CRITICAL OVERLOAD

Critical Overload is an ongoing project in early development stage for an RPG strategy game where you command a colonial ship and its squadron of smaller spaceships. This is a solo project for self-growth, where I’m handling all design and development. The game takes inspiration from the systems of Faster Than Light, In Other Waters, Gloomhaven, Reigns, Into the Breach, and more.

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The game is divided in two phases, management and combat:

• The combat phase is a turn-based gridded tactical. Each turn, any ship the player controls can allocate energy to one of each available modules, temporarily boosting its mobility, defense, and offense until the start of the next turn.​ Energy management is at the heart of combat. the intent is to emphasizes meaningful choices and forward planning.​

• The management phase is a choice-based RPG. The player must navigate through a series of events while maintaining balance between the colonial ship's three resources: People, Religion, and Science. The decisions they make will impact future events and shape the combat phase as well.

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The setting is set in space for a few reasons:

• Deep space and spaceships require fewer visual work than most settings. The number of assets needed is limited, and spaceships are relatively easy to animate. This is ideal as I'm working alone and have very limited time.

• I need energy-fueled modulable characters to match the energy overload feature. Spaceships are perfect for that purpose.

• Sci-fi is popular and evocative, meaning I wont need to do much exposition when building the world; I can make use of suggestions and let players fill in the rest.

• I love sci-fi just as much as fantasy, and it has many cool tropes to choose from!