Loot Burn Kill Repeat was originally a project I created to learn several fields of game development that I did not know very well at all. As I found out about the Unity game engine and got interested in it I began learning to use Blender3D aswell as the C# coding language alongside the Unity Editor itself. ( I was at the time unemployed, hence the spare time and energy to learn it all at once I might add... )
Anyways, the project has stayed with me ever since even though it has been rewritten more or less completely three times, and by now I've no intention of throwing it away until it's finished, I enjoy developing it too much.
I'm a cave man who's used to build houses and constructions all day and not having to deal with much people other then my co-workers by the way so please excuse me if my writing is choppy and odd. I'm just not quite used to writing articles and such things but I will give it my best.
The Story
The player waks up on an IGCC (Interglobe Colonization Corp.) space station, the IGCC crews task is to create conditions on distant planets to allow human colonization and resource extraction. The station also has a research facility that purposefully investigate matter, and organisms discovered on the planet. One of the organisms found at their current planet and brought inside the station reacted unfortunate when it by accident came in contact with the oxygen inside the station and seemed to awaken from a hibernating state.
The organism began spreading large amounts of spores that nested on any material they came in contact with and began growing new matter. Humans that were contaminated were no exceptions however, instead of growing seemingly uncontrollable the spores strategically destroyed vital organs and grew their own organ-like structures.
This allowed the spores to control it's new hosts body to move more freely and use it as a disease-carrier, spreading spores wherever it went.
Some crew member were for an unknown reason not infected though, and with the help by the survivors from the IGCC security forces deployed on the station they managed to seal of a small part of the station called the Secure Command.
The World
Loot Burn Kill Repeat is currently divided in 5 chapters, all taking place on the IGCC space station, each chapter represent a different section of the station, Medical Facilities, Oxygen Processing facilities and Crew Quarters among others. Each chapter in return, is divided into two to three levels (hidden-/side-levels excluded), all packed with monster-slaying, random events, missions and loot.
The Player
There are three player classes in the game, the Soldier, Cryptic and the Technician. Each one with their own set of 6 abilities/special attacks. These abilities can be upgraded along with the characters attributes as the player has earned enough experience to level up.
To use one of the abilities, energy is drained from the player and that energy can only be regained by killing more monsters, this won't instantly return it though, but will be restored over time. This is to make it more important to choose wisely among the abilities and the use of them in combat.
Apart from that, the most important help for the player is items and equipment that can be collected and equiped to improve the characters chances for survival.
The Mission
The main goal of LBKR is to get off the space station, but to do so the player must complete missions given by other survivors to clear the way to the stations "Bridge" section, in which all escape pods are located.
The missions and side-missions are usually set up with multiple phases which the player must complete one after another. The missions reward the player with cash, experience and items and the rewards are generated dependant on the amount of phases and calculated difficulty of each mission.
Apart from the missions there's also a bounty/challenge system, behaving like a mini-mission you could say, the tasks to complete are alot more simple, like killing a specific target, enemy type, or killing enemies in a specific way, finding items and more. Unlike the missions these are rewarded with reputation and marks that can be used to purchase better and unique gear.
The Enemies
Considering the game's main focus beeing combat and action, there are of course a variety of monsters to fight in the game. The base concept of the enemies in LBKR is that they all originate from humans or pets that were aboard the station. The alien organism, called "Spores" since it spread by spores released from it, infected the people and animals on the station and feed on them much like a parasite. While they feed they also continuously spread spores within the hosts body, mutating and evolving it further.
The AI calculates attribute, skills and vital values depending on player level, difficulty setting and the characters own base statistics. Hence they work quite much like the player character on that aspect.
Apart from the regular enemy ranks there are of course bosses, but also on each level a random amount of mini-bosses will spawn. They are regular enemies that receive modifiers to enhance their stats and abilities, aswell as provide them with extra attacks and protection.
Items & Item Management
Items and equipment is another one of the core elements in the game, there's currently 5 item types available.
- Armor
As the name tells this is any equipment used to reduce damage taken. There are currently three armor classes, each class has their own benefits and penalties to move speed, dodge rating, damage (type) resistances, apart from any passive modifiers generated for them.
Furthermore there's 6 armor types, Helmets, Torso Armor, Gauntlets, Pauldrons/Shoulder Armor pieces, Leg protection and shields.
- Weapons
There's both melee and ranged weapons, ranged weapons require plasma to be fired, the plasma is a stats of the player character that's affected by the attribute distribution by the player himself. Ranged weapons are in general alot stronger than melee weapons, although the plasma limits their effectiveness if it's not frequently upgraded as the player levels up.
Melee weapons on the other hand is in no need of plasma, but since they're weaker the player must focus more on his/hers damage-related stats.
- Consumables
These items include health vials and plasma charges to restore the players plasma and health stats, but there's also "Field kit's" that can be used to slightly repair damaged gear while outside the safe zone.
- Gems
Gems can be used to add elemental effects and bonuses to gear, as an example of a few bonuses provided by these item's are elemental damage over time, elemental blast damage, knockback blasts, increased skill values and more.
- Misc
There's more types of items aswell, however they are not as interactable as the three mentioned above and therefore placed in the misc category, to mention a few.
Shards - Currency of the game, it's used to purchase gear and services in the safe zone. It can be aquired by completing missions and killing monsters.
Bounty Objects - Items sought-after by the Bounty Keeper during bounties
Logs - Items containing information of the game world, monsters, NPC's and the story.
Armor, gems and weapons are all procedurally generated at runtime, during the generation a variety of stats are assigned.
There are 4 rarity rankings of an item, and the more rare an item the more bonus points will be added, also rare items are given passive modifiers that provide useful buffs for the players attributes, skills or vitals, or protect the player with defensive counter-attacks.
To manage items the player is given an inventory with space for 20 items, aswell as a small storage space in Secure Command to allow storing items that are not of frequent use or that should be shared with other saved characters.
From the Secure Command the player can also identify items with hidden modifiers, manage gems and repair broken gear.
Gameplay
The gameplay is in a moderate to fast pace focusing on gory combat and killing monsters, although throughout the game there are random events, puzzles and missions to complete and to slightly shift the pace for a while.
When necessary the player can teleport to a safe zone to visit merchants, aquire more missions and bounties, modify items and also access a world map with which travel to any unlocked location is possible.
To unlock the locations the player must journey through the station level by level similar to dungeon crawlers. On a side note each chapter of the game contain two to three levels, hidden-/side-levels excluded and each chapter introduces new and more lethal enemies and traps.
