There are quite a lot of things I still have planned for Mercury Fallen. Some of these elements are being worked on a little at a time in the back ground while I continue to add other features and content to the game. One of these background projects is the expedition system.

Expeditions

I’ve received a lot of questions revolving around the elevator staring at you when the game starts. This, of course, opens the door for a lot of thought on what entering/leaving the facility is all about and how that aspect of the game will be played. While there are still some design decisions being made on specific elements I can talk a bit about some of the recent prototyping be done for expeditions.

The elevator allows for expeditions to the planet surface which will be represented as a 2D hexagon map. Players will be able to send teams of colonists off to points of interest (POI) on the the planetary map which will take resources and a certain amount of travel time. Upon arriving at a POI the player will be presented with a scenario and various options for how to handle it. Available options at POI locations will depend on the team that is being sent and some of their core stats. Successful endings for a POI include special resources, items, information, possible colonist stat boosts and more. POI events can also result in negative results such as a colonist becoming injured and getting killed in severe cases.

Much of this system is still in the design phase and the final result will most likely be different, to some extent, from anything I say now. Understandably the expedition system is a larger part of the game to build and I want to ensure other content updates are being made while I continue to develop it in the background. I’ve been trying to ensure I roll out new updates about every 1-2 weeks.

I’ve recently been working on the planetary map and how it will be procedurally generated. Here is a sneak peek at a very early version of a procedurally generated planetary map.

What’s Next?

The next update is focused around some new decorative options as well various bug fixes and performance updates. Some new plants for the plant pots are in order as well as some new decorative objects for specific rooms.

Let me know your thoughts on the game as it’s always great to hear what people like/dislike about Mercury Fallen. What kind of things do you want to see in Mercury Fallen?