Inspiration
A turn-based strategy game that has the player take the role of animals defending a forest from humans. Born out of a desire to develop a unique and interesting game that also explores environmental issues such as deforestation, climate change and desertification. One that hopefully, through the medium of video games can raise awareness and educate everyone about these issues while also creating a fun game that keeps bringing you back for just one more round.
Whilst brainstorming ideas we realised in most strategy games you control humans, venturing out to tame the wilds and build civilizations but very few involve nature fighting back and reclaiming land taken by those humans. Throughout this game, the player will face situations unique to our intrepid furry heroes and the environmental effects of large scale damage to natural habitats.
What it does
This game is a turn-based strategy set on a hexagonal tiling map. The player controls animal units including beavers and bears that they move around and can perform special actions to aid in the fight against humans. The player must manage three separate food categories key to animals' survival. These represent the food of three different diet types, predators, foragers and grazers. Animals may consume one or multiple foods eg, bears eat both predator and forager food. Currently, the game is very much a work in progress with the actions possible and the number of animals and the human unit is very limited.
How we built it
This game was developed through the unity game engine with the script for it coded in C#. The 3d assets were made in Blender
Challenges we ran into
Developing the hex grid map turned out to be incredibly difficult and took a long time to produce. Ultimately, we were unable to finish our original goal of a randomly generated map with varying terrain because of time constraints. This lack of time meant the demo pitch was much more limited than originally planned.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Being able to brainstorm and work on developing a game within a couple of days. We’re also proud of the low poly 3d assets we designed
What we learned
This project improved our ability to use unity and code in c# as we dealt with many headache-inducing bugs.
What's next for Fortress Arboress
Combat system
It gets harder
o While the beginning of each game sees animals fending off individual or small groups of humans the longer you last the harder it will become and the less you can rely on simple strategies...
o For instance, one planned human unit will be the bulldozer, a heavy tank like unit that can’t simply be destroyed by attacking it.
How long can you survive? o The game won't have an endpoint; rather it will be focused on holding back the humans as long as possible with losing and restarting over and over again being a core part of the gameplay loop, much like games such as Mini Motorways. This choice is a part of the game's larger statement about how nature is ultimately powerless to fix the problems we've created as humans.
Random Map generation o In this demo we have created a map that best shows off the mechanics we have implemented so far however in the future whenever you start a new game you will be presented with a brand new map and challenges every time
More animals o We plan on adding in a greater variety of animals such as Deer, Skunks, Racoons and Eagles. All with unique abilities and mechanics.
Seasons, weather and climate change, acid rain o In future we would like to implement changing seasons and a weather system with rain, snow and even forest fires o We’d also implement climate change mechanics as humans industrialize which causes harmful effects such as increased forest fires, tiles becoming barren deserts to simulate desertification
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