I'm working on the design of a game called Weirs. I am still writing and rewriting the main design document, but I would enjoy any criticism you have to offer on the basic design. Weirs and Weir-Stones The player controls a character in a 2D world with top-down view, using arrow keys. The character is constantly casting spells (more on that later), which the player must aim at enemies bent on his destruction and Weir-Stones, which are medium-sized immobile and helpless objects. The game world is a randomly generated maze made of average-sized square rooms (a bit larger than the screen). Rooms are separated either by indestructible walls, or by potentially destructible walls called Weirs. Each room contains a Weir-Stone in its center, and when it is destroyed all Weirs around that room disappear. Rooms are initially all separated (that is, they are surrounded by four Weirs/walls). Winning The goal of the game is to start in the center room of the maze, and to destroy a set and known amount of Weir-Stones (increases with difficulty level). This will destroy all remaining Weirs and Weir-Stones on the map and open a gate in the center room, which the player must reach. Once the player reaches the gate, the game is saved and the player gains access to the next level, where fiendish enemies and more Weir-Stones await. The player has the opportunity to replay finished levels, if he so chooses. Losing You can't lose, as you will always have a save spot to start from. However, since you cannot save during levels, if you lose all your life (being hit by enemies and enemy bullets doesn't help), you die and have to start over from the last save point. Death does not affect anything else, however: anything you gained before you died is kept. You only have to start the level from the beginning. Spells The player starts with two Mind Slots. Mind slots can contain three things: spells, abilities, and research. Any spell in a Mind slot is active. If it's a shield, it is up. If it's a weapon, it fires constantly (some will aim, others home on enemies, others again shoot in the direction of movement). If it's an ability, it applies permanently. If it's a research, it receives experience points (more on this later). Through reseach, you can gain additional slots. The central strategic point in the game is the allocation of slots to the three kinds of resources. Research You can use research to run your way up a spell and ability tree, or to increase the power of an individual spell. Experience comes in the form of cubes dropped by enemies when they die. An enemy may drop a single cube (the harder it is in comparison to you, the higher the chance). If you are fighting in a level far more difficult than you can handle, you will even encounter cube barrels which drop several cubes. Cubes are attracted to the character and are picked up automatically (you won't get many if you're running away, though). Cubes are not split: if you have two research spells in your mind slots, and you pick a cube, then each research slot will be awarded a cube. So more research slots means faster research. You can put a given research in more than one research slot. However, a given spell or ability can only be put in one slot. Schools There are several sub-trees: Lower schools (ice, fire, wind...) are available from the start and Higher (or secondary) schools (mind, death, energy, flesh, hellbound...) become available after you have researched the required school-neutral spells. Each school has its own trees, and trees may share certain cross-school spells. Each school has a mastery spell which takes impressive experience to get, but also provides a large amount of power. You can only have two masteries in the higher schools, so you must choose them wisely. Two masteries give access to an unique cross-school spell of highest power. Enemies Each player strategy has its counter-measures. Enemies are selected at random among easy enemies at first, then smarter AI and efficiency against player strategies will be taken into account by the random maze generator. Certain enemies can curse the player: this results in the player being slower, or having inverse controls, or being partially blind, etc.

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All comments welcome. [Edited by - ToohrVyk on February 21, 2006 2:55:56 PM]

Interesting...sounds like it'll play like Gauntlet, only with more character-guided development (instead of hoping to find a dragon that has something you haven't found yet). The basic mechanics seem sound enough; here's some thoughts off the top of my head:

1) Rectangular rooms can get boring fast. Consider having a variety of level-generation algorithms so you can mix and match "styles" of level to keep things interesting.

2) Higher-level spells should ideally do more than just cause more damage. If the level 5 fireball is just a bigger level 1 fireball, then all you're really doing is forcing the player onto an experience treadmill. Spells with new trajectories, longer attack animations, reflection, penetration through enemies/walls, and the like can help keep the "new spell discovery" process fun.

3) You didn't discuss enemies here, but since the weirstones can't protect themselves, presumably there's a supply somewhere. I'd suggest having several "types" of enemies - enemies that spawn periodically (either from monster generators or out of the aether), enemies that are "placed" (i.e. are on the level from the start), enemies that spawn when triggers are hit (e.g. weirstone reaches 50% health) and so on. You could have levels where each room has only two uber-hard enemies, and the player can try to dodge their attacks and take the weirstones out, or kill them and have some peace and quiet. And so on. Variety here will help replayability.

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Original post by Derakon Interesting...sounds like it'll play like Gauntlet, only with more character-guided development (instead of hoping to find a dragon that has something you haven't found yet). The basic mechanics seem sound enough; here's some thoughts off the top of my head: 1) Rectangular rooms can get boring fast. Consider having a variety of level-generation algorithms so you can mix and match "styles" of level to keep things interesting.

Yet, I would like to keep the simplicity of the Weir maze system. How could I combine the two (aside from slightly unusual geometry inside the square rooms)?

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2) Higher-level spells should ideally do more than just cause more damage. If the level 5 fireball is just a bigger level 1 fireball, then all you're really doing is forcing the player onto an experience treadmill. Spells with new trajectories, longer attack animations, reflection, penetration through enemies/walls, and the like can help keep the "new spell discovery" process fun.

Don't worry, that is taken care of. Spells do more than just damage (some are instant kill, others rely on overloading energy, others boost the player's abilities, others serve as triggers for abilities, and so on). The Hellbound mastery spell, for instance, is: "All probabilities become 100%".

