Roadmap
Private Testing
During the buggier early days when the game isn't really fun, it will be playable for free to official Nightcycle Studios testers.
[0.3.0] Core Gameplay
September 2021
New Character Customization
The new character customization system will be tested, allowing for cage meshes and various character art styles.
Procedural Map
At this stage the map will feel pretty generic, having a limited number of building types, none of which will have much of an interior. It's meant more to be a proof of concept - show that this is in fact something we can do without crashing every phone in the galaxy. The immersive and roleplay aspects will be improved upon in following updates.
Custom Super Powers & Combat
Players can create and use custom super powers. A basic form of the progression system may be in place.
[0.4.0] Cities & Destruction
Fall 2021
Custom Servers
Players will be able to make custom servers. Paid variants will be available that allow for setting preferences relating to map generation & in-game rules. A public server list will also become available.
City Generation
No more will all your roleplays take place in endless wilderness! We'll be releasing a basic city generator to help provide a fuller experience.
Map Destruction
With the map being fully procedural, the goal is to make it fully destroyable! There might be some limitations such as a bedrock a certain depth below soil, but the dream is for a person to be able to be punched through a building and land in a crater on the street only to reveal a sewer system under it.
Pre-Alpha: Paid Access Release [1.0.0]
Super Hero Life IV will become available to the wider public, possibly with some subtitle included on marketing and in the title sequence.
Private testers will lose free access during this time. In return for purchasing the player will also get in-game flair + eventual in-game currency proportional to their spending. This is more of a pre-order of the game in that sense.
As to the exact price it is expected to be around 250-450 robux, but will go down as more monetization is introduced into the game.
[1.1.0] Roleplay II
Weather & Seasons
Maps will cycle through seasons & weather events similar to as shown in SHL3.
Minigames
Some small minigames like a hero tournament, battle royal mode, supersuit fashion show, monologue rap battle, etc.
First Person Mode
It's an important thing to have in any roleplay game, but it kept getting bumped so the current plan is to complete it once all the other crazy stuff has been completed in this chapter of the roadmap.
Basic NPCs
Basic NPCs that walk around, run away from danger, may say some general phrases when confronted by a player.
[1.2.0] Vehicles & Real Estate
Vehicles & Mechs
Get in a vehicle and fight people! It will auto-recolor to fit your character like SHL2 vehicles.
Vehicle Customization
Now you can customize your vehicles! Some limited attack variations are possible, boost various stats, and of course visual recoloring and attachments!
Real Estate
Buy a place to live! You'll be able to choose from multiple generated livable areas. On top of that you'll be able to purchase a secret base with various modular customizations & recoloring options!
[1.3.0] Adventures
Action Events
Hero and Villain opportunities will pop up on the map. Heroes will get alerts of natural disasters like say a building catching fire or collapsing. Villains will get crime opportunities like a cash truck departing from a bank. Heroes are not alerted to villain opportunities until a villain commits a crime. Some opportunities will be semi-permanent, such as a lab on the map being robbable / destroyable once every few in-game days.
NPC Personality & Backstory Generation
Talking with NPCs will be a lot less bland, with each having a unique identity & backstory which you can get to learn. This will be built off of by the story generator. Some official lore will also be sprinkled throughout the game.
Story Generator
Players will be able to embark on quest like adventures in a private server. These adventures are meant to evoke the experience of watching a superhero movie or playing a videogame story mode except it's procedurally generated. These stories will allow players to insert stuff about their own characters & choose character arcs. It will be a multiplayer roleplaying experience that is currently hoped to last between 20-45 minutes, traveling the map with multiple action scenes meant to further the plot.
At first the story structure will focus on a basic hero and basic villain plot, with modular deviations to allow for replayability. Over time though more stories hope to be added to further flesh out things, as well as continue previous stories in the form of sequels / extra seasons of a TV show. At the start, the antagonist will be an NPC, however over time we're hoping to combine hero and villain stories together to allow for a every major role to be a player should they like.
Alpha: Free Release [2.0.0]
The game may be retitled with the previous subtitle, allowing the game to embrace non directly superhero-related genres to a fuller extent. During this period it will use "Super Hero Life IV" as the subtitle to reduce confusion.
The game will become available to everyone for free to play.
[2.1.0] Time Travel
In-Server Time Travel to Time Period Variants of Current Map
In order to get the most out of the society procedural generation, an entire history of the region will be generated. Players will be able to time travel to different time periods of the current server. Using the generated history as a reference it will be able to generate the same island across multiple time periods, preserving major roads, environmental features, and even NPC families.
The current time periods planned are:
10,000 BC: Paleolithic
400s BC: Ancient
800s AD: Medieval
1500s AD: Renaissance
1800s AD: Industrial Revolution
2020s AD: Present day
2040s AD: Cyberpunk future
2050s AD: Mortal Metal robot apocalypse
2100s AD: A New World
2400s AD: Interstellar Life
Butterfly Effect
Changing stuff in the past will alter the future, so if you go back in time and kill an NPC's ancestor, that NPC just blips out of existence. If you go and blow up enough ground to make a lake, a lake will appear in modern day. Private servers will be able to lock the game to certain time periods, as well as disable the butterfly effect in case they don't like the idea of their house turning into a lake beneath their feet.
[2.2.0] Game Editor
Terrain Editor
Create mountains, valleys, canyons, rivers, etc.
City Editor
Change what types roads/buildings spawn + change their appearance within the range of the generator.
Interior Editor
Mess around with the algorithm as well as hand place certain rooms and furniture.
NPC Behavior Editor
Set various NPC states, as well as assemble custom backstories & motivations.
Lore Editor
Create some basic custom lore + connect it to custom time periods.
[2.3.0] Enhanced Game Modes
New preset gameplay modes will be introduced, catering to survival crafting, first person shooters, creative mode, etc.
Beta: To the Stars [3.0.0]
The game is currently locked to a single planet - granted one with time travel, but a single planet all the same. Long term we're hoping to allow for interplanetary and eventually interstellar space travel.
A lot of the technology and ideas driving Nightships will be incorporated, allowing players to make spaceships, visit a procedurally generated universe, all while retaining the super-powers and stats they built on earth. Unlike Nightships it won't focus so much on the galactic conquest stuff (though you are welcome to try).
Spaceships spawning will be locked to past a certain time period, however you'll be able to time warp the entire spaceship in case you want to really freak out some cavemen.
As these updates are released, they'll be integrated into the game editor.
Earlier versions will be a bit reduced, to start with players will be able to travel between planets in the solar system through a flying superpower, a small prefab spaceship (no walkable interior, just a cockpit), or spawning at another planet directly. There won't be much to do in space at this time, but there should be some cool unique activities on new planets.
[3.1.0] Spaceships
Custom spaceships will be creatable in an improved Nightships style, with more refined tools and polished mechanics. Procedurally generated spaceships can also be purchased at a larger price.
Private servers can disable custom ships and enforce preset server-provided ships if they like. Basic space combat will be available at this time.
[3.2.0] Interstellar Travel
You may now go to other solar systems if your ship has an FTL drive.
What else could you want?
In all honesty, this game at this point will cover alternate dimensions, time travel, world creation, and interstellar travel. Beyond this point, the foundation of the game should hopefully be solid enough to build on for a long time. It's quite possible this will be the final "major" milestone, with everything else just further polishing and iterating upon existing mechanics.