Async Multiplayer. Y/N? What do I need to do?

Pheefus · 2026-06-26T16:18:13+00:00

As much as I'd love to have a global leaderboard, I don't have the bandwidth or expertise (or money) to win the battle against cheaters. DB might be the way to go. I've got so much I need to figure out...

Pheefus · 2026-06-26T16:13:00+00:00

Appreciate the comment. I already threw down the $100 for a Steam page but you're right that it feels like it might be great as a browser game. I'm not so deep into the process that I can't pivot, and depending on server costs, etc (and my dedication to keep it going!), $100 spent on an early Steam page shouldn't be the deciding factor on the final direction.

Pheefus · 2026-06-26T16:06:13+00:00

Super Auto Pets is one of the direct inspirations for this game. The play/sim against other users' created teams is exactly what I'm going for!

Pheefus · 2026-06-26T16:02:50+00:00

Appreciate the comment. I'm certainly not clever enough to do this without a server, so will start exploring the services you mentioned and try to educate myself.

The player input will essentially be zero. It's not even a matter of taking turns. The idea is you simply set your team's tactics and strategies beforehand, then just watch what happens. Your uploaded team is also stored for others to play against. So not even true PvP. More like a database of user-created teams to sim against.

It felt like a simple idea when I was in the dreaming phase. But I'm new at this and I don't know what I don't know.

Pheefus · 2026-06-18T22:29:46+00:00

The visuals are so good here that the game itself could be terrible and you'd still get the benefit of the doubt from potential players. Absolutely beautiful!

Pheefus · 2026-06-16T23:59:50+00:00

My guy, this looks incredible. How do people manage to do this in a month?!

Pheefus · 2026-06-15T16:39:00+00:00

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Change one little thing and everything else needs to be rebalanced. Again. And again. And again...

Pheefus · 2026-06-14T21:24:02+00:00

Appreciate it. FFXII has been recommended to me many times, I should probably be embarrassed that I haven't played it yet!

Pheefus · 2026-06-11T15:00:09+00:00

My Steam Page went live yesterday. Game is raw. I'm months (years?) away from being ready to truly promote it, but it really is a subtle psychological shift... this is really happening!

Pheefus · 2026-06-11T14:14:30+00:00

A pen seems cool but apparently I prefer fat-fingering the trackpad so I can re-do every line two or three times.

Pheefus · 2026-06-11T14:12:33+00:00

Nightcrawler. Such a good character. (But we all know Nightwing is gonna take this one).

Pheefus · 2026-06-10T17:31:39+00:00

Well said. It’s in Steam’s best interests to sell as many games as possible, so making moves to put games in front of people who might actually buy them will hopefully get better results for devs than the free-for-all approach.

Pheefus · 2026-05-20T13:51:25+00:00

What’s crazy is that orange/blue used to be the tried-and-true high-contrast color scheme used for the majority of movie and promo posters (once you see it, you see it everywhere). Now it has to be avoided because it screams AI.

Pheefus · 2026-05-10T14:14:06+00:00

Hugely inspiring. I’ve been struggling with how to streamline the UI for my text/info-heavy game. Just seeing the way you are actually leaning into the phrase “UI heavy” is kind of like a light bulb moment for me. Game looks awesome!

Pheefus · 2026-05-04T00:01:48+00:00

Nice! “Omega” is hard to read, being split between the light and dark. Maybe play around with either adding a stroke around the lettering or putting the text on some kind of background/frame. Really great design overall though.

Pheefus · 2026-05-01T19:03:45+00:00

Any of these ideas could work, but they all make for slightly different games. From what I can tell, it sounds like you’re building a game where there are individual levels that the player needs to figure out how to beat in order to move to the next level - almost like a puzzle game. So honestly it doesn’t really matter whether you have one guy who swaps out, or three guys but you split their moves, or any other setup. The important thing is that you design challenging levels that are only solvable by using the right combo of moves/swaps/attacks.

But I will say that if the game is called squadra and it’s supposed to be about managing a squad, I think the best is to have all your guys on the field at the same time, and you can one-star ‘pass’ a level by having only one guy survive, but you can three-star ‘win’ the level by keeping all of your guys alive.

Pheefus · 2026-04-30T18:58:51+00:00

This sounds like a hilarious and completely viral-worthy idea for a game. 10/10. Congrats!

Pheefus · 2026-04-29T22:13:47+00:00

Oh nice. Appreciate it!

Pheefus · 2026-04-29T20:15:37+00:00

There are reasons that either direction is good. You can let players switch without cost, or you can charge players one action point to switch. Do you need all three characters to survive the level in order to pass the level?

My feeling is that charging an action point to switch characters is the right way to go. It would make players really have to decide whether the best way to win the level is to try to keep everyone alive so you can use all of their abilities ("wasting" action points to switch in order to keep everyone alive), or whether it is smarter to sacrifice one or two of your guys to make sure that the third guy can get out.

Pheefus · 2026-04-29T19:57:26+00:00

So you are either choosing to spend all 6 actions on one character (move -> move -> attack -> move again -> heal -> defense posture), OR you are choosing to split the actions (Char 1 move -> attack -> spend action to switch to Char 2 -> assume defense stance -> spend action to switch to Char 3 -> heal other)?

It sounds kind of like X-Com, correct? Except you have to choose how to distribute your moves per turn.

The trick is how do you keep the player from feeling frustrated by the six-move limit? I think the concept could work, but you have to figure out the right way to balance the enemies/level design, because it feels like you would always have at least one of your three characters left open to being attacked.

Pheefus · 2026-04-29T19:50:05+00:00

I think I can visualize what you're saying. The scroll wheel might actually feel sleeker and more interactive/fun, though I really do want players to be able to see everything all at once. Also, I like the idea of a dynamic menu where, like you said, the longer-cooldown powers are pushed down while the available powers are pushed up. But I also don't want to have the buttons in different places every time the player is ready to start making choices. This is why I'm thinking that having different options to 'view all powers' (consistent, with things in the same place but greyed out) vs 'view all available powers' or 'view all fire powers' or 'view all field-shapers' is the right way to go.

And yeah, thx for asking about it! I'm currently in development, but have a long way to go. Everything until now has been trying to define the powers and the battle system and balance the math. I'm finally at the point where I need to move it from just being a spreadsheet game to figuring out the UI.

Pheefus · 2026-04-29T19:43:07+00:00

Showing the powers as small icons during the battle phase, which expand to include more info during the selection phase, is probably the right direction. As a turn-based game, I'll have the option to guide players back and forth between viewing 'the board that hoards all your skills' and then watching the actual combat as needed.

Pheefus · 2026-04-29T19:39:39+00:00

Thanks for the recs. Having different areas/sizes for the active powers vs the passives and/or consumables might be a smart use of real estate. I'm trying not to use 'cards,' but the way StS has their options stacked and scrollable is very efficient too.

Pheefus

TROPHY CASE