A show that has tens of billions of viewers is a show that attracts the attention of money makers. Today we'll be talking about the sponsor mechanic!
We’re 175 years in the future, planets across the galaxy have been colonized by Humanity, now called the Human Sphere, and a whole set of interstellar nations are playing a power game over who has control over what. Meanwhile, The Hexadome: Aristeia Showdown is the most watched show in the entire Human Sphere. Naturally, who says show says audience, and who says audience says advertisements. Sponsors play a major role in our world. Some sponsors are closely tied to nations, which have everything to gain from putting their champions at the forefront to promote their interests, whether political or financial. And our champions return the favor by providing sponsors with great visibility during the matches.
The Hexadome attracts all kinds of sponsors, from entertainment TV channels to arms dealers, pharmaceutical companies to interstellar tourism agencies, there is something for everyone. Each will offer you different advantages during the game to help you achieve your goals. Are you the people pleaser kind? Oxyd, the #1 TV channel, will earn you Cheers. More of a trigger-happy type? Cinetics, PanOceania's main weapons supplier, will help you eliminate your opponents. Choose wisely, victory may depend on it.
In the same way that you will choose your characters beforehand, you will choose your sponsors before entering the Hexadome. Once the sponsors have been chosen, they will need to be given visibility in the arena. They are scattered around the Hexadome in the form of advertising panels, and you will have to position yourself next to them to trigger a mini cutscene which will highlight your champion and the sponsor who invested so much money for a few precious seconds of visibility. This means that you will have to make choices: take control of scoring zones and get victory points, or seek out a sponsor to benefit from a powerful advantage? Is there a way to do both?
Like the crowd mechanic, sponsors serve as a lever to fuel the strategic depth of the game. They provide a secondary objective allowing you to explore new strategies to win, and can be used as a comeback mechanic, giving you an advantage for the next round.
With a dice system revisited to be more dynamic, the crowd and its mechanics for improving characters and their skills, and the sponsors who make you evaluate what is the best strategy to win: we promise you that each game of The Hexadome will be exciting and unique!
