FIRST IMPACT: WHAT IS?
Hello everyone! If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering “What’s Warzygote?” Let me explain it to you. Warzygote is a turn-based strategy roguelike game.
In September 2021, after having an unsuccessful experience with our previous project, me and my team gathered once again and returned from the ashes to make a fresh start with something new. Due to the pandemic we lost so much and having a fresh start was something we needed.
After a few brainstorming meetings , different things came out:
- This project would be something sci-fi.
- The graphical style would be weird and retro as we are used to working on;
- For the gameplay, we needed something simple to develop yet easily expandable.
- For the story, we started with the most cliche we can imagine: Let’s conquer the galaxy!
THE CORE: A TURN-BASED STRATEGY
As a result of our meetings, we defined some of the key concept of Warzygote.
Its core ideas are:
- Conquer the galaxy, as simple as that
- The feeling of war and invasions by having battles with small armies with easily replaced troops. There is no place for classic parties made of 3 to 6 units. We want more!
- Possibility to recruit troops ot only with classical production but also with genetic manipulation in the lab with discovered races.
- Procedural generation of galaxies, planets and battles. Every run will be different.
- Implementation of light roguelike features to make the randomness more entertaining. So we have permanent upgrades for future games, storage of unused troops and resources.
- Although the core game is conquering the galaxy, we wanted to make exploration and research other important aspects of each run
KEY REFERENCES
Our first inspiration comes from the board game Risk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game)). If you don’t know what is it, it is all about conquering the world by invading and fighting against each other.
Secondly, we looked at the game “Into the breach” (https://subsetgames.com/itb.html). This game from the makers of FTL is a turn-based strategy game with battles in procedural generated maps. We love this genre and wanted to make something similar. We tried it and we loved it mostly for the mood it gave us. But for our concept we think the strategy is not forgiving enough and feels more like a chess game with only 3 pieces. That’s not the battle we imagined for our combats.. Anyway we suggest you to play it! It’s worth it.
Another inspiration comes from the game “Impossible Creatures” (https://store.steampowered.com/app/324680/Impossible_Creatures_Steam_Edition/) for it’s peculiar feature: mixing animals to make your own troops. Our version won’t be as detailed as this , but we wanted to fill the galaxies with life and weird creatures.
For our battles , we also thought of the game “The Banner Saga.” (https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/banner-saga-trilogy-switch)
Another reference is “Command & Conquer” for its general war mood. (https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-conquer-remastered?setLocale=en-us
)
When not in combat, we took as a reference the “TOTAL WAR” saga (https://www.totalwar.com/). We found the tactical part in managing your territories fitting to our desires and the transitions from the map to the combat very smooth. But we don’t want to put too much complexity on our project. Because of that, we simplified all the economic processes as much as possible. The core is to focus on the fights, not on the managing elements.
MODES
Warzygote will have 3 modes:
- Explore: our intended way to play the game. It procedurally generates a galaxy that you need to conquer. If you fail or succeed you will repeat with another random galaxy. Endless.
- Campaign: classic mode similar to explore, but with a story behind. Available for each faction. Play it if you want to learn the lore and the secrets of the game!
- Skirmish: You can train yourself or challenge the IA or a friend in a single battle.