Week 4 - Core Mechanics Demo

This week I didn't have a lot of time to work on the game itself so I planned out the next few weeks of development. I'm going to create a simple core mechanics test that will force me to program at least the basic building blocks of the game. This will result in a mini "demo" of the game.

The object will be simple: Destroy the Enemy's Main base. In order to do that there will be 10 planets to explore. Each testing a different mechanic of the game. The possible encounters will be as follows:

1. Final Destination. An abandoned alien space ship where they can fly to the enemies base and defeat them. The ship is in disrepair, you will need to fix, refuel, and discover the location of the base. If you don't have all the items - the team will return to base. If you have completed everything else, the crew goes into the final combat encounter and you will either win or lose depending on the result. 
2. A simple trade mission where you can get materials needed to repair the ship
3. Encountering a village plague. Passing the checks will grant you an alien Crew Member
4. Raiding the enemy’s outpost for a fuel reserve
5. Help encourage a village to raise up overthrow the enemy. Get repair parts. 
6. Help rescue a spy behind enemy lines. Gain location of enemy’s base.
7. Nothing to find here.
8. Team is trapped and injured. You will need to send a 2nd team to rescue them or they will die.
9. Encounter a random patrol. Defeating them gives you intel to make Mission 4 easier.
10. A simple trade mission for fuel. Exceptional success also gives you intel to make Mission 6 easier.

The player won't have to complete all of the various encounters to "win" They will have to merely get sufficient fuel and materials to get the ship from Mission #1 operational. Then they will have to research how to put it all together, find the location of the base, and win the final combat challenge.

Some core mechanics I will have to implement for this demo to be a success:

1. Mission Select Screen - allowing the player to pick a mission, crew, and any extra gear.
2. Base inventory -  allowing the game to track what supplies you have.
3. Research Station - allowing the Player to select what upgrades to research and having the Research Team contribute their stats to the progress. 
4. Improve Crew Management function - right now it only tracks Team 1. I need to expand it to all Teams and allow the player to swap out various Crew Members
5. Be able to "remove" the away teams while they are on missions, probably teleporting them to another area, off screen.
6. Implement a Mission Report system - tracks the result of each mission and provides a narrative
7. Encounter checks - standard dice rolls + crew stats to determine whether the crew succeeds or fails a given task. 
8. Static results - standard dice rolls to determine how bad the Crew suffers if they fail a particular mission. For example, do they escape unscathed? Or do they suffer heavy losses?
9. Dynamic results - allowing the results of some missions to affect the results of others. For example, completing Mission 9 to make Mission 4 easier. Also tracking injured or killed Crew Members
10. Pre and Post game screens.

Once I have implemented these changes, it will start to feel like an actual game. It will have a beginning, middle, and end (albeit short ones.) From there, I will have a base that I can slowly build and expand upon the various mechanics.