Greetings,
The time surrounding Week 5's Engine Proof was difficult. The tech was behind, but the concepts were fine. However, all of those concepts, the prototype, and the majority of the engine have been scrapped, as we're going in a completely different direction.
Our team has changed since then. One of our designers has left the team on account of being accepted for an internship; this was something we were aware of. While he's a strong designer and definite asset to the team, it's not as terrible of a blow since we still have one designer--me. The other change is that our technical director left the team as well. This has significantly changed the game. He was our strongest dev, and he was the main driving force behind the physics of the game. It was his vision to have a particle-based game.
Since we have a small dev group, we are completely changing the game from a particle-based, heavily physics-oriented experience into a simple top-down, 2D shooter. It's simple, but it's tried and true. It's appropriate for our now even smaller dev team. The challenge of it is for me actually, as the designer. I've got to come up with a way to make the game different from the vast number of shooters currently out there.
We did a fair amount of research into this, looking at several different games. We analyzed the mechanics and characteristics of everything from Asteroids and Space Invaders to much more recent game like Geometry Wars and Everyday Shooter, covering a lot in between, such as Touhou, Ikaruga, and 1945. One game that I did personal research into was Parodius. What I was looking for specifically was the style of the game. It's a very quirky and random game, and I felt like that was something we could incorporate into our game in order to bring it up out of the rest of the genre.
Mechanic-wise, we've basically settled on a Geometry Wars style of game wherein the player is in a static map (as opposed to the Touhou or Ikaruga style of vertical scrolling). We're considering three directions to go for gameplay:
1. Gain money for perks (more damage, faster, etc.) with a safehouse in which to buy them.
2. Have no shooting and ram into other enemies with a certain kind of shield.
3. Gather weapons that can be mixed together or of the same kind that can be stacked to increase effectiveness.
2. Have no shooting and ram into other enemies with a certain kind of shield.
3. Gather weapons that can be mixed together or of the same kind that can be stacked to increase effectiveness.
We're also not sure which direction we want to go visually speaking. I spent time last night creating concept art for the game. I created 4 sets of maps, player characters, bullets, and 2 enemy types for the different stylistic directions we were considering.
Artistic
Quirky/Random
Retro
Bullets: http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i147/Lordess_Nerevar/GAM300/Concept_Retro-Bullets0000.png
Enemy 1: http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i147/Lordess_Nerevar/GAM300/Concept_Retro-EnemySm0000.png
Enemy 2: http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i147/Lordess_Nerevar/GAM300/Concept_Retro-EnemyBg0000.png
Techno
We'll be having a meeting with our professor this weekend, which will most likely result in definite answers for most, if not all, of our questions regarding these design issues. Look for another post this weekend after the meeting to see the decisions. Peace.
Sincerely,
Alicia.
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