Devlog #5- Levels and Upgrades

This week I want to talk a bit about leveling and upgrades.

I’ve written previously about how low numbers is a big part of my design, and that ideal continues for leveling. For the main game I had originally planned to have a max level of 100, with similar pacing to a Pokemon game. For the prologue I have brought this down to max level 20 for each character.

Characters in-game refer to ‘level up’ as ‘loyal up’, as in gaining a new loyal fan in the audience (LVL UP becomes LYL UP), but both terms are used interchangeably.

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Upgrades

As of writing this, leveling up doesn’t give you any immediate stat boosts, instead you gain a star that can be used in the character’s upgrade tree (referred to in-game as a Path to Stardom). 

I’m partly conflicted on this, because I know an immediate reward when leveling is a big factor in making most RPGs fun, but it clashes with my low numbers design. Giving players a choice of three stats like Super Mario RPG is fun, but seems really hard to balance by end game.

My approach means that sometimes leveling up will simply give you a single star you can put towards  a 3-star upgrade, but I hope the lack of immediate reward can be replaced by the long-term reward when you finally get that game-changing 3-star upgrade you saved up for.

I hope to make every upgrade in the skill tree interesting and unique to each character; some will be simple stat upgrades while others will change up attacks and minigames, mixing up gameplay.

For example, with Rina this could mean adding more bubbles to her basic attack, or allowing the player to manipulate the bubble’s movement.  

The above image is Rina and Ayumu's Paths to Stardom. The dots beneath each node indicate the required stars. Characters can have different shaped trees but the required stars will always add up to the max player level. Also shown above are choice nodes where players can choose between two upgrades targeted at different strategies.

As I said in last week’s devlog, the main gameloop is about surviving for the longest possible journey, so even small upgrades like DEF +1 or ‘player gets +1 ATK when at full health’ can make a noticeable difference.

Most importantly, I don't want cookie cutter upgrades. I want upgrades that make characters feel unique and constantly evolving, and hopefully even some surprising and wacky ones.

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Overall, this design process was about finding the balance between upgrades that feel fun and matter to the player, and a system where I as the developer can control the player experience and overall balance while keeping numbers low. 

Thanks for reading! Check back next weekend for another devlog :)