I briefly mentioned factions in the first episode, but I feel like I should explain exactly what they do and how they work.
Overview
There are five factions in the game, and they influence the story, visuals, items, and economy of the game. Each faction has its own history, color, music, item names, stat boosts, relationships, names, and currency (except the Freelancers). Here’s a brief overview of the factions and a few of their features:
- The Empire
- Story: Has ruled the galaxy for a long time and seeks to maintain order
- Color: Blue
- Currency: Credits
- The Revolt
- Story: Rose up to fight against the tyranny of The Empire
- Color: Red
- Currency: Crystal
- The Freelancers
- Story: Embraces freedom and economic development
- Color: Yellow
- Currency: N/A (Accepts all other faction currencies)
- The Preservers
- Story: Seeks to live in isolation and govern itself
- Color: Green
- Currency: Honor
- The Body
- Story: Seeks to extinguish all life in the galaxy
- Color: Purple
- Currency: Blood
Color
The color of the faction is used to determine the color of some game text as well as item sprites. Here are a few examples:
- Projectile sprites and particles
- Ship sprites
- Shield sprites
- Engine particles
- Currency text
Item Names and Stat Bonuses
Factions also affect items. Item names are kinda complicated and give a window into the items function. The name is actually derived from the rarity (and bonus), faction, and preset. For example, an Elite Missile of the Empire is a weapon with the Legendary rarity, the Empire faction, and with the Missile preset.
As for the stat bonuses, the faction increases and decreases certain stats on each of the item types and presets. These changes are minor, usually only 5 or 10% of the maximum stat value, and they apply to all items of the same type (all weapons get the same faction bonuses). The changes also don’t really follow a pattern across item types, but merely serve to make items more diverse. Let’s look at the Empire’s stat bonuses for weapons:
- Hull Damage -10
- Shield Damage +10
- Rate of Fire -10
- Range +10
- Blast Radius -15
- Projectile size -15
- Projectile Speed +15
- Efficiency +15
Currency & Relationships
I also had an idea for a money system that uses multiple currencies, kind of like Secret of Evermore does. Basically each faction has its own currency, and they value each other’s currency based on how they feel about that faction. As an example, The Empire hates the Revolt, so they value Revolt currency lower than their own. So if you want to spend Crystal at an Empire world, you’re going to have to spend more to buy what you want.
There is an exception. Freelancers have no currency of their own, but they accept all other forms of currency.
The goal of this system was to make a version of a kind of reputation system you’d see in an RPG. It discourages the player from simply farming one form of currency by beating the same level over and over.
Vendor and World Names
Another way that factions flesh out the game is through the names of the item vendors and world names.
The worlds are named based on which faction they come from. I tried to give them each unique themes. For example, the Empire’s worlds all take their names from ancient cities.
The vendor names are randomly pulled from two pools of names, first and last, and follow similar themes.