What is Dropzone?

Dropzone is an experimental real time strategy game, and acts as a testbed for my ideas and concepts. It's a mix of Command and Conquer with Lego, where players build their own units.

Dropzone is a classic RTS in many ways. All the chaos, destruction, explosions, basebuilding, resource gathering, and army control you could want. However, there are some core differences. The big thing is players are able to design and deploy customizable units, made from component parts. For instance, a body, machine gun, and some wheels can make a light buggy unit. Players will also be able to deploy units from orbital dropships, anywhere they choose. At any time and place, the player can open a flexible menu, deciding exactly where and what to deploy on the map. With both these features, players have unparalleled levels of freedom over their strategy.

Dropzone takes place in a vast and mysterious sci fi universe, where superpowers jockey for influence. Using cybernetic implants, combatant's minds are uploaded into an intelligent combat network, controlling swarms of self replicating Von Neumann probes. Inspired by hard science fiction, military science fiction, and Solarpunk. Despite the combat, I want to depict a more optimistic future, one that people would actually want to live in. For now all that really matters is that it's a sci fi game.

This page acts as a center for all Dropzone related devlog posts and game design thoughts. One thing I need to emphasize is that this project is experimental. As of right now, anything related to the game is subject to change. I'm also pretty busy in my life, and working on another game, but this is an idea I've been working towards for a long time and I'm excited to show off what I've been working on. So this site is about what's been done and what the future holds.

At the moment the game has several core features functional, although they have not been put together into a cohesive minimum viable product just yet. Custom units can be loaded from a file, and the game will calculate all of the stats, and dropships can be used to deploy units.

Dropzone design principles