the task structure of the endless mode

The endless mode is going to be divided into, what I initially call, chapters. The idea is that chapters are completely different parts of a bigger story. And each should end with some mini story arc but the core of the chapters are going to be tasks.

As I’d like to avoid just a pure mix of various tasks, I came up with a system that helps the game to choose which tasks to offer to the player. The basic idea is that the player should start with simple tasks that narratively provide some knowledge about places to visit and things to do, then they may choose to do these more complex/advanced tasks which provide even more knowledge until they do a single task that is a climax.

I divided the tasks into three tiers and to make it possible for the game to choose which tasks/tiers are available, I introduced a hidden currency – intel points.

If you collect enough intel points, you get access to higher tiers. But also the lower tiers at some point might get inaccessible, forcing the player to perform more advanced tasks. If you fail or sometimes start higher-level task, you will lose some intel points moving you back to lower tiers. As soon as you get access to higher tiers, you will see information about it in the debriefing.

If you perform a task, all the tasks from the current tier and lower tiers will be different. This means that if there is just one task available for tier, it won’t change until you try to do the task. You may abort the task or ignore the objectives but you will still have to do it. There is no punishment and the game doesn’t record failures. This is by design and to give some sense of continuity.

Another feature is urgency – you can’t just be doing lower-tier tasks infinitely. At some point the lowest-tier tasks will become unavailable, then the mid-tier leaving you with top-tier task. And again it is worth mentioning that the game won’t punish you for failing the tasks.

This is also something I wanted to put in the story mode, the game is hard at times, there are some harder sections but they do not expect the player to finish them 100%. The first turret section? It is supposed to be that hard to give the sense that even if you fail, you move forward. I don’t want to spoil too much but the whole story revolves around this idea. You win, you lose, you have to keep going.