Comment on my design - Weirs

ToohrVyk · 2006-02-25T19:12:57

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

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by ToohrVyk February 21, 2006 12:10 PM

9 comments, last by abstractimmersion 18 years, 11 months ago

abstractimmersion

100

February 25, 2006 07:12 PM

I really think this game would be a lot of fun, and I hope you make it.

But, I would put in some kind of goal other than just "keep playing until you get sick of it." Put a princess (or something) at level 60 just so s/he can know s/he's beaten the game. Give the player the option to continue playing random levels, or put another princess at level 120, level 180....

You've probably already thought of this, but to fight monotony, I'd have different "theme" levels, so the player feels s/he is progressing through a world. eg: Levels 1-10 are the "caves of nasty insects" with predominantly swarming enemies, Levels 11-20 are the "haunted castle" with enemies that move through walls, Levels 21-30 are the "hall of the titans," with few but powerful enemies, etc.

I'm assuming the difficulty is progressive, though you don't explicitly say so.

All in all, sounds great!

Comment on my design - Weirs

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Comment on my design - Weirs

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