District 43
A downloadable game
Important Info
This is an extremely early prototype build meant to gather very early player feedback around my next big game idea. As a solo developer I need your input before I spend years working on a bad idea.
This build has no real VFX, SFX, Animations, or textures. There are just a few place holder elements used to create the complex game systems in order to get player feedback on the core idea and core game loop.
This build will only take 5 - 15 minutes to play through, and I would love to hear your thoughts. What is good, what is bad, what would you change, what would you add? You can leave that feedback here on the itch or come to my discord: https://discord.gg/WfbXE4cDVA
If you enjoy this super early build, stay tuned as it will continue to develop on itch.io for a long time. I would also love for you to check out my most recent commercial game launched on steam "Game Dev Masters" store page found here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478350/Game_Dev_Masters/
There is a free demo available as well.
How To Play
The game has partial controller support, and will have full controller support eventually. For now, you must use mouse and keyboard.
District Controls - WASD to move camera, hold right click and move mouse to rotate camera, mouse wheel to zoom, and left click on buildings to bring up their menus. Building buildings will bring up a control widget to reference.
Prototype Level Controls - WASD movement, tab to pull up the menu. In combat you can click on units and commands as well as use A and D to change target selections.
Extended Game Details
In this optional to read section I will lay out the core game concept and lore for any players interested.
The game takes place in world where all the evil monsters are trapped inside 3 towers of increasing difficulty. The most precious resource in this world is a monster essence dropped from these creatures which I am currently calling ICK (all names are subject to change). The world is broken into districts which sole purpose aside from basic necessities to live, is to head into these towers to collect ICK.
Districts are in competition with each other, and are rated based on their ICK gains. At the end of every year the top 4 districts for each tower level compete in the coliseum head-to-head. If you manage to win these arena matches you will be granted the ability to enter the next tower unlocking all new blueprints, classes, and items.
The district (city building side) will be low in tedium and up-keep with a focus on decision making vs micromanagement. NPCs will move and do their work, but nothing will ever change until you proceed to the next month. When you proceed to the next month everything you have setup to happen will happen. Such as, adventurers will train levels, heal wounds, or memorize skills. While workers gather and use resources as well as run facilities to improve your adventurers.
Your adventurers will progress in many ways, and I am using a progression system from a classic game I love called Final Fantasy Tactics. Where you raise one job to learn its abilities, and then you can bring those abilities to the next job creating your own diverse and powerful classes. Do you want an archer who can wear heavy armor? Or a damage dealing caster who is also capable of massive healing? Anything will be possible with a deep skill and passive system. Your characters will also gain stats every time they level up their character level and the stat increases are based off the job you have equipped.
There will also be systems to raise character and job levels from the district side, as well as simulating expeditions on top of the manually controlled systems.
Ideally this will all lead up to players having the ability to create their own diverse groups to compete in a variety of leader boards as well as 1v1 pvp and co-op dungeons.
The combat itself is fully turn based, and uses a 3-row grid. In the front row you deal and take increased physical damage and less magical damage, while in the back row you deal and take more magical damage and take less physical.
Players will play out their full turn in the order they choose. Allowing you to make use of buffs and debuffs before you launch devastating attacks from your damage dealers. Or you can even empower and pass your turn to others. Enemies will have the same full turn for each of the enemies on their turn.
The game is a million miles away from even having a demo available, but I think the depth and game play have promise. I would love to hear from you on what you think after you try the current build. Come be a part of my development team as we grow this game from a prototype to a technical demo and beyond. Thank you and have fun.
Download
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Comments
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Glad to see someone working with Unreal Engine! Are you using UE4 or UE5?
Did not encounter any bugs in the demo.
I liked how you could reroll Adventurer stats if the current batch didn't seem very good.
There are a couple spelling errors.
"Adventuerer" should be "Adventurer" (Generate Adventurer screen)
"Consituion" should be "Constitution" (Stats sidebar)
"Improtant" should be "Important" (READ ME signs)
"Expodition" should be "Expedition" (Build menu)
It's not very obvious that you can scroll through the buildings. My first time playing I completely missed the Expedition Center and thought the demo just consisted of building placement. I only caught my mistake because I saw your Youtube video which clearly showed there was more to the demo than I thought. So I tried it again and sure enough, the Expedition Center build option was hiding out of view on one of the menus. I would recommend widening/enlarging the build menu so that all building options are visible at once.
Combat had a classic JRPG feel to it. I like Final Fantasy Tactics as well so I think that's some great inspiration for your game.
Looking forward to see where this goes!
Ya that is the second feedback about the expedition center, I will make sure the bar has 3.5 buildings visible showing there is more to scroll over etc in the future.
I def rushed through a lot of stuff spelling wise, appreciate the feedback will take care of that shortly. I hope you enjoy what is to come, thank you for checking it out.
I am using ue4, my PC is not really next gen enough to use ue5. I might consider bringing it to ue5 in the future if I upgrade my specs.
Yes you can select to download any version you want. When your on the epic launcher, you can select what version you want to use.
I am using ue4 ver 27.3, which is the final ue4 build. My previous game on steam was made in ver 25.3. It began in ue4 ver 21.1, but I brought it up to 25 to make use of the new additions in that version.
However, since I can not use ray tracing and some other high end graphics I am not using ue5 yet. If I update my hardware in the future, I will likely bring the game up to ue5 as it is a pretty smooth transition a long as you weren't using world partitioning, which I am not.
I would recommend ue4 v 25 - 27 range as it is the best version on unreal 4 in my opinion.
You need to download the Epic Games Launcher first, then you can go to the Library tab at the top and it will say "Engine Versions". Click the plus icon and it'll give you a drop down arrow with all the versions you can download.
Ah ya I assumed he had done that side, good point 40 thank you. Plus the screen shot def makes it very clear :)
I feel you on the hardware my friend, I can not really run ue5 yet either. I hope to change that in the future, but ya for now ue4 is perfect for me.
Tactics was very different to the normal ff style of play, it was a big battle field where you commanded a large force vs enemy forces. Similar to the style of xcom if that is a better reference?
What I am taking from ff-tactics was there job system, which they did use in I believe ff4 or one of the early ff games, but it was expanded on in tactics.
basically you start as a basic unit, then you can job change and level that new job. As you get high enough you can retain learned skills from other jobs as you continue to unlock and change jobs. Ie. you could learn how to use 2h from the knight job, then learn how to duel wield from the ninja job, and then become a barbarian who can use a 2h in just 1 hand, combing those different job skills allowing you to duel wield 2h weapons. It is a really interesting way to add a lot of build potential and depth of choice.
In terms of combat I am going closer to other FF games, but without the ATB gauge. You get to use your full team on your turn. This means we can't use haste or slow type skills, but with controlling your full team it allows for combos and synergy to your builds. You can buff with 1 guy, debuff with another, and then attack with your juiced up dmg deal who was buffed. This allows for a lot of strategy in your team and battle turns, which will be very interesting when we have 1v1 pvp arenas.