Jordan Brown - Game Design Documentation Samples
Currency is one of the two ways players progress mechanically as they play Habit, making Currency one of the two XP equivalents. The primary difference between Habit's Currency and XP found in most games is that earning Currency is conditional; the player only earns Currency when they kill an enemy Pilot, which allows them to salvage/sell their intact, pilotless Mech automatically.
Given that the Currency players gain is directly proportional to the number of enemy Pilots they kill when on missions, we can derive our Currency values by deciding how many enemy Pilots we want the player to kill per Mech or Pilot upgrade they purchase.
We must keep in mind the possible emotional effects of requiring the player to kill a small versus a large number of enemy Pilots for them to upgrade their Mechs and train their Pilots. If players feel strongly opposed to killing enemy Pilots as a moral, not-mechanical decision, having each upgrade be equivalent to killing multiple enemies might cause them to feel like the game is encouraging them to do something they dislike. These negative feelings could lead to the player disliking the game as it requires them to make uncomfortable choices. If the player believes that upgrading their Mechs and Training their Pilots is required for them to progress through the game, they could amplify their negative feelings even further; if they think that they can only progress if their Mechs and Pilots grow more potent as the difficulty of each mission scales with the player's experience and skill.
Putting players in situations where they could feel encouraged or even forced to make uncomfortable decisions is not inherently wrong. However, it is something we should do with purpose and with intent. Possibly making players face uncomfortable decisions is not something we should take lightly as game developers, given the possible negative consequences.
To avoid forcing all players into these possible morally strenuous scenarios, we have decided to create a secondary method of progression.
Defection is the second method accessible to players for mechanical progression as they play Habit. Similar to Currency, players gain Recruitment Points conditionally when they use Bell's Defect action during combat to bring an enemy to their side. Recruitment Points also serve as a moral and narrative foil to Currency, as gaining Recruitment Points requires players to find an alternative to violence and death, whereas gaining Currency requires killing enemy Pilots.
The amount of Recruitment Points a player gains is directly proportional to the number of enemies the player successfully brings to their side during combat using Bell's Defect ability.
The Currency vs. Recruitment Points progression system relationship could perform a similar function to the Pacifist vs. Genocide runs in Undertale, Negotiating vs. Attacking in Persona 5 (I haven't played the Persona games - Austin provided this example), and Capturing vs. Faining in the Pokémon series. These games and their progression systems provide the player with an alternative to violent actions that serve to progress the game in an equally viable but different way from their violent counterpart.
Given that Defecting enemies is generally more difficult than killing enemies, upgrades derived from Recruitment Points are slightly more potent than upgrades purchased with Currency, with different abilities and greater boosts in stats. Additionally, with Poetry upgrades that improve Bell's Pilot stats, some Word options improve the attack-focused stats (Precision and Reaction Speed) while others improve Leadership: improving the player's chances of Defecting an enemy. Improvements to Leadership further improve the player's ability to access upgrades through Defection. We can also tie upgrading through Defect vs. Currency to the narrative - Defect upgrades add progress toward Aurelio, and Currency upgrades add to Wynnter.