Game Mechanics Explained: Experience Points

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Hello there and welcome to the first blog about DIGGERGUN's Game Mechanics! In this series, I'm going to be exploring some of the mechanics in DIGGERGUN and revealing some behind-the-scenes information about how they work, and what they do!

Today, I'm talking about experience points and levelling up!

Experience points in DIGGERGUN work in a similar way to other games. Do "X" and you will gain experience points. Reach a certain amount of experience points to get a level up. And then, depending on the game, increase your power somehow.

In DIGGERGUN you gain experience points by defeating enemies, obtaining lithium gems and depositing lithium at the Mine Entrance. Seems basic enough, but there are a few things which make the level-up system unique!

Firstly when depositing lithium the amount of experience points you gain is multiplicative, meaning that the more lithium you deposit, the more experience points you get. So, dropping off a lot of lithium in one go will get you a TONNE of experience points.

As with most games when you obtain a level up, the maximum amount of experience points required for your next level is increased. In DIGGERGUN the experience required to obtain a level up increases by 1.4 of the current maximum experience. At level 1, you need 100 experience points to level up, so at level 2 you'll need 140 experience points to level up.

(As a side note, I will probably be increasing the maximum experience multiplier in the Alpha release, as currently, I feel players get too many level-ups too quickly)

So once you gain a level, you obtain a stat point which you can then spend in the Main Menu's Status Screen. 

There are currently three stats to spend your points on:

Aim: Increases the damage that your bullets do in the mines

Endurance: Reduces the amount of energy you lose over time and by doing actions

Mindfulness: Increases the amount of energy restored from resting and eating

Those with an eagle eye might notice that there is space for a fourth stat. In the prototype, there was a fourth stat, but it was removed as compared to the other three stats it didn't seem as useful. There are plans to eventually re-add the fourth stat, but that will be much later in development.

In terms of the effectiveness of each of the stats in the demo, aim is currently the least effective as most players won't get deep enough into the mines to encounter enemies with a lot of health. That leaves Endurance and Mindfulness.

Both stats are very effective but players will get more immediate effects from putting a point into Endurance.

The math for Endurance is: "EnergyBuildUp" / (Endurance/2)+1). 

So for example, if "EnergyBuildUp" is 0.85, then with an endurance stat of 1 you will reduce that to 0.56. With 6 points in Endurance, your Energy BuildUp will be 0.2125. 

Every 0.45 seconds, "EnergyBuildUp" / (Endurance/2)+1) is added to a hidden value. When that value hits 100, you lose one point of energy and the value is reset. 

These numbers will be a bit higher in the game on launch, meaning that the player will lose energy faster but for the demo, I found that players were struggling with the speed of energy being reduced. I'll talk a bit more about energy in a later blog!

Mindfulness requires a 2 point investment in order to see results. At that point, you'll start gaining an additional point of energy each time you do an activity. The math is similar to Endurance: "EnergyIncrease" + "round(Mindfulness/2)". This makes Mindfulness exceptionally powerful every two stat points invested.  For example, at 6 points, you'll be getting 3 additional energy every time you rest or eat.

Again, I'll probably tweak the numbers before the game launches in its final state, but it will probably remain similar to what is in place now.

Overall where you add your stat points, and when, does matter. Even though I've explained them in quite simplistic terms, it's important for me to note that a lot of these systems can be very complex. For example, the player gains "EnergyBuildUp" from doing a variety of actions, such as jumping, and this is further affected by other tracking stats such as how long it's been since you've eaten or slept. 

There's a lot at play and DIGGERUN's really not just a simple, 1bit, pixel-art game. It reacts to the player and their day-to-day choices.

That ended up being quite in-depth, didn't it!  I guess you're here so I thought why don't I share all!  Hopefully, now you understand the level system in DIGGERGUN a bit more!

If you like what you've read and you haven't backed DIGGERGUN yet be sure to back it on Kickstarter for some great rewards!