CABAL - the game

Screenshots

Game Flow

Each level of the game has two phases, the buying phase and the defense phase occuring in the that sequence.

During the buying sequence, the player is presented with his territory and a sidebar containing the upgrades that the player can choose. What the player can upgrade will be limited by how much money he has. Initially, the player will be given empty bases and he will have enough money to choose between buying more basic weapons or having less weapons but having a more advanced weapon.

Once the buying phase is over, the defense phase starts. The player starts from the his homebase and waits for missle launch alerts. Once an enemy missle is airborn, the player must respond so that his cities do not die. As the player has limited bases to fire from and because of a reload time inherent in all of the weapons, the player is forced to manage his weapons as missles rain down from all directions.

The player chooses which of his bases to control by either selecting them with a mouse or pressing a shortcut key. Selecting a base will project a path from the base to the pointer of the players mouse. When the player left clicks, a missle of the appropriate type will fly from the base to the coordinates that the player chose with the mouse. It will explode there and destroy any enemy missles it touches.

The missle patterns in each level is predetermined, allowing a player with enough patience an opportunity to memorize how to take down the enemy missles succesfully. A level will end once all the missles in the pattern have been fired.

When the level ends, the player is awarded credits according to how many cities he has left and how accurate his shooting was. The player can then use these credits to buy a better arsenal in the next buying phase.

At the third stage, the player must defend against nuclear missles which are able to destroy more than one city at once. If the player can survive this onslaught, he is shown the cutscene of a retaliatory nuclear strike against the enemies.

Design Brief

Inspiration

The gameplay for CABAL is inspired mainly by Missle Command. The goal is similar, defend your cities from incoming enemy missles by shooting them down with your own missles. However, in CABAL the action takes place in a top down perspective instead of the side view presented in traditional Missle Command games.

Graphically and thematically CABAL takes after a game currently in production, Introversion Software's Defcon. The graphics are sterile vector graphics designed to look like something you may see in an army control center deep underground, far removed from the realities of the nuclear war being waged above.

Gameplay elements

The goal for the player is to defend his cities from enemy missles by shooting them down with his own weapons. There are eight cities to defend. When all eight are destroyed the game ends.

The game is presented to the player in a top down view, like a map. In the center of the game area is the player's bases and the cities he is defending. Surrounding him are the enemy missle bases.

The player is in control of his bases which are able to shoot down missles fired by the enemies. These bases can be upgraded for better fire power, range or reload time. To upgrade his bases, the player uses credits which are rewarded to him after every round.

The win condition is when the player completes the third level with at least one city left. The player loses when all eight of the cities are destroyed by enemy missles.

C.A.B.A.L.

C.A.B.A.L.

Doomsday Countdown

The very existence of the homeland is under threat. Surrounded by a hostile country, nuclear annihilation is an imminent reality for your countrymen. Weapons of mass destruction are arrayed against you. Scud missles tipped with anthrax, cruise missles packed with chemical weapons. ICBMs armed with multiple nuclear warheads.

All of them ready to wipe you off the face of the earth with a single push of the button.

This is the reason for C.A.B.A.L. The Central Anti Ballistic Authority Layer, a system designed to unify the anti-ballistic defenses of the country to a single point. The ability to see all threats, to see the whole picture and to respond immediately.

You are in control of C.A.B.A.L. You will save the homeland.