Replicatrons is a two player real time strategy game that I produced as one of my final year university projects. It is available for download as a prototype on Itch.io.
In Replicatrons the player takes the role of a self replicating AI fighting for control of a planet. The players must expand across the map to take control of resource deposits whilst making sure to protect their command center.
One of my primary goals in creating the initial design of this project was to include a game mechanic that I hadn’t seen in other RTS games.
I eventually came up with the concept of exploring how pollution that would inevitably be created by war machines and factories could effect how combat progressed. Once I had decided on having this as a mechanic I needed to come up with interesting ways for it to effect the players. I specifically wanted it to be something the players could directly interact with, where an increase in pollution would be both beneficial and detrimental. This would add an additional level of depth to the game where players can manipulate the amount of pollution in the world to help themselves or hinder their opponents.
The most significant detriment I gave to ‘increasing pollution’ was a visible fog that slowly grows thicker as pollution increases reducing the vision radius of the player’s units within the games fog of war. This can eventually reach a point where vision is almost completely reduced to zero and players must use stationary radar stations to see their enemies movements. This allows stealthy play from both teams. I coupled this with a research system that allows a player to either focus on making use of pollution or benefit from reducing it. The goal of this research system is to allow players to both invest in their own strategy and sabotage their opponents by reducing/increasing pollution to counter their opponent’s investment.
As the battlefield becomes more polluted it also causes the local wildlife to mutate, slowly becoming a substantial threat that both players must deal with as they battle against each other.
Another core design goal I had for Replicatrons was to encourage both players to expand across the map aggressively. This forces both players into combat early into the game and allows for more openings for players to flank each other across the map, especially once the fog from pollution begins reducing vision. My method of doing this was to place resource deposits around the map. These are the only places the player can acquire important resources for construction. The players start with a small number of resource deposits around their starting position, and the rest are found in key areas around the map. This helps to focus combat around specific areas of the map and keeps both players engaged with each other for the whole match.