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3) You didn't discuss enemies here, but since the weirstones can't protect themselves, presumably there's a supply somewhere. I'd suggest having several "types" of enemies - enemies that spawn periodically (either from monster generators or out of the aether), enemies that are "placed" (i.e. are on the level from the start), enemies that spawn when triggers are hit (e.g. weirstone reaches 50% health) and so on.

Indeed, I did not think of enemy generators, which are always a good thing to have.

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You could have levels where each room has only two uber-hard enemies, and the player can try to dodge their attacks and take the weirstones out, or kill them and have some peace and quiet. And so on. Variety here will help replayability.

I did plan on having a wide variety of enemies. Basically, take an english dictionary of verbs, select a hundred of them, pair them, and use the pair to decide the behavior of a new enemy (for instance, Challenge + Cram), then find out if a school is unbalanced and add new enemies to balance things (using the smart enemy chooser).

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Original post by ToohrVyk Quote: Original post by Derakon1) Rectangular rooms can get boring fast. Consider having a variety of level-generation algorithms so you can mix and match "styles" of level to keep things interesting. Yet, I would like to keep the simplicity of the Weir maze system. How could I combine the two (aside from slightly unusual geometry inside the square rooms)?]

I'd recommend that you try playing some old-school Gauntlet (Gauntlet II on the NES is a good place to start). The levels aren't randomly generated, but there's a lot of them and you should be able to place them into a number of different styles.

I agree that just having room after room is simple. And if your gameplay is good, then it won't really matter that the rooms are all the same. But some extra room designs could add to gameplay significantly. Consider, for example, the potentials of a room filled with pillars that block movement and projectiles.

I'll have to take a look at this. Indeed, I believe it could be possible to have square "puzzle pieces" that connect with each other through weirs and have unusual shapes, with the shapes allowed depending on the level setting (simple maze, cave, other more difficult patterns).

I couls also add "pits", over which shots can fly, but which cannot be moved over by the player or enemies.

(Changed thread topic to reflect discussion)

Who is your target audience?

Why will they play this game over a game like gauntlet?

They will probably try it because it's new, and also completely free. They would keep on playing it because there is a large amount of paths available through the various magic schools (you can't use all of them at the same time) that you can discover, with original enough effects to keep the player curious.

I really like this idea, although it sounds a bit repetitive. To keep the player interested, I'd imagine you'd have to put a lot of thought into the progression of the game, if you haven't already.

It seems like there's many combinations that can be played to suit the player's style. IMO, this is the games greatest point. I could play this again and again just to try different approaches. Although it's a novel idea, if there's no reason for me to want to play to the end it won't matter how great the gameplay.

It's a good idea to consistantly challenge the player with choices but not to put them in a dead-end. Since you're generating the levels, this could be a danger to your design. What if a room challenges me with a beast that can be easily be beaten with cold spells but is too strong for me because I specialize in fire spells? It's hard to generate a situation that requires strategy without the danger of throwing it out of balance.

As for firing, I don't like the idea of it firing automatically. I don't mind having "homing" weapons if I invested the research for them, but I like to challenge/dilemma of having to decide when best to shoot and not to shoot (resource/ammunition/mana management).

Over all, I'd really like to see you build this. It sounds like it has great potential! Best of luck =)

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Original post by coderx75 I really like this idea, although it sounds a bit repetitive. To keep the player interested, I'd imagine you'd have to put a lot of thought into the progression of the game, if you haven't already. It seems like there's many combinations that can be played to suit the player's style. IMO, this is the games greatest point. I could play this again and again just to try different approaches. Although it's a novel idea, if there's no reason for me to want to play to the end it won't matter how great the gameplay.

There's not necessarily an end to the game (especially since you can keep playing as long as you want) even though one can be included. The main driving force is intended to be the constant discovery of new game worlds and enemies.

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It's a good idea to consistantly challenge the player with choices but not to put them in a dead-end. Since you're generating the levels, this could be a danger to your design. What if a room challenges me with a beast that can be easily be beaten with cold spells but is too strong for me because I specialize in fire spells? It's hard to generate a situation that requires strategy without the danger of throwing it out of balance.

There will probably be no such "Impossible to kill" enemy. The resistance of an enemy to a given school of magic is done by giving that enemy the AI and weapons to counter-act that school, not simply a percentage of resistance (in the end, most spells do the same type of damage, there's no specific "ice" damage or "cold" damage) although an enemy could be made to resist to a specific aspect of a school (liquid fire does not stick, cannot be frozen, etc).

However, it is true that the more you move into the game, the harder the enemies will get, since the game will carefully select enemies that are resistant to your playing style and/or choice of schools. Still, you can always (as with most RPGs) move to the previous area and increase your level there, switch to another skillset (you should have plenty of spells, even within the same school, to allow for a breadth of playing styles), or find a clever way to change your current strategy so you beat that enemy.

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As for firing, I don't like the idea of it firing automatically. I don't mind having "homing" weapons if I invested the research for them, but I like to challenge/dilemma of having to decide when best to shoot and not to shoot (resource/ammunition/mana management).

This poses a rather difficult problem of control: since you will generally end up with six Mind Slots, and will probably fill them with several weapons (for instance, stacking a Hail (ice school) spell to freeze enemies with an Omen (death school) spell to insta-kill enemies marked by fate and a Fireball (fire school) to do the general killing) and selecting only one of them to be fired would become very complicated. Also, since the main point of the game is the synergy between the various spells, it is necessary for such spell combinations to be usable.

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Over all, I'd really like to see you build this. It sounds like it has great potential! Best of luck =)

Thanks.