Flesh and Drone

by ACWraith
Flesh and Drone
Create/control minions to destroy opposing daemons.
ID:71970
 
I've been working on Flesh And Drone. Some of the internal data types have been created, but there's nothing to play yet.

I was originally going to allow players to create an undefined number of drone types, but I nixed the idea due to the quantity of art required. Fortunately, dropping some unnecessary mechanics allowed me to drastically reduce the amount of effort needed for each icon. However, I'm thinking there's a limit on how many pieces people can be expected to keep track of and how many are actually useful during the course of a game. Plus, at most one drone can be created per round and I don't know how many rounds games will last.

Right now, I'm only using 6 types of drones. I can add more later if I need them.

Here's a quick mockup of a recent iteration. Keep in mind:
  • There won't really be this many tabs in the upper-left at the same time.
  • Despite the fact that this picture looks like an organized chessboard, there is no set patten of piece placement and most drone types won't even exist at the beginning of the game.
  • I'm thinking of providing piece details within the Turns tab so the message above the map is just filler.


Click for a larger view.

The Drones tab in the upper-left contains a table of all drone types and their relative powers. When a drone attacks another drone, a number between 1 and the sum of their relative powers is randomly chosen. If it's greater then the power of the defender, the defender is destroyed.

I don't know why I highlighted the column, but the rows with brighter backgrounds should be the power of the drone type currently selected for summoning. I figure it's easier to select a drone type and keep it as the default value than to let players drag, drop, and miss.

As for the map, the pieces with a single, giant eye are the daemons. They're intended to look like zeroes and the drone type designs should give a hint of increasing numbers. I'm thinking the daemons will display their blood (resources) above or below their symbol. Drones will display their relative powers in the same manner, but I think it will involve two numbers rather than the single number I mentioned in my last post.

The reason I'm worrying about displaying individual drone powers at all when I have a table of drone type comparisons is because individual drone pieces might have spells cast upon them. Manual choice of spells is the subscription idea I'm going with.
I always liked your iconography, Ack.