The newly-launched FPS titleMycopunkis releasing with some especially innovative features. One such mechanic isMycopunk’s grid-based system for weapon upgrades, inspired by the spatial inventories of games likeResident Evil.
Pigeons at Play’sMycopunkis bringing a number of new twists to the FPS genre, all packaged within a zany sci-fi world. The title recently launched in early access, but a substantial amount of content is already available to players—such as the game’s unique upgrade system. Game Rant sat down with members of the game’s team, including CEO and creative director Liam Cribbs, lead 3D artist/animator Ryan Yan, and lead writer Noah, all of whom spoke more about what makes the system tick.
Mycopunk’s Upgrade System Takes A Page From Resident Evil’s Playbook
The Basics Of Mycopunk’s Upgrades
TheMycopunkupgrade system, on the surface, operates on the same principle as similar systems found in other games: players can unlock different resources during missions and convert them into weapon upgrades. The first key difference is in the format, with each weapon sporting a spatial hex-grid that players need to slot each upgrade into (as every upgrade sports a different shape). The other significant difference is in severity; some upgrades and/or combinations of upgrades can completely change how weapons work.
Cribbs spoke about how these elements work in tandem to produce extreme results withinMycopunk’s weapon upgrade tree. With how the spatial grid forces players to carefully choose each upgrade, the payoff reveals itself in some heavy firepower:
“I think what really makes it unique is the upgrades, like being able to completely change how your guns work. The gunplay is fun, but other games have fun gun play. However, most games don’t let you apply, like, 10 different game-breaking upgrades to your gun that’ll turn an SMG into a rocket launcher. So with our upgrade system, we really wanted to give players the freedom to break the game in a (hopefully) somewhat balanced way. It’s all about creating cool combinations between upgrades that might be good on their own, but together they’re really cool. There’s this one set of upgrades for Glider that’s really good in combination; one of them lets you fire just one of her rockets at a time, and the other one refunds wingsuit fuel when you fire a rocket, so you may just sort of keep tapping fire and fly forever.”
The Advantages of Mycopunk’s Spatial System
A spatial system such as this is rooted inseries likeResident Evil, and the team behindMycopunkagrees. Matheu went more into detail about what inspired this system, as well as the benefits of a spatial grid:
“There are some obvious inspirations, likeGhostrunnerand just spatial inventories in general. SayingResident Evilfeels weird, but it’s that idea of how much you may pack into a little space, and especially like when we’re building the loop of the game and saying, like, ‘Oh, where are players going to spend their downtime?’ Having that kind of fun little activity of doing your upgrades in the hub really just clicks with everything else.”
While theinventories of games likeGhostrunnerhave certainly played the part of inspiringMycopunk, being an upgrade system required further innovation. Cribbs spoke further about the other opportunities afforded by the system’s unique attributes, saying, “As soon as we prototyped it, we found it was really fun to combine things, even with the few upgrades we had in the game back then. We just knew we wanted to expand on it and add cool interactions that actually use the space, like certain upgrades being buffed based on the upgrades that surround them.” Yan added that “a big part of it is the min-maxing of getting everything you want in there—finding the right placement of all of those upgrades is pretty satisfying.”
