OK, I’m getting closer to a demo.
The game is already appealing. That was my main focus. Now I’m trying to avoid the gameplay to be flat.
Phase 1 : Speed and Upgrades Tree.
You accelerate, you sell data, you send your U-Pod to Earth to buy upgrades, your ship is increased, you get faster. That’s the base loop.
Note : progression must be visible (physical) & fast
Phase 2 : Heat & Fires – after Moon skip, ~15 minutes.
Heat become critical with upgrades, you live your fist overheat that break the ship, you need to estinguish fires. You learn to manage cooler and not increase engine too much.
Note : estinguishing fires must not be a chore (fires will auto-extinct over time), but a juicy”minigame” to skip delay.
Phase 3: Feeling Lonely ~ Getting out of Solar system
There’s a big jump when you’ve reach the last planet of Solar System, because next milestone is Alpha Centaury. It’s like crossing an Ocean.
You experience darkness. You get data loss and starmap disconnections.
Until then, you received regular letters, but they do come slower at some point. You understand the importance of upgrading pods speed.
Phase 4 : Feel powerful
Upgrades becomes massive. You skip a lot of systems and planets at an impressive speed, you break records. Your data / pod flow is impressive. That’s a short period after the big jump with nothing new but huge numbers and tech tree, no fires, no delays etc..
Very little signs of insanity shows.
Note : this phase can be flat. Make a deliberate victory lap : short, spectacular, slightly suspicious
Phase 5 : Insanity
As you approach to the end of material universe, insanity become more visible. You approach new dimensions and have hallucinations. All along, the narrative become more strange and abstract in the letters.
Note : must not be only cosmetic, make one rule change.
Phase 6 : the end
A massive black hole is on your way, while in deep space already. You can’t avoid it, but you can hope to get enough speed to skip the black hole without falling into it. Therefore there’s 2 different endings, wether you escape from black hole or not.
But you’re likely to fall in the hole, and you get the weird ending the game is made for.
Skip the black hole and you get a sad ending, like flashback game you derivate like forever in space.