Hi everyone, I am designing a top down shooter for my first game(hopefully) I have so many ideas for a game but I am already completely aware that "keep it simple stupid!" rule does really work in real life. So what I am going to ask for advices is to help my game(amen) balanced.

so, it will be a top down shooter like a regular top down shooter with grid movement system like those old-school nes games e.g. bomberman.
because I am aiming for arcade like small enjoyable indie game.

first of all,

The player could use 4 types of weapon :

1. gun-like weapon
it would have few subtypes like laser, grenade launcher etc
this weapon works like usual shooting weapon which drives the player to seek enemies and attack them.

2. towerdefense-like weapon
it would have few subtypes as well like turrets, trapping tower etc
this weapon works by 'building' it in a particular amount. and then let them attack the enemies on trigger.
this drives player to plan, place the trap/attack and let it do the job.

3. kirby-like weapon.
this unique weapon would sucks others player bullets or projectiles up to its storage and launches them back.
if there are 2 projectiles inside the storage within a particular period of time, it will fuse the projectiles to another unique projectiles.
if there are no projectiles inside the storage within a particular period of time, it will fill the storage automatically.
the storage could only load at max 2 projectiles, then instead of sucking up the projectiles, it would launch back those projectiles from inside the storage.
this weapon is similar to the gun-like weapon, but it has a twist to make the enemys' weapon as the players' weapon.

4. melee weapon.
unlike other 3 ranged type of weapons. this melee weapon works like rpg-like sword but the player could enable stealth mode to be invisible.
but if the player receive damages or attack, the invisibility would temporarily disabled. there is a limit to use invisibility as well.
melee also enable player to run or jump over an obstacle.
this weapon let the player to play crazy(go straight to the other enemy and kill them in a close distance)
or smart(sneak to enemy and assassinate!)
or both


this game does have few game modes to entertain the player :

1. last man standing
this is an usual deathmatch mode but mortal-kombat-Fatality-feature like

2. first killer
in this game mode, the first player that kill a person will be a winner.
there will be a kind of item to instantly swap the players' HP who has the lowest HP with another random players' HP.

3. capture the damsel
this is an usual capture the flag mode. but damsels will replace the flags. and that means annoying thing would happen such as panicking and running damsel.

4. gold minner
usual gold finding mode from scattered crates or dying players in within a period of time.

5. mark the territory
in this game mode, if a player die it will mark the tiles as the killers' territory. the territory would give the player a little advantage. the winner is obviously a player that has the biggest territory.

6. team last man standing
similar to the first one but without fatality thingy but it has unique team member assigning system.
the players team members are initially assigned but in the middle of the game, the players could change their team.
by not firing at the enemy team for a short period of time make the player join the enemy team and vice versa.


this game features several unique traps and items on the map. as well as crazy random event in the middle of the game and the unlockables.
the map would look like Bomberman map, so there would be no any diagonal attack.
this game would NOT use mouse to aim but only arrow keys and 2 other keys.
it is using Medal of Honor Inflitator (GBA) mechanic to aim.

the keys would be :
1. arrows keys to move
2. 1st key to attack or suck/launch for kirby-like weapon.
3. 2nd key to lock the players' facing to aim or to be invisible for melee player.

and I hope that I could make this game to be a multiplayer game, at least over LAN or the same keyboard.
because I know that AI designing would be very hard.


if you could still not imagine how the game would look like, it would be described as Bomberman minus bomb plus gun with couple of twists.

thats all(maybe) that I already think about my future game(hopefully)
and now I am going to ask about few little things :

1. which language or engine that is easy to make game for beginner? since I have no previous experience. but now I am already entertained by Game Maker, and already look into that engine.
2. to balance the weapons I will probably put secondary weapon to towerdefense-like weapon. It would be a weak bullet scattering shotgun like weapon, so it would be deadly in close range but weak in far range. but would it be better?
3. to balance the weapons(again) the gun-like weapon would automatically change to a sword-melee-like weapon if the enemy is too close to the player. but would it be balancing the other melee weapon? or just annoying?
4. how to differ between annoying and challenging?


I realized that there are too many things actually in my game, I am afraid that it will not be balanced and confusing. so I hope advices from people in this forum.
and pardon me in advance if there is confusion or misunderstanding in my writing because I am not an english speaker.
thanks in advance.

Well, the first thing I thought about was that you said you did'nt want to program AI, but I would submit that a fundamental AI is easier than network programming xD Secodnly, I know about Game Maker and I think it is an awesome tool for any beginning programmer or game developer in general. Once you get doing real stuff you appreciate Game Maker haha.

As for your other questions:

2) I'm unlcear as to why you would need this. To kill the towers?
3)Yeah sure, as long as it's quick it shouldn't be a problem.
4)Well, annoying would either mean too easy and everything is just a nuisance, or impossible so everything is harder than it should be. Challenging would be hard enough to keep it interesting but not impossible. That, my friend, is upt to you to measure


As a final word, I don't think bomberman grid-based style is the best for a tds.

oh finally! thank you for a reply

I found a lib of gamemaker to easily setup online game with mplay. so i thought i would not be that hard?
I designed the game so that each weapon is unique and requires different way to use. and different game mode requires different logic to win as well.
even though I have not tried to make any AI, I feel that it would be hard for me, who is a beginner.

2. no, sorry if I sound quite unclear. but what I mean is if the player use Tower-defense like weapon (its actually like Engineer with turret in Team Fortress) and another player is attacking by approaching him while he is unarmed since the only way he can only attack is by placing the "turrets", it would be quite unfair compared to the other weapons.

3. yes it would be very quick even quicker than the gun reload time.

4. okay , that is up to me


yes, after researching, I found that grid based is not suitable. I would save that idea for the other game that I might be making.
although most of tds use mouse as well but I will stick with keyboard-only input. so that multiplayer could be enabled from the same computer.


I thought no one would reply this thread because it sounds too big for me who is merely very beginner and one man team. but I am exercising with the scripting feature in game maker already. so hopefully in very near soon I can start prototyping.

My advice would be to concentrate on choosing ONE of your weapons and ONE of your game modes and dump the rest. Then, make the very best, most enjoyable game you can out of that...That's "keeping it simple stupid!".