Building The Final Form – Tile-coloring turn-based god-game strategy (Devlog #1)

[onyx forge]

Hello! I’ve decided to start a devlog on the current game I’m working on - The Final Form!

I mainly want to do it to break my isolation as a solo developer, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback or questions! The game is being developed in Godot 4 with artwork done mainly in Aseprite."
Here’s a short video showing the current state of development (with much more backend finished than visible):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlsyWuFuFo
A demo is planned for October’s Steam Next Fest.

So, what’s The Final Form? In short, tag-level, it is:

• Turn-based strategy with puzzle elements
• Tile-placement map-colouring game
• A mix of a settlement-simulator and a god game

Story/concept
As with most strategy games, in my book, the theme and story are quite secondary, although I still want them to be appealing and make sense.

The story goes as follows. You are a celestial being, navigating the universe in search of the way to ascend to the next level of being. You’ve found the magic cocoon on some planet, which is rumoured to hold the key to such ascendance. To activate it, you must align the four elements in some configuration, but to achieve this, you need to transform (or even terraform) the lifeless planet with these elements.

However, as you start the terraforming, you find that the Void is lying dormant on this planet, which is disturbed by your presence and activity and is trying to halt your efforts. While fighting against it and towards ascension, you learn more about the Void, and it turns out things are a bit more complicated (as they always are).

The game was born out of a game jam submission for Godot Wild Jam #77, where it got 9th place - the highest I had so far, so I decided this game was worth turning into reality as my debut as an indie game designer. It represents one of the kinds of games I want to make, but I’ll leave my broader picture for future posts.

The game goes in 3 core “phases”, cycling through them:

• Daylight phase, where you paint the map
• Night phase, where you fend off the enemies
• Faction phase, where the inhabitants of the world do their stuff

Daylight phase
During the daylight phase, you move around the map, colouring the tiles by applying one of the four elements to them: Nature, Water, Fire, Terra. There are two core systems and several secondary systems embedded in the process, each of which will be covered later in separate posts. The core systems are:

• Tile-colouring. While there are 4 basic tiles (1 for each mana), there are also 6 tiles resulting from the combinations of the elements, and 5 tier-3 tiles on top of those. And quite likely there will be more.
• Pawn-movement. You move your character in a puzzling manner, which was heavily inspired by the board game Onitama. You can’t just spread your mana uncontrollably - you need to think where you make your next move.
  The combination of these two systems is the gist of the game, and everything else is pretty much to make it more exciting and long-lasting. One of the main challenges, as I see it, is to make the pawn movement not an annoying hindrance to other parts of the game, but a core mechanic. For this reason, other parts should be a bit more autonomous, especially the “settlement simulator.”

Some of the other systems involved:

• “RPG” system - your creatures have levels, skills, equipment and so on. The equipment also has levels. It all diversifies your gameplay, allowing you to spread elements more effectively. And also a nice system for those who love this “development” side of the games (which I do).
• Mana production - the tiles you place generate mana, which is required to move the pawn and colour tiles. This creates a limitation on your progression each day, making it a sort of engine. You also spend mana to buy new equipment and more.
• Quest system - from time to time, you are given a quest, like “make a forest surrounded by mountains,” and are rewarded for completing it. The quests come as part of a tutorial, through the main storyline, or given by factions.
• Shop, research and other stuff that guides your progression throughout the game. E.g. to get a new movement pattern, you need to research something, then buy some runes that are unlocked with that research, and then equip them on your mount.

Night phase
Your presence and activity on this planet generate the points of disturbance. When certain thresholds are reached, the Void sends its creatures to undo your doings, and the more disturbance you generate, the more powerful and more often the resistance comes.

The night phase is essentially the same as the Daylight phase, with a few additions and alterations:

• The Voidborn creatures are pawns just like you, but instead of the four elements, they spread the corruption, destroying or spoiling the tiles you’ve made. They cannot harm you, though, only your tiles.
• At night, you transform into a “celestial” creature which inherits qualities of the daylight’s element creatures. But now, instead of colouring the map, you can attack the Voidborn creatures to fend them off.
• Terrain affects the enemy movements: firelands damage enemies, water or mountains slow them down, etc.

Faction phase
When your efforts to revitalize the planet reach a certain level, life appears on it, and the inhabitants start to live their lives and mind their own business on the planet. You don’t have direct control over them, and they have a murky understanding of your existence - they can disregard, love or fear you. Despite it being peripheral to your main quest of ascendance, you have no choice but to take those creatures into account and even develop relationships with them.
The faction phase gets unlocked when your land becomes inhabited, and realistically, it won’t appear in the demo or even the early stage of Early Access. It's a whole new layer, which I only have a very draft imagination of. But in short:

• There are five factions - humans + one for each element.
• They build buildings, collect resources and are trying to spread their domain. They can’t terraform, though, so your terraforming ability is God-like to them.
• You have no direct control over what they do, but their doing affects you. You cannot order them to build certain buildings, but you can create requests or priorities which they might fulfill or resent.
• They sometimes make requests (quests) for you, and increase devotion when you fulfill them.
• When you destroy their domain, it generates fear. When you spread their domain, it generates love.
• Faction can even create “night creatures” to fend off enemies or build defensive buildings.
• Last but not least, factions might become so powerful that they can start fighting another faction, so you need to keep them in check.

This is roughly the plan for the game. I have mostly finished the game logic part of the daylight phase system, but I'm still working on the secondary systems.
The art you see in the video is mostly placeholders, with some exceptions:

• Equipment is semi-final, with some potential tweaks. Right now, I have ~30 runes and ~30 accessories. The items are absent, though (with some placeholders).
• Tiles are semi-final - I will just add variability to them… And I want shaders for water, fire, smoke, fog, and so on. So the ones that look barren - it’s because I plan shaders there 🙂 No idea how to make them yet, but I plan to figure it out around May.
• The creatures are total placeholders (although I find them lovely) - I took them from my Jam submission, but they definitely need a stylistic rework here.
• HUD is mere placeholders - except maybe for skills buttons, but it depends on whether they will fit the HUD looks when I start working on the visuals.

So here it is, in a nutshell. Would appreciate any feedback, ideas and recommendations. So far, my main concern is art - I’m no artist, so I worry if it is not too ugly.. But without shaders and with so many placeholders - I guess that’s too early to judge… But would appreciate to hear some thoughts 🙂
The game is now in active development, and I plan to release a demo at October’s Steam Next Fest, followed by the full game or Early Access around January.

In the next post, in a week or two, I will focus on the tiles system (followed by the movement system).

[onyx forge]

A new devlog post!
Decided to make a video this time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3yPmEvMhPo

Text is also available on itch:
https://rakudajin.itch.io/final-form/devlog/941878/building-the-final-form-tile-coloring-system-devlog-2

[onyx forge]

A new devlog is up! Or Devblog 🙂 not sure
Slightly increased the production value - did some cutting 😄
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjDeE8bfzHQ

[onyx forge]

A new devlog! Full of news + one more system explained 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_oLCP0MEus

[onyx forge]

New devlog! Happy to hear feedback on first steps of art upgrade 🙂
https://youtu.be/VjIdxsMs6ow

[onyx forge]

A new devlog! Things get big 😄
https://youtu.be/wjwFpfDxRso

[onyx forge]

And a new devlog! 🙂 A bit too technical this time
https://youtu.be/13_o1d4fLaM

[onyx forge]

This time devlog diverges to another game, but I'll still post it here 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC8nlkmufhE