I've worked as an art lead for 5 years, and with the cooperation of a fellow programmer and artist, I want to develop a game ourselves. Since this will be our first time attempting something solo I want to make a relatively simple game, something that we can actually complete without going nuts or needing any major financial support. I'd really appreciate some feedback. eBears WorldDesign Treatment v0.1©2009 Paul LohmanConcept: Designer toy-styled characters, levels, weapons and ingenious animation delight the player in a casual multiplayer third person shooter. Face off against other players in a battle royal of explosive weapons on a dynamic spherical environment. Game Description:Characters 30 character designs will be available for players to choose from in the initial release. Registered users can summit character designs and vote on others. New character designs will be added to the game on a regular basis, chosen from winning user designs. Environment The map is a spherical environment. The initial size of the planet is determined by the number of players participating in a battle. The planet shrinks as the number of players decrease during a battle. Adjusting the map size based on the number of players will keep game play lively whether it be a battle between 2 or 20 players. Because the environment is spherical characters and projectiles can circumnavigate the map. As the map shrinks props and terrain features shrink or are removed to fill the same percentage of surface area as the map shrinks. Battle Match System Once a player has chosen a character they can view the match system listings where they can see other players on-line and the time remaining till the next match. When players indicate they're ready they're signed up for a match. A match starts once a minute if 2 to 30 players are signed up. If more then 30 players sign up for a match, the overflow starts a new match in 30 seconds. When players are done with a match they are placed back to the match system UI. Battles In a “Deathmatch” battle every player fights every other player, the last player standing is the winner. Other battle types available: Team Match 15vs15 7x4 4x4 2v2 1v1 War Games Capture the Flag King of the Hill Skill Games First to X number of Kills Quick Death Specific Weapon Only Juice Bombs Only Small World After All Weapon and Health SystemsJuice (Health) Each player starts with an equal amount of juice that diminishes when they are injured and can only be gained by “Poking” other players. Juice has no maximum but becomes harder to gain as it increases. A player is dead when their juice is completely diminished. -Poking Poking is similar to swatting or punching, and only effects players in front or to the sides within reaching distance. The amount of damage it inflicts is very minimal. Poking is also the only method of increasing one’s juice or health. - Juice Bomb Juice Bombs inflict damage in a radius from the player. The radius and damage of the juice bomb increases as the player’s juice increases. Using a juice bomb decreases the player’s juice by equal amounts regardless of the player’s juice level. After a player uses a juice bomb they are temporarily disoriented and can not move or defend themselves. - Hand Weapons Hand weapons can be obtained by running over them and are randomly spawned round the map. Only one hand weapon can be held at a time so if a player has a hand weapon and wants to pick a different one up they must drop their current weapon. Hand weapons have limited ammo. When a weapon is dropped it can be picked up again and has the same amount of ammo as it was dropped with. When weapons run out of ammo they are removed. Additional ammo up to the maximum capacity can be obtained by running over a weapon. Hand weapons have some or all of the following properties on a scale from 0 to 10: damage, range, rate of fire, and an initial ammo/maximum capacity count. - - Sling Shot - damage 1, range 1, rate of fire 10, ammo 20/40 - - Cross Bow - damage 3, range 3, rate of fire 5, ammo 15/30 - - Harpoon Gun - damage 5, range 6, rate of fire 3, ammo 10/20 - - Grenade Launcher - damage 8, range 6, rate of fire 3, ammo 10/10 - - Bazooka - damage 8, range 8, rate of fire 3, ammo 10/10 - - Homing Missile - damage 6, range 10, rate of fire 3, ammo 8/8 - - Land Mine - damage 7, range 0, rate of fire 5, ammo 5/15 - - SCUD missile - damage 10, range 10, rate of fire 1, ammo 1/1 All hand weapons except the land mind are arching projectiles that given the right range and angle could orbit the map. However even projectiles like the homing missile have a maximum thrust range and would eventually fall back to earth. Controls (for PC) -Navigation and Aiming “W” & “S” - Move the player forward and backward along their facing direction “A” & “D” - Move the player left and right perpendicular to their facing direction Mouse Movement Left and Right – Turn the players facing direction Mouse Movement Forward and Backward – adjust the camera angle to the player up and down as well as the aiming angle -Weapons/ Firing controls “Ctrl” - display projectile arc. LMB On-Click / Hold – Fire / Auto Fire RMB On-Click - Pokes RMB Rapid Click - Combo Poke RMB Hold 1+ seconds - energizes Juice Bomb, Then Release – Fire Juice Bomb Misc Comments and Thoughts - designer toy esq characters and environment, modern pop/anime/urban design influenced - spherical environment, i.e. a small planet, small enough for the player to to circumnavigate quickly - multiplayer only - the planet changes size based on the number of players, so it's always small enough to to keep the action going as players are killed off, or as time elapses. - upon research, web-based/flash deployment is looking too restrictive - PC .exe seems to be the easiest way to go for initial release, considering console and handheld platforms - major downsides of console development - money required - extensive submissions process - no easy way for users to create and summit character designs from any platform other then a PC. - XBLA sounds good, but user submitted content is fraught with problems for Microsoft - players could summit their character designs from a web based forum, vote on designs etc, wining designs could get reviewed, then put in the game. - designer toy styled characters could be nice for several reasons - it caters to a community already interested in making their own character designs and art work - it's a opportunity to create something that lends itself well to multiple mediums and interest, the game itself; which is interactive, played online multiplayer or native multiplayer(for a party game) so it's inherently social, but the web forum is also social, competitive, and a place for artist to showcase their designs, then there's the physical mediums that could run in parallel to the game, real ebear toys with limited manufacturing runs of the winning designs, blank ebears for personal custom designs, and collection. [Edited by - prolow on January 4, 2009 4:16:47 PM]

Quote:

Original post by prolow Juice (Health) Each player starts with an equal amount of juice that diminishes when they are injured and can only be gained by “Poking” other players. Juice has no maximum but becomes harder to gain as it increases. A player is dead when their juice is completely diminished. -Poking Poking is similar to swatting or punching, and only effects players in front or to the sides within reaching distance. The amount of damage it inflicts is very minimal. Poking is also the only method of increasing one’s juice or health. - Juice Bomb Juice Bombs inflict damage in a radius from the player. The radius and damage of the juice bomb increases as the player’s juice increases. Using a juice bomb decreases the player’s juice by equal amounts regardless of the player’s juice level. After a player uses a juice bomb they are temporarily disoriented and can not move or defend themselves.

It may just be me, but this terminology immediately struck me as very likely to end up the subject of various sex-related jokes. You may want to consider alternated names for these stats/weapons.

if you catch it, then it's intentional