Devlog - Scavengers, Bandits and Gangs

The world of Pawsecuted is a dangerous place. The Evolved were united during the early stages of the Great Mammal War, but the following decades of violence led to the inevitable collapse of society. In this post I'll talk about how encounters work in the game.

Encounters are groups of enemies you can meet on the game world. Each encounter belongs to a gang (scavengers, bandits, wildlife, etc) and each gang has preferences for where they spawn and what they're carrying. 

For example, the Snake "gang" prefers dense bushland and don't carry anything (since they're snakes), so you'll face stronger groups of snakes deep in the forest compared to open plains. Likewise, the Scavenger gang carries more shovels and prefer city ruins since that's where all the good loot is located.

Each encounter is composed of a psuedo-random pool of animals and equipment. This adds some variety to each battle and you won't know exactly what you're up against immediately. You'll need to scout out an enemy on the battlefield to figure out what equipment they have and who's using it.

One battle might have you face off against a weakly possum with a hunting rifle, while in another you might be dealing with a tanky kangaroo with grenades. If a battle looks unwinnable, you can always run away of course to fight another day.

All this makes night time battles particularly dangerous. Since you can't see as far during the night, it's harder to figure out what the enemy has equipped. Everyone also moves slower and ranged weapon accuracy decreases as it gets darker.

I haven't mentioned how all encounters spawn from hideouts that can be destroyed, but that's a topic for another post.