.
- Click a single placed item to remove it.