The Gameplay Loop

Dev Update (Alpha): The loop

Survivesmith is a bullet-heaven / reverse-bullet-hell game, and that genre comes with the "roguelite" tag attached to it. The core loop of the game revolves around you, the player, jumping into a level, exploring the biomes (there are 5 biomes per level), finding treasures, hunting / mining / foraging for resources (permanent & on-field), and completing achievements for unique unlocks all while surviving hordes of robotic enemies chasing you down across time. Skilled survive-smiths will face mighty bosses and reap extra rewards within a run.

While the core loop is very similar to other games of the genre, there are tiny dissimilarities which (hopefully) would make the game feel more fresh. Some of them include:

• Different categories of enemies

  • The 'waves' of robotic minions, biological & mythical enemies of the biome, random enemy reinforcements, weather based enemy spawns, etc.

• Select equipment from your own loadout

  • Preset your own custom loadout with a primary weapon, attachments, power cores, special weapons, armor modules, buddies & gadgets, character skills, a survival kit, etc.

• Equipment upgrades and character upgrades are separate

  • While on the field (in the level), your equipment and character stats are upgraded separately. Maximize your power by upgrading according to your desired playstyle.

• On-field crafting

  • Being an engineer and a blacksmith from the future comes with its perks. While you forge your weapons from your base, your unique 'Survival Kit' can come in clutch at the toughest situations. Be sure to stock up on resources before you get overwhelmed.

• Every enemy is unique in their own way

  • Every single enemy in Survivesmith is unique not only on how they look, but how they attack you and what they drop. Enemies don't just get tougher over time, they throw and more and more different attacks at you. But the upside is, every (robotic) enemy drops unique components for you to craft awesome weapons at your base. Yes, EVERY SINGLE ONE.

These are some of the main features of the game which you will inevitably come across throughout the game.

Sub-biomes

In Survivesmith, a single level hosts various biomes. These biomes are visually and functionally unique. Later, with the introduction of a 'base' to the game, the player will have to find certain resources to keep the base running and also get upgrades. When that happens, these biomes will have a lot more significance.

As of now, each biome looks different, has different environments, spawns different enemies and has different loot to gather. Here are some screenshots of different biomes of the first level: The Thunder Forest (the visuals are subject to change in the future).

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Fully Customizable Weapons

Since the start, Survivesmith had weapons with preset stats. Pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, etc. Moving forward, we want to make the weapon experience fully customizable. That's where the 'Forge' comes in.

In the Forge, you can select individual parts and create the weapon experience you want. This is how the prototype version looks (disclaimer: we do not own the image of the gun in this picture).

It looks a bit messy and unorganized, but the system is already in place. Each part 'category' affects a set of stats, and the player decides which part they want to equip for a certain slot. This gives tons of customization options even with just a few parts.

In the future, we will introduce a 'Weapon Core' which combines the current Switch, Bullet and Element together to create unique parts which affects what type of a projectile the weapon fires. These cores will be craftable at the base from a unique resource called 'Core Component'. The components are a rare drop from the robot minions, and they are unique per enemy. This would be one of the major updates which carves a path for the game's core loop.

Survival Kit

Survival kit is the on-field crafting system. The player can collect a resource called 'Gems'* (name will subject to change in the future) from within the natural biome to craft handy items which will help out escape a tricky situation, if the player ever gets in one. It's already successfully implemented into the game. There will be a few more items and different ways for items to be used in the game.

Here are some screenshots;

Survival Kit selection (in the Loadout menu)

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Survival kit usage (on-field)

That's it for today's dev update. Hope you got some insight into the current stage of development of Survivesmith. We're hoping to share a play-test soon. We just to get a few more things done before doing that.

Keep your eyes peeled for new updates on our Twitter/X and Bluesky.

Cheers!