Flesh and Drone

I find that listening to podcasts or sticking videos in the corner of my monitor usually helps me work. Unfortunately, I need to hear in order to create proper game sounds so I have not been able to use this environment to motivate myself. Gears & Peers and GrimTunnel will get audio, but not this week.

Instead, I have been working on the design for Flesh And Drone. For those who don't remember, it's a turn-based game with a demonic theme where players bid to create new types of units and modify their relative power. In other words, it's a tactical battle where I am excused from balancing any particular units. ;)

I've cut out most of the unit stats. The main ones to worry about are each unit's power versus each unit type (which also determines attack range).

The decrease in information to display has allowed me to simplify the interface. I used to have separate tabs for each phase, but now I can get by displaying the map full-time and adding a grid or two on the side as needed. Also, players won't have to look up the active unit's stats because I can display relative power by slapping a single number on each opposing unit.

One of the stats I gave up was a size difference in units. This should cut down the quantity of art required by a factor of 3. I'm thinking that I'll use my usual 7x7 turf (224x224 pixel) spaces on an 8x8 space board and base everything off of those dimensions.