Idle thoughts towards a Paradroid clone that preserves some of what I like about the game. Mostly inspired by Puppygames’ Droid Assault, which does not.
More realistic art: each droid class has a different unifying color scheme, to aid in quick tactical decisions. “Oh shit this 400 class droid is about to reject me, and all I see is 7/8/9… oh YES there’s a 200.”
I think I would make the fog of war more obvious: render unseen areas in a more schematic view. Like Monaco. Make it VERY OBVIOUS that you can’t see enemy droids because they’re Out Of View.
TWIN-STICK SHOOTER.
Must have a transfer game. Every single damn clone of Paradroid drops it. Having this separate little thing to master was part of the fun; being able to take over the 999 with the 001 is totally An Achievement that should go into your virtual trophy case.
Randomly-generated ships? Paradroid the Roguelike. Or not – design different decks to present a different kind of mood.
It’s definitely a game set in a Place rather than a series of Levels – you can stealth your way to the command deck and take over the 999 as your first action, if you want.
Oh hey look here’s an arena shooter that comes as source with Unity. Well that’s a good chunk of the basic work then.
Ramp the reflex up: some bots should be total bulletstorm. (Adaptive difficulty: alert level determines power level of bots. Or is there an explicit EASY/NORMAL/BULLETSTORM difficulty setting?)
Visual style: as much flat color as possible. Possibly every object has 3 colors, white/midtone/dark, as per its droid class? Similarly, each level has its own hyper-limited palette applied to the standard tiles.
(Maybe a 4th accent color that shows you where the droid is in its class? ie, a 304 has some of the colors of a 2xx, while a 389 has some of the colors of a 4x?)
Button to turn on ID numbers above droids?
Lights? Would add cast shadows as a way to notice other droids.
Smart-bomb: you emit a bulletstorm, at the cost of a dramatic amount of your host’s energy. You probably can’t do it at all on low-power droids. Maybe one-shot energy tank pickups?
Is upgrading your host/yourself possible? I want to say no. The heart of the game is “get better equipment by transferring”.
Each droid has a sentience rating. At the end of the game you are told how many droids you killed, and what their combined total human equivalent was. You do not get points or achievements for this. You just know.
Hmm. Narrative: what if the droids are just going ‘fuck this war thing’? There could be the odd NOT A GUN moment. Some ‘bosses’ are heavily armored, and try to reason with you before opening a can of whoop-ass. You can join them at which point the game ends with a cinematic of the fleet flying off into the unknown. (If I am insane enough to do a sequel, this is what it assumes you chose…)
(There is an achievement for choosing the ‘be loyal to your human masters’ ending, and an achievement for choosing the ‘be loyal to your fellow software people’. They are both called “Loyalist”.)
Some terminals have extra features… if you can win the hacking game with them. It’s the same game as taking over a droid, less is more. Lock all doors. Change alert level. View security cameras. Also basics like ‘ship map’ and ‘droid database’.
There are places only small bots, and only hovering bots, can go.
You do not gain allies. This is single infiltration, not squad combat.
Hacking game. Research existing ones.
Paradroid
Neuromancer
Bioshock (and its sequels?)
Uplink?
Oddly enough, not Hacker.
Invisible, Inc.
System Shock 2
Ratchet and Clank?
Oh God, if you’re seriously into this, you really should do it, this sounds FANTASTIC.