It’s almost time. After months and months of work, we’re closing in on a proof of concept version of the game that I can put into someone’s hands and say ‘tell me what you think’.
At this stage of development, that’s all we’re looking for. You could say that this is Garrison in its purest form – no quirky features or sprawling narratives to hide behind; only the very essence of the game.
Last month’s devblog left us on quite the cliffhanger – in truth, I was hoping the prototype would be ready by the end of July but, as is often the case, things didn’t quite go to plan.
I’m mid-way through a full write-up that’s going to drop at the end of August. Hopefully. The user interface (or UI, which is what you look at to play the game) is ~90% complete but it takes time to pull it into Unity (the game engine) and get it all working properly.
Until then, let’s take a closer look at Garrison’s core gameplay loop – which you can think of as the heart of the game that you repeat over and over again as you play.
Garrison’s core gameplay loop
In the initial overview of Garrison as a 5-minute RPG, I spoke about how we’ve taken the best elements of this genre and cut out all the grinding – but kept all the depth and complexity of a traditional RPG.
If you’ve ever played these types of games before, you’ll be familiar with this pattern of gameplay:
- Complete a quest
- Earn rewards
- Level up your character / upgrade your gear
Although Garrison is a RPG, our core gameplay loop doesn’t work in exactly the same way. We’re operating in a sub-category of RPG games called ‘Idle RPGs’ wherein characters automatically repeat the core gameplay loop with little to no input from the player.
That doesn’t sound particularly fun, though, does it? At least, not to me – which is where this game is going to separate itself from the pack. Let’s take a look at Garrison’s core gameplay loop (taken directly from our pitch deck):
- Deploy: choose characters, items and provisions for a mission
- Wait: combat and mission success resolve asynchronously
- Upgrade: level up characters and equip more powerful items
You might think that doesn’t sound particularly different but, as the saying goes, the devil’s in the details.
Most of the idle RPG games on the market currently, and almost all mobile games really, rely on microtransactions. They intentionally build their game around giving you an initial endorphin hit via some easy wins, then it ramps up the difficulty to such an insane degree that the only way you can continue your pace of progression is to spend money.
That’s not fun. There’s no soul to games like that. They all follow the exact same pattern, with the ultimate goal of squeezing as much money as they can from true fans of the fantasy roleplaying genre.
I believe there’s a better way.
Fair Monetization
You may have missed the first time I briefly spoke about Garrison having no ads. That’s been my intention from the very beginning.
At the same time, I’m not naive – this game has to make money to a) pay back investors and b) help us grow as a studio, so we can make even more games which will continue the story we’ve started with Garrison.
So, here’s how I see it all working. Ideally, Garrison will be a freemium title, meaning you can download and play the game for free. The entire storyline will be available to free players, however there will be an option to purchase a one-time upgrade for the game which’ll cost around £5.
This will permanently unlock ‘quality of life’ upgrades, for example additional mission slots (so you can have 5 missions active instead of 3 at any one time). We will most likely also have a small in-game store where you can choose to pay for provisions – which are things like potions – so you can access them instantly instead of having to wait for them to be crafted.
Both are completely optional and don’t make the game harder for people that choose to stick with the freemium version. There are no loot box mechanics or energy limits that force players to pay to keep playing – it’s just a small way we can get additional revenue to keep the game going.
I’d love it if everyone that tried the game went on to buy the upgrade. Hopefully players will try it out, realise it’s not another scammy clone and support what we’re trying to build. It’s the best option given how the mobile gaming industry works currently.
Notice that I said ‘ideally’ – because there is another option. The reality is that, if we don’t make enough money from upgrades and in-app purchases to support Garrison’s continued development and operational costs then it’ll become a premium title. This means you’ll have to pay to access the full game.
It wouldn’t be my preferred choice but, if it means we get to keep making in-game content and working towards more games in this world, that’s the path we’ll take.
Community Q & A
Let’s circle back to the core gameplay loop, shall we? Recently, Leon and I have been having our in-person meeting at a climbing gym – we talk about Garrison stuff and then scramble up some stuff. It’s fun, although he’s far better than me (for now!) which is annoying.
The first time we were there, I got chatting to someone on the mats about our game. When I explained the core gameplay loop – apparently there are a lot of software developers that like climbing and thus had quite technical questions – they hit me with this:
If the game doesn’t have real-time combat, where’s the challenge?
It’s a great question and one I was very excited to answer. So excited in fact that I had to rewrite this section because it was way, way too long!
Each mission is its own puzzle, with countless ways you can ‘solve’ them. True mastery of this game will be achieved by the players who find synergies and combinations with pieces that are constantly changing.
You’ll have to account for the characters you have, how they work together, the items and provisions you give them, what monsters you’re facing, any environmental threats you have to account for… no two missions will ever be the same.
It’s a bit like climbing, if you think about it – you start by looking at the route and then you’ve got to figure out how you’re actually going to get up the wall. Except you almost certainly don’t need a sword.
Cheers, Andrew
