The new singleplayer Scraps game mode I'm working on is called Gauntlet.
You know how games are prone to having some sort of epic conflict you've got to resolve? Yeah well, here that conflict happened, and now it's long over, and it left only ruins behind. Here, we fight over the scraps. And there's one place with the biggest stockpile of scrap of all. And it's well defended. But you're already on the road.

Overview

OK enough cliché. So how will it play? Well, it's sort of a Scraps Roguelike, or more like what's being referred to these days as a Roguelite or (and I realise this is the dumbest term ever) a Roguelike-like. I usually avoid comparing Scraps directly to other games in official posts as it always seems a little sad when someone can only describe their game in terms of other games. But to get a basic idea, take Vlambeer's popular Nuclear Throne for instance. Nuclear throne isn't much like Scraps in terms of how the game actually plays, but imagine the character is your Scraps vehicle, the Rads that you pick up are scrap, the mutations you buy are vehicle parts, and the end-of-level portal is an evac pad at the end of a road, and you might sort of have a picture of what Gauntlet mode is.

Gameplay Breakdown

Everything here is subject to change since a lot of this hasn't actually been tested yet. It has to play well. But the idea is: 1. Player starts with around 3000 scrap to create a basic starter vehicle.
2. They enter a semi-procedurally generated level in World 1. I talked a bit about level gen in preview#7. A piece of a larger map is selected, and the player and evac pad are placed:

Then out of a set of hand-placed content, a subset of that content is selected to use in the level:
(top-down view showing active stuff highlighted in green - you might need to click for full size to see it well) 3. The player traverses the level 4. The player reaches the evac point at the end of a level 5. The can spend scrap they've collected on their vehicle 6. Next level begins... After completing the three levels of World 1, they go onto World 2. If they manage to complete all the levels in all the worlds, they loop back around to World 1, but now they can no longer collect any more Scrap. The goal then will be to destroy as many enemy units as possible before their vehicle is destroyed. Final score will be based on:

• Total scrap value of enemy units destroyed (i.e. scrap in crates doesn't count)
• As a lesser factor, time to complete the initial run (i.e. before looping back to World 1)

Looping back should be difficult - it's not meant to be easy to complete. And if the player dies, that's it - they start again.
Some more details:

• Every level has a road going through it, with you spawning on the road at one end and the evac pad spawning at the other end.
• Every time you enter world 1-1 or whatever specific level, it will be generated with roughly the same total scrap value, divided in the same way between enemy content that shoots you and inanimate stuff like crates. As the level increases the total scrap in that level also increases.
• You do not have to destroy the enemies in a level to activate the evac point. You can sneak around (most content will be on or near the road) and just go straight there if you like. But you won't have collected scrap from destroying things, which will likely harm your chances eventually, and you won't increase your score.
• At the end of a level, you'll get some "free" repair time on top of the scrap you've collected - an equivalent scrap value of vehicle repairs that will be performed for free (including destroyed parts), but that can't be spent on additional parts. If you have more damage than your free repair time covers, you can still spend scrap on repairs to cover the rest if you have it. This means that more of your scrap collection can count towards actual upgrades - it levels out the results a bit and encourages actually going after dangerous enemy units.
• I'm thinking of three levels per world because well, I have to get a certain amount of use out of the content I'm creating, but it may become two.

ETA

I'd love to also be saying "and the Gauntlet update will be released on {date}!" here as well, but the fact is I'm not sure. I still have a fair amount to do on it especially with having other part-time work on now. What I can say is that I will keep writing updates on progress every week. I was writing updates every two weeks before I started doing the Secret New Content Previews; I'm going to continue that as weekly now. It's good motivation for me as well to get significant things done and not get bogged down in the small details and less important tasks. Here's what's done and what's not on Gauntlet: DONE

• Created all enemy and inanimate unit types for the new mode - turrets, drones, crates, walls etc
• Created three maps for the new mode, which is enough for the initial release
• Wrote the AI for all the new unit types and updated (with Dave's help) existing vehicle AI
• Got some AI vehicle designs from people on the Scraps forum
• Got my semi-procedural level generation system working
• Wrote some tools to make creating new terrains super fast

TODO FOR INITIAL RELEASE

• Populate the three maps with lots more content for the level generator to choose from
• Write the framework around the new mode - handling game start, game end, scoring etc
• Finish up the level generation system
• Finish up the desert and snow terrains
• Make some more vehicles for the AI to use
• Add leaderboards? Or initial release might just give you a local score, and add online leaderboards later

TODO LATER

• Token system: Along with scrap wreckage, I want vehicles to be able to drop tokens that let you unlock new parts - either just within the current game, or usable anywhere. For example, a super big cannon you can use in the current game, or a cosmetic piece you can use anywhere that you can only get by getting so far in Gauntlet.
• More worlds: Ideally I want five worlds rather than three. Some level of extra content might depend a bit on how much people actually enjoy the game mode.

Thanks for reading! P.S. I suddenly thought I might have accidentally mentioned the game mode name back at preview #5 when I got the comment on it. Well predicted.