Welcome to the island of murder. A place where all living things must come to an end by way of MURDER. This island is not just surrounded on all sides by ocean, but it is also surrounded on all sides by death. Only at the end, when the boundaries between life and death are closing in, will you understand the true meaning of the MURDER ISLAND.
Murder Island is a game I've been working on for a little over a year now, on and off while I wasn't working on other things. It's a game about a group of prisoners surviving on a dangerous island. A murderous island as some would call it. It's an island that scientists have been using as a test environment for their strange living experiments. Now they are ready to see how their newly crafted creatures will interact with humans for scientific purposes. And maybe just a little bit of entertainment.
You play as the group of prisoners who have agreed to participate on an experiment on Murder Island in exchange for their freedom. There's only one catch: they must survive the island. You start the game being dropped of on the beaches of the island with the goal of reaching the radio tower to call in for help. If you can make it there alive, the prisoners will be free to return to society.
The game plays as a sort of simulation/strategy/RPG hybrid. It's kind of hard to describe in terms of genre so I'll just list some of the major influences I've had on the game:
Console RPGs
Roguelike Games
Final Fantasy Legend II
X-COM
FTL: Faster Than Light
Oregon Trail
The two main aspects of the gameplay are managing your group on the main map and managing your group in combat.
Here is the main map:
(work in progress images)
From the main map you have the option of moving the group to a different region or taking individual actions for your group members. The individual actions include things such as scouting ahead, searching for food & items, resting, and things of the like. After the actions or movement is taken, there is a chance that monsters will attack the group based on the region's danger level.
Here is a battle screen:
In the battle mode, the group may choose to either try to run or face the monsters in combat. If you choose to run, you will run the risk of losing valuable food and items that you may need later. If you choose to fight you will have each of your group members choose an action based off of the current items they are carrying. Each item only has a certain number of uses so it is important to not waste your supplies. In addition to combat, an item may have a particular map action that is also helpful. Like a bow and arrow can also be used to hunt for food.
Another battle screen:
The monsters you face were created from the scientists experiments of fusing animals body parts together. In the game, the enemies are built randomly from a pool of body parts, so they are different every time you play the game. Each body part adds different abilities and stats to the monster, so looking at it's individual body parts will give you an idea of what you are up against and what you can gain for defeating it.
After each action taken, the game timer increases. At the end of each day, every member of the group must eat, or they will die. If all group members die you lose the game.
That is about it for the basics of Murder Island. There's more I want to get into, but I'll save that for a different blog post. I'm going to try to keep an active log for the development of this game from now on. So check back for updates!
CURT
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