Crafting 'Deck Defense': An Introduction to a Daily Solana Game Dev Log

saP1...nKoa

7 Jan 2024

Introduction

I'm building a mobile Solana integrated roguelite game in public with a little bit of progress every day. This is the start of a series of articles aiming to infrequently summarize the small daily posts for an easier overview of the project.

My daily dev log can be found over on Solarplex (links at the end) where I usually post a few words about the day's work with a screenshot.

The working title is Deck Defense and it's putting the player in charge of a mining space station in an asteroid field. Trouble starts when the station is attacked by AI drones mining the same resources.

The project is still in early stage PoC (Proof of Concept) where I try to build something that I myself believe is fun to play. I currently have a few ideas how that will work and the current PoC is the experiment I hope will prove me right. The graphics are extremely simple, meaning that everything displayed on screen is as low effort as I can possibly make it.

Game

I'm mixing a few game mechanics in the game. Here are the core mechanics I'm quite sure will make it into the game. There are more of course, but I'm sure not all of them will survive the PoC experiment.

Game Mechanics

Roguelite

Roguelites are often defined by having permadeath, randomization and meta progressing. All of which are true for this game. Each run also rewards the player with resources for the meta game.

Meta Game

Modules can be upgraded before starting the next run

This part of the game is where the player do permanent improvements. This will probably be in the form of increasing base stats for buildable modules, doing research into new modules etc.

Deckbuilder

The player has a set deck for each run and starts out with only a few cards revealed and usable in the battle. Over time more and more cards from the deck is rewarded to the player and more and more combos are unlocked.

The reward screen, a common sight in roguelites

Deckbuilders are interesting to me since each run is more or less unique thanks to random card rewards and random card draw. The better the player gets the easier it is to build a strategy and set up card combos. IMHO deckbuilding in combination with being a roguelite is a great base combination for an interesting game.

Base Building

6 empty spots for base modules

There is light base building in the form of letting the player choose among several modules to extend the base station with as the run progresses. Each run will only allow for a limited set of modules which potentially can make two runs very different. Say for example that the player picks the shield in one and not the other.

Resource Balancing

Most modules will require power to stay active. This power is limited and the idea is that the player needs to allocate and withdraw power from different modules depending on the situation at hand.

Dragging power to shield

Let's take an example with the Command module and Shield module.

Command let's the player draw new cards and the more power it's allocated the faster the card draw count increases. Shield on the other hand simply defends the fragile space station and the more power it's allocated the faster it'll recharge up to full health again. The shield will not make use of it's allocated power if it's at full health so in this case transferring all power to Command to speed up card draw makes sense.

On the other hand, if the player has good cards on hand and a low shield it might be wise to allocate most power towards the shield.

Real Time Enemy Waves

During the game run each stage launches a new wave of enemies in real time. Exploring the tension between defense systems' power balance and real time enemy movement made me take the step to build a PoC of the game in the first place.

Solana

The plan is for the game to be monetized through ads which are as unintrusive as possible. Meaning that watching an ad is always opt-in and always clearly presented as an ad. I very much dislike what many mobile games are doing these days. Trying to trick players into clicking ads by disingenuous use of the UI, advertising a free game while locking part of the core gameplay behind paywall/ads and similar things that leave a bad aftertaste. I would like to run an experiment with a sort of loyalty reward program on Solana which rewards in-game & onchain currency after watching ads.

Solana is also perfect for game NFTs with it's cheap mint and transaction cost. I would eventually like to experiment with NFTs in the game since I find the technology fascinating. This is relying on ads being able to pay the cost around creating and managing them.

Tying It Together

In true roguelite fashion each run is divided into stages where each stage see an increasing level of difficulty which ramps up difficulty enough to defeat most unexperienced players quite early. Each run rewards the player with some in-game resources which can be used to research and/or upgrade base modules. With upgrades the next run might be slightly easier and so the loop continues. Having to consider both the random draw of cards as well as the module power balance ought to be something not only fun, but also novel in the deckbuilder genre.

Inspiration

I've been inspired by many games, but I believe the main trigger for "Deck Defense" is the small indie title Cards Survivors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSKpQBJ2QBU https://store.steampowered.com/app/2338040/Cards_Survivors/).

Cards Survivors

I stumbled on this title on YouTube late April 2023 and was intrigued by the idea of combining real time action with deckbuilding. Though the early version of that game was severely lacking in card combos which kept bugging me; why not make this or that card went through my mind quite a few times over the next few weeks. These thoughts eventually turned into a prototype which morphed into what the game currently is. Cards Survivors is not yet released at this point, but please wishlist it or try the demo if you like the premise of the game.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! I hope you would like to follow along on this game development journey, either through the frequent updates in my Solarplex dev log or the slower paced posts here. If you're developing a game, a Solana app or something else interesting please consider joining me over on Solarplex and/or here with your own dev journal! The more the merrier!