Fall Week 2 Worklog: Game Mechanics and Levels (Take 1)
I figured I should actually, y'know, write out what the gameplay mechanics and such are for this thing instead of just spinning them around in my head at maximum velocity.
yapping below the read more if you're interested
General Gameplay Mechanics
- Basic 3D environment movement, jumping, and a dash.
- Player HP - Sliding health bar? 100 HP?
- The camera will be 3rd person, controlled by mouse movement.
- In SOME areas it'll be locked to one perspective (like the hub area)
- Maybe I'll have the player be able to zoom in and out via the scroll wheel
- The basic gameplay loop is as follows:
- Player starts out on the subway
- The subway stops, player exits
- Player enters a random level, subway leaves
- Player explores the level and finds the subway car door once again
- Player enters the subway, loop
- During the intermissions in between the levels, the player will have a chance to interact with the subway car's AI, Ferri, where they can store or sell items they've picked up on their travels.
- Player Inventory
- The player will have an inventory where they can collect items they find in the levels.
- limited to maybe 5 slots?
- Items
- The player will be able to collect items in the various levels, from there they can decide if they want to sell them for currency (used to buy rarer items from shops), or use them on themselves, or store them on the subway.
- Different items can have different effects on the player (healing, speed, jump height… maybe some other sillay effects and such if time allows)
- If the player dies they'll lose all the items they're currently holding in their inventory.
- Currency
- Currency can be obtained either through finding coin bags in levels, or by selling items during level intermissions. Admittedly I am still on the fence about if I want to include coin bags in levels or not as I feel like finding and selling items would be more interesting
- Also still debating over whether the player should also lose all their currency after dying, leaning towards no.
Levels
Ok to start. I fully expect to scrap some of these as we get into development.
Level Hub - Subway Car (Ferri)
- The magical subway car that takes the player anywhere. Controlled by an AI named Ferri that the player can interact with via the terminal at the front.
- Talking with Ferri will let the player store/sell their items and save their game
- Ferri will also give hints to the player!
- Occasionally NPCs will be sitting on the train when Doc enters, they can talk with them during the level intermissions
Exploration Level 1 - Half Floor
- Level based on the weird floor that was in between the 14th and 15th floor of my old school (dubbed the 14th 1/2)
- There's an NPC on this floor, Sloppy Joe, you can chat with him and after visiting on this floor he has a chance to appear on the subway car.
- To complete this level there's a maze of ventilation the player needs to make it through
- If I decide to keep the items/coin system I'll have some of those hidden here
Exploration Level 2 - Digital Bliss
- Level with aesthetics based on windows XP. Low poly plants and nature and… stuff like that.
- Heavily taking inspiration from another project of mine about a world that takes place inside of a computer and the main characters are all like…. programs and computer viruses and such
- I'm still not entirely sure what I want to put here right now… but I kind of want to try and do some computer wizardry with C# and have the game send out popups and such.
- The player could get damaged here by glitches? maybe?
Shop - Keep's Shop
- A shop that has rotating stock every time you visit it and sells items that can't be found in levels
- If I get rid of the item system this one is getting scrapped for now.
Minigame 1 - Chase
- A small platforming segment where the player has to escape a giant monster that's chasing after them (the subway doors reappear at the end of the level)
- Still coming up with what I want this area to look like and what the monster should be… maybe it wont even be a monster? just some danger chasing the player that OKOs them when they get hit.
- Visuals aren't as big of a priority on these levels so I hypothetically could stay with some more basic structures. Maybe it could be an unsteady crumbling building? and you gotta escape the decay?
Minigame 2 - Hold!
- ok so this one basically the player would need to hold down a button for 30(?) seconds total while avoiding getting hit by canonballs? Lazers?
- lowkey I am tempted to make this level themed after my one clown character, Offiz. In one of my games I made last school year I gave them an attack that would shoot smiley-faced balls at the player.
- I imagine the button would be in the center of a circular circus tent, canons on the wall that shoot bouncy balls at random
- If the player does not complete the task in time they'll be teleported back to the subway car (this goes for the other levels to, I think it'd be funny when time's up the subway door pops up underneath Doc)
Honestly the planning for this thing is driving me a bit mad, while the dev time I have for this thing IS longer than time I've gotten in the past, it still is roughly 6 months. Most of my game projects I worked on at my previous university would be done in half a semester, though of course they were rather half-baked and buggy due to the time constraints. I guess I'm just worried that I'm going a bit too in over my head for this, but at the same time if I remove too much I feel like I'll be losing some of that game element to present come thesis presentations… I guess with all this preproduction stuff there's also part of my brain that's just like DUDE YOU'RE LOSING TIMEEEE when like. I kinda have to do this? I have to pitch my idea. I don't know, this is probably just another battle with myself.
There is part of me that feels like I'm biting off more than I can chew again though. I don't know. I have an informal pitch with the professors next week so I'll probably get some feedback then. If anything honestly after writing all of this out I am considering scrapping the item/currency/shop system to focus more on gameplay/exploration… but I also feel like I'm losing player incentives y'know? The only actual incentive would be to just explore around, which sure isn't bad on its own but I also want this to be fun. Perhaps I'm being too harsh on myself.
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