I have had a vision for a 2d space game for a long time, and now that I’m finally getting into gamedev via Defold I need to have a project to “shoot” for. Something to use as a motivation for learning and coding. So I have decided to post a learn / developer diary for a game I call MOTHERSHIP.
The premise of the game is you are the AI of a ship that is sending the last remnants of a dying planet to a new planet to save their civilization. Everything has been going quietly until your ship encounters a lone scout ship that tries to attack your ship and board it.
Game play consists of three different phases. Phase one you see a top down view of your ship as you engage in combat with other alien ships. You launch missiles, shoot lasers, etc to attack or defend yourself.
Things get interesting, however when you actually dock with another ship. The view shifts to an interior view of your ship and theirs. The gameplay becomes more of a tower defense as aliens head down corridors of your inside (you are, after all, a starship) as they seek to take over and steal your human cargo.
You start off with just some maintenance bots that you can spawn from various areas of the ship (the towers so to speak) as well as internal defenses. If the aliens (creeps) get to your central core they will shut you down and you will “die”.
You, however can also send bots (creeps) of your own into the enemy ship and attempt the same. If you succeed in both defending your ship and taking over the other, you can harvest the technology of that ship for your own and increase your defenses.
There is also a storyline along with this where you discover more about the alien race(s) that you are encountering, and you learn there’s more at stake than just your humans in suspended animation.
Mechanics are basically a basic space sim (for the battles) and simple tower defense / offense. I think this will be a really unique game and appeal to fans of space games and tower defense.
I think Defold is ideal for this type of game, and look forward to learning enough to make my dream a reality.
If I did not post this thread, I think that I would not stick with this - so I’m hoping this can also serve as motivation to stick with this until I get a playable game.
