Beefquest 001: Introduction
This is the beginning of a dev blog for Beefquest, an indie game being built by two people. It has been in development for over a year.
About Beefquest
Beefquest is a pixel art RTS/4X style game. Our vision is simply to build the co-op strategy game we, as PC strategy gamers, want to play.
We hope to capture a blend of our favorite game mechanics:
- City building.
- Economy management.
- Endearing art and aesthetics.
- Smooth combat.
- Large, diverse worlds with lots of units.
- Scalability — start small, micro-managing units and tasks. Automate with macro-level abilities as you scale.
- Large procedurally generated worlds.
- Deck building — Instead of linear progression, choose random unlocks, technologies, and abilities, to make each play-through unique and challenging.
- “Living game world” — A clamoring world full of action, ready to be impacted by the player.
- Simulations — Managing character stats and needs.
- Co-op — Allowing multiple players to control a colony together.
- Mod support.
Development Progress
Much of the development effort to date has been focused on building out stable game systems that can be scaled up with content.
Here’s a high-level list of some systems that exist (in no particular order). We’ll be diving deeper in future posts.
- Selection & command system. Similar to popular RTS games, select units, issue commands, queue multiple commands (shift-click). Commands are things like move, attack, harvest, construct, etc.
- Unit AI. Various behaviors can be built out to govern units’ individual AI. This is how units command themselves when they aren’t under the control of a player. For example, wandering around, retreating, becoming hostile, etc.
- Factions. Units and structures all belong to a faction. It could be the player, neutral animals (remember Gaia from AOE?), hostile animals, and eventually other cities and settlements.
- Combat. Units are able to attack other units from factions they are hostile toward. Combat units have weapon and armor equipment with their own stats. Melee and ranged weapons exist. Special attacks (called “abilities”) exist as well.
- Ability system. Abilities are a concept which govern many aspects of the game beyond combat. There are passive abilities, such as the ability to construct or deconstruct structures, harvest resources, with the vision for many more.
- Resource harvesting. Standard ability for units to go out on the map and harvest resources. Different units have different tools which dictate their harvesting capability.
- Construction. A core RTS/city-builder mechanic. Units can build and demolish structures, which serve purposes such as: production/crafting, power, population cap, paths for faster movement, fences/gates for security, farming, training units, storing resources, and some others. Structures are part of a tech tree, allowing certain structures to be unlocked after building prerequisite structures.
- Power. Some structures require power. You can build generators to produce power, and establish power grids by running conduit.
- Logistics. This is relatively light in its current form. The idea is that all resources are physically located and managed. When you harvest or produce resources, you have to bring them to a cargo pod for storage. When constructing, and have to pick up resources and deposit them at the construction site.
- Procedural map generation. We can generate random maps, which include terrain, resources, and wildlife.
- Saving/loading. Pretty straightforward.
- Game speed. Pause, speed up, or slow down the game.
- UI. A decent amount of UI exists to support the current systems.
- Pathfinding. Pathfinding is what lets units find a valid path to move around obstacles, get blocked by fences, walk through friendly gates, or move faster on pathways.
- Formations. Groups of units go into formations when commanded to move, although currently there is only a single “circle” formation.
- Day/night cycle. Different than some RTS/city-building games, but not unheard of when it comes to sim/strategy games.
- Farming. Certain crops can be planted, take some time to grow, and then can be harvested.
- Crafting/production. Structures can have production queues, and units can work at those structures to craft/produce items.
- Help system. Displays contextual tips and hotkeys to the player.
- Event system (for mods). Many of the happenings within the game world flow through a central event system, which hopefully can be leveraged for mods.
Technical Stuff
We’re using the Unity game engine and writing all code in C#, using JetBrains Rider as an IDE. Pixel art is all done with Aseprite.
The systems are being designed with mods in mind from the ground up.
Top 5 Inspirations
Games are our life. We are building something new and unique, but these games are today’s top 5 inspirations (in no particular order):
- Civilization — Classic 4X strategy.
- Starcraft — Smooth and satisfying combat.
- Rimworld — Addicting base-building simulation.
- Factorio — Scale, automation, logistics.
- Stardew Valley — Endearing, happy aesthetics. Inviting game world.
Timeline
Beefquest is self funded and indie developed. We have no hard deadlines or publisher to answer to. We intend to release pre-alpha builds early and often so that people can have fun with it, and maybe give a little feedback.
We believe there are indie gamers who are passionate about this type of game. To all the indie gamers out there, feel free to reach out with any questions!
Please note the current game concepts and designs are subject to change for the better.
