Replicative Drift
Replicative Drift is a space themed incremental where you take the role of a Von Neumann probe to gather resources and build copies of yourself throughout the galaxy
-----Current Version (0.1)-----
This current version is my first version prototype of my vision for this game. Bugs are fully expected and reporting them in the comments is welcomed. The purpose of this build is purely to establish the bones and UI of the project and create a foundation to further build the game upon. The demo should take roughly 10-15 minutes to complete, although you can spend longer in-game before ending. There is no save system or offline progression currently in the game.
-----Controls-----
Left Click - Interact with UI
Left Click and Drag - Move Camera
Scroll-wheel - Zoom In / Zoom Out
-----Feedback-----
I encourage any and all feedback in the comments. I am an amateur solo game developer making this game in my free time, and this is the first game I've released to the public. Please leave all comments/questions/feedback/bugs/suggestions below and I look forward to reading them all. Thank you! (:
Comments
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Make disabled options brighter. They are basically invisible nd I have no idea what I am working towards and how much it costs. Maybe add an indicator that you need to flip the switch to start charging the warp drive.
I wonder why programmers have never heard of economies of scale.
I know the economy isn't balanced yet lol. The intended demo length was way too short for me to even try to attempt putting it into a "fun" place. This was just meant to showcase the concept married to the art and UI. Any time spent balancing the economy with a concept this small would fall apart as soon as I add the next feature. I'd love to hear any tips or ideas you may have to improve this though (:
I know the "cost goes up exponentially for no reason other than because cookie clicker did it" is the default in the genre. But in a science fiction setting, centered on a real scientific concept, it felt jarringly incongruent. The concept of the probe is - go to a place, look around, make some copies and send them to more places. Spread like bacteria. The "cost" of each new probe is the same as the first one, or lower if there is any kind of learning or feedback in the loop. It can be taken in many directions, but exponentially growing marginal cost isn't really one of them.
Well for this game my running idea was to center the prestige system around copying. Justifying the increasing costs as “improving the copies you send out to better equip them to reach further into the galaxy”. I know that part isn’t clear in the demo, and that may be why things feel a little slapped together in the economy side. I don’t intend on making a cookie clicker reskin, but for me at least, it felt like a good base to refine on. I appreciate the feedback nonetheless (:
It's not just because cookie clicker did it, there's fairly few other options for *how* to do it
By all means, make a game yourself with a different method and see how entertaining it feels
There are some alternatives which do work, but they are nieche, not always a good fit - you don't get infinite perfect options when constraining it into the shape of a game
Balanced in terms of numbers is one thing, balanced in terms of method is entirely another.
Although I entirely understand that 'economies of scale' is not feasible or fun in a game, I do agree that cost creep is not the way to go about this.
Something more akin to degradation/running cost/entropy would be better I think.
Whatever it is it needs to be closer to the original intended idea (the science concept of the probe), this doesn't cut it currently