Author: younj768

These are the core ideas we agreed upon for our game –

It is a split screen 2 versus 1 Arena  Combat multiplayer game.

It’s going to be set in a single hexagonally shaped arena with pillar-shaped platforms.

There are going to be three playable characters.

Player 1 has a jetpack and has 2 attack abilities, Is more agile(move faster and jump higher) but does less damage. Their default weapon is a quick fire gun. Is viewed from over the shoulder third person camera viewpoint.

Player 2 is a heavy, meaning they are less agile but do more damage. They also have 2 attack abilities. Their default weapon is a heavy laser beam or a machine gun. Is also viewed from over the shoulder third person camera viewpoint.

Player 3 is the boss. They can’t move but they can rotate themselves. They have 4 attack abilities and has a weak spot. The boss has multiple attack phases. The phases haven’t been finalized yet, but in some phases, the boss would not take damage. They are seen from a top down perspective.

Goals of the game –

For players 1 and 2, they have to team up and defeat the boss to win.

For player 3, they have to defeat the other players to win.

Gameplay style-

Primarily will feel like a 3rd person shooter with some light platforming involved, for Players 1 and 2.

For Player 3, the boss, it will feel like a top down action game with elements of real time tower defense.

Aesthetics –

Low poly, 80’s wireframe aesthetic would be used to give a sense of stylized futuristic atmosphere.

Further Elements for consideration –

The special abilities of each player still need to be elaborated upon further. At this stage it seems like, the abilities involve spawning bombs and spikes for players 1 and 2, and for player 3, it is to spawn turrets, special melee moves, bombs and more.

Playtest in class –

We only had a demo to show and explain to players what the game would be like. So it was difficult to get any feedback that helped with our development. There was only the arena which received positive feedback. It is unfortunate that we could only have this to show. However it only goes to show how much harder we need to work in order to produce a finished prototype.

Reflection on Development –.

It had definitely been tough with all our members focusing on other aspects of school. There is also our inexperience with designing an asymmetrical multiplayer game with such a small time frame. We have started to make progress at least and leave the ideation phase which shows promise for future development.

itch.io link: https://youngjord.itch.io/ldr-sim

in the end I really struggled with the way that I approached this assignment. I should have focused on how mechanics interact with the game environment instead of trying o tell a story through mechanics. For the time period I was given i could not accomplish this to the extent at which i hoped.

This being said, going forwards with this project I would like to further develop the level design to be more mechanically interesting while keeping the fact that they tell a story to the relative level. I also want to develop the characters animations a little more to convey stronger emotions.

I feel that the way the levels progress was the strong point of this game. The difficulty scaling is something that I wanted to make sure was on point. The first level is the first screen going on to more difficult levels that don’t change the end point (being reaching the other player). This creates a simplistic game play that provides a challenge.

I have been really struggling with the overall theme of the game design for this one. I originally wanted to create a classic platformer that has one or two neat mechanics, however I need to challenge myself. I want to create a theme that matches the design of the level.

I want to create a game where the level design tells a story of its own.

I have been struggling with this. I have found a theme that I want to focus on which is inspired by the long distance relationship I have with my girlfriend. I want to take struggles and sayings from this life experience and translate that into a video game. I haven’t found a way to display this within my level design.

So far I have the idea where the two players must work together to reach a common goal: each other, However they affect each others emotional state which is used as a mechanic and changes each character controller. Then the platforms will also be changed by the other player.

I have been working on the animation of each character and I want to focus on making the animation mesh with the style of game play I am designing. Slow and smooth. I want to try to instil the emotions that come with a long distance relationship in the player.

I feel that I am learning a lot about how difficult and time consuming level design can be to get it to the level that I want to achieve.

Itch.io link: https://youngjord.itch.io/gravity-based-shmup

Overall creating this game was very challenging and a lot of fun. I strayed a little from the traditional scrolling shmup, and went for a more arena style shmup. I think that the art style looks great, however it is a copy, so moving forwards I would definitely want to update the art style to be more of my personal style (whatever that may be).

I also ran out of time near the end since I wanted to make the AI more complex than just chasing and shooting or ramming into the player. That is where I spent a lot of my time. Getting the fighter to run away from the player when the player got too close and then shoot at a certain distance was fun but challenging.

What seemed simple at first but ended up being very complicated was the “gravity bomb” weapon that I created. It seemed simple: create and object on top of the player that had an insane amount of gravity to it but didn’t affect the player or the planet. But making it act and look the way that it does took some time, and since the gravity was so strong it made weird interactions with other game elements.

Overall I would like to take more time to implement a health and shield system for the player and expand the size of the game to include more planets and different enemies. The largest change that I want to make is to make the player gain levels and be able to customize/upgrade their ship to become more powerful.

I found a video tutorial showing how to create planetary gravity that uses real world physics and I want to use this in a way to make everything in the shmup environment affected by gravity. The bullets that the ship shoots and the ship itself.

Right now I just have one planet but I want to see if I can create more, however just by adding one other planet my computer slows down when calculating a large number of game objects. So I think that I will just stick to one planet for now.

Art style wise I found a game developer who’s games are similar to what I am trying to accomplish.

https://pixeljam.com/lasthorizon/

I really like the way the planets look in this game and the way that the ship lands is similar to how I would like to code my game.

Their other game nova drift is also visually what I want to try to accomplish however, I would like to make them all on my own and learn how to create an artstyle like that.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1429475366/nova-drift

So now that I have gravity working, I need to spice up the game with a cool art style and make the AI of the enemies challenging enough to make the game and gravity fun.

Changes

A lot has progressed and changed in the game since the last post. Although the main mechanics staying the same there were some additions to balance some existing mechanics. All the changes are noted in the rule book I created for the game.

*please click the hyperlink for the rule book to see the rules of the game in detail.

Reflection

reflecting on the criticisms given by my play testers in class there are some fundamental balancing issues with the actions and privileges of the action cards. The auction card has a very high value and is very effective in gaining items and resources while traveling is a less effective way of gathering resources. Some ideas that were discussed are adding a way to customize your ship and therefore creating different paths to reach the same goal instead of having all the players follow one linear style of play. This does add some issues with balancing however that can be solved over time. One way of accomplishing this would be to add different UPGRADES that are associated with the upgrade capacity card. Instead of having just a fuel capacity have an item and resource capacity as well, that way you can focus on one of the three outlets of gathering materials; going further to gather more valuable resources (fuel) being able to hold more items (auctioneer) or being able to gather more resources when you do travel to a planet (forger). This adds necessary diversity to they way the game is played and also creates unique opportunities to sabotage other players by stealing their privilege from a role card.

Thanks for Reading! Here is a sammie to make your day better.

@jordo

Designer Statement

My core is based in product design. Creating an experience though a product. That is how I found my way into game development. I want to create a product that instills the same happiness I experience using products everyday.

I got into game development by wanting to transfer my desires as a product designer into a digital product.

My most recent attempt at this was teaching a younger generation how to make simple video games at my local university.

Interests

I’m passionate about games, design, craftsmanship, UX, a good story, cooking, internet and design culture.

I also love Samoyeds, movies, Game of Thrones, and traveling. But I really love Sammies.