I am working on a new Snap demo (yup, another one, I know), set to come out in a couple of months. I'm not trying to make another Episode 1 mega shareware-style demo though; it'll have a lot less content, and won't replace the Episode 1 demo. In return, I want to use it as a testing ground for many new Episode 2 mechanics and features. In the few months in the run up to it, I want to start posting a couple of design / technical process posts, some about the stuff that is getting added to it, and maybe some stuff about stuff that's already in the game.

Today's topic: the new combo system, which I'll be introducing with this new demo.

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Snap the Sentinel's current scoring system was added all the way back in the 7DFPS game jam version. It was a small but neat idea I had to add replay value to a very short game, and as a way to spice up the standard Doom intermission. Just tally up all of the stuff that already goes into a UV-Max speedrun, and turn it into a rank. Expert players are encouraged to go back and learn how to perfect levels. Even with casual players who only intend to play once ever, I think it's neat for them to see how their score improves as they start to understand the game mechanics, or decreases with the levels getting harder.

Nowadays I still like the system I made, but a large problem with it is was that it is skewed very hard towards "overall" gameplay. The par time bonus has been the only part I have frequently updated about the scoring system, since it's the closest thing I have to rewarding fast, fun and frantic gameplay over slow and lame gameplay. But it's very tricky to balance just off of that metric alone! Make it too strict, and longer levels (which will always be harder to get par time on) that you otherwise got 100% on might get horrible scores. Make it too lenient, and now very slow & safe gameplay on easy short levels might get amazing scores. So I've always wanted to add a new fourth category that will more heavily reward the "moment to moment" gameplay instead: combos!

Simply destroy an enemy, and you start a combo. Damage enemies, collect items, or otherwise "do stuff" to refill the combo bar a small amount. Getting hurt drains the bar a little bit faster. Destroying an enemy will refill the bar entirely and increase the combo amount. Once the combo bar runs out, it ends and you get some points for the combo amount.

The idea is to simply give players a reason to always be doing something, even when it's safer to take it slow. Now we have a way to directly reward fast-paced moment-to-moment gameplay, or someone getting one really impressive moment in their run. In contrast to mostly only rewarding a fast overall time, this should make high scores more dynamic and fun!

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Hm, one problem. Our game is mostly fast enough to support maintaining combo, except when it comes to elevators and lifts. Oops! If you haven't literally just refilled your combo gauge right before, then your combo is very likely to drop by the time you get past even the shortest lifts. That's no fun at all.

The obvious immediate solution to me was to add pickups to give you combo meter. While I don't always stray from "video game-y" ideas all of the time if they're fun, my co-developer wasn't exactly too excited to need to start spamming new abstract floating collectibles all over our maps, let alone ones that don't have an immediate practical purpose. Snap tries to keep at least a tiny bit of immersion, even with it being a cartoony & silly game, and putting big magic MacGuffins all over the place would definitely shatter anything left. After implementing combos, I kind of sat on it for a while not sure how to finish the feature. But we brainstormed some compromises and came up with this: robot cores!

These cores are plugged into the ground, and Snap can kick them out of their socket when he runs by them. They'll smash when they hit the ground, becoming a flurry of electric sparks, glass shards and explosions, as well as refilling your combo meter.

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Robot cores were designed like an actual physical object that could be fit into the "Snap lore", rather than some abstract video game collectible. Since the idea is to be somewhat conservative with their placement instead of spammed everywhere, they're also pretty large and refill your entire combo meter at once instead of only a little bit. Lastly, since they fly through the air instead of shattering instantly, it gets a bit of "hang time" before it gives you the refill, which enables it to give you a lot more mileage on lifts.

We also wanted to make them fun to have around, regardless of if you care about combos or not. Snap is a power fantasy about smashing robots & robot accessories, it's the whole game's schtick. So all long as you're on board for that basic premise, you probably won't mind breaking some of these just for fun.

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I really hope with all of these changes together that the scoring system in future versions of Snap will be even more interesting and fun than ever before. That's all for this post, see you next time! \m/