As taken from Kaze no Stigma, their idea of "pandemonium", a group of magicians that take random people and grant them special powers.
I would propose a game similar in principle, where the main character gains a power (maybe one that is chosen through gameplay?) and has to defeat similar opponents. This would progress in a tournament system, each battle tougher than the last.
I'm not proposing a street-fighter style game, but rather one set in a modern of future city, where our protagonist finds himself recruited to in to this tournament. Perhaps the tournament is some way of settling a dispute between two factions in an organization. Either way, a reward of great power is promised to the winner, and obviously evil people are recruited as well as good.
Sounds like I stole this straight from Shaman King, eh? They're similar, that's for sure.
The gameplay /story is FPS. Skills and abilities based on whatever the player chooses. Perhaps base classes like Nature, Space, Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and perhaps Mind would suffice. Each "level up" gives you the power to specialize further or broaden your skills. This would require MUCH balancing, so everyone doesn't pick the same skillset.
Battles are in real time, where the NPCs either outnumber or are of a higher grade than the protagonist. AI will be tricky.
Perhaps a pokemon-style battle system would go good here. Rather than the user shooting FPS style, they select an attack and have to preform a certain action or sequence to determine the potency of your spell / ability / action. For example, a water-based attack might be a large whirlpool surrounding the enemy. Potency of attack is based off the speed of which the player can rotate the joystick.
This could happen real-time, so the enemy can break out of the spell if his attack or defensive abilitiy has greater power. It comes down to a quick-thinking action rather than button mashing.
More to come!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Advanced Game Design Cont.
I've decided that if anything, the Dark Messiah version hold more ground than any other game idea I have.
Just brainstorming some ideas for gameplay:
Gameplay is realtime, fights are either turn based or real time.
The player can select to go into turn based at any point in the game, by hitting a certain button. This is similar to the "FEAR" style, but first seen in the Might and Magic series (NOT heroes of might and magic). It allows the player to actively swap between RT and TB play.
A good user will use this to his / her advantage when exploring, for example, catacombs or close-knit areas, where surprises can lurk behind corners. I would probably have the users pre-define a set of skills and /or spells on a hotbar, and have them default bound to 1-10, with the option of rebinding quickbar slots to any other unused key (Dark Ages of Camelot). IE binding "u" to quickbar 2, position 1. So that the user may use that ability on quickbar2 instead of having to swap quickbars, then pressing 1, simply by hitting "u".
These sort of features are important for making gameplay enjoyable and seamless. When a user is annoyed by using their abilities, there's not enough consideration into the design of the interface.
This is ubiquitous for all game designs, in my opinion.
-- Drew
Just brainstorming some ideas for gameplay:
Gameplay is realtime, fights are either turn based or real time.
The player can select to go into turn based at any point in the game, by hitting a certain button. This is similar to the "FEAR" style, but first seen in the Might and Magic series (NOT heroes of might and magic). It allows the player to actively swap between RT and TB play.
A good user will use this to his / her advantage when exploring, for example, catacombs or close-knit areas, where surprises can lurk behind corners. I would probably have the users pre-define a set of skills and /or spells on a hotbar, and have them default bound to 1-10, with the option of rebinding quickbar slots to any other unused key (Dark Ages of Camelot). IE binding "u" to quickbar 2, position 1. So that the user may use that ability on quickbar2 instead of having to swap quickbars, then pressing 1, simply by hitting "u".
These sort of features are important for making gameplay enjoyable and seamless. When a user is annoyed by using their abilities, there's not enough consideration into the design of the interface.
This is ubiquitous for all game designs, in my opinion.
-- Drew
Halflife 2
Since we have access to the halflife 2 engine, I've been boxing the idea of a Starship Troopers spinoff (the book, not crappy movie). Perhaps a story mode set after the training camp, right before the player makes his first drop. I'm wondering how easy it would be to make. The bugs, i imagine, would be hard to code. The skinnys would be like semi-neutral NPC's, since the alliance in SST was trying to persuade the skinnies to join their side right as Jhonny hits the MI, full fledged. Either way, it's promising. I think i'll ponder over it, and work out a detailed description tomorrow, and ask for feedback from the instructor on monday, the day before class. Hopefully she can give it.
I like this idea, the more i think about it. I'd have to limit ranking advancement to Section Assistant Leader, so your boy doesn't have control of more than himself. I think that may be a bit too hard to program. We'll see though. General functions like "form around me", "close the flank" and "pull out" shouldn't be hard to program.
Since the MI are all ALWAYS armed to the teeth, i think "leveling up" should constitute advancing in standing with the army, which will give you better MI suites. Longer jump time, more carrying power, com equipment, radar and team tracking. That kinda jazz. should be good!
Awards can be given out for recovering team mates, making pickup on time, mass destruction, target completion, etc.
When I say team mate recovery, I mean corpse retrieval. Since 99% of the time, when someone needs recovering, they've already bought the farm.
-- Drew
I like this idea, the more i think about it. I'd have to limit ranking advancement to Section Assistant Leader, so your boy doesn't have control of more than himself. I think that may be a bit too hard to program. We'll see though. General functions like "form around me", "close the flank" and "pull out" shouldn't be hard to program.
Since the MI are all ALWAYS armed to the teeth, i think "leveling up" should constitute advancing in standing with the army, which will give you better MI suites. Longer jump time, more carrying power, com equipment, radar and team tracking. That kinda jazz. should be good!
Awards can be given out for recovering team mates, making pickup on time, mass destruction, target completion, etc.
When I say team mate recovery, I mean corpse retrieval. Since 99% of the time, when someone needs recovering, they've already bought the farm.
-- Drew
Monday, September 10, 2007
Advanced Game Design
Graha, first posts are always awesome!
I'm toying with a few general game design ideas, but without first hand knowledge of how powerful the materials we will be working with this semester, I suppose I'll just have to go with the stars and dream.
My first idea stems from Earthbound gameplay and Diablo 2's style of asthetics (2d overlay with top-down scroller)
These concepts work well together because Earthbound was similar to diablo 2 in its camera views. What I want to take from eathbound are the fundamental characteristics that describe a "feel-good game". Cartoonish characters swing wacky yet slightly plausible weapons around beating snakes, mushrooms, and corrupt police officers to gain EXP and powerful special attacks.
What I take from D2 will be a skill system that allows for more in-depth character development, and "acts" that the player unlocks, each one more difficult than the last. For a 4 month project I would only attempt at developing 1 or 2 acts. Anything else is shooting for the stars.
The storyline is something I'd consider to be the most important part of a game of this type and so I'm not going to bother trying to write it all in this post. I have to select which idea I want before I go ahead and develop it further.
Another option is the ubiquitous 3d world PSO style of game. Again, this is fringing on developmental restrictions when I say this, but negating ability to program, I would have this game function similarly to Might and Magic; Dark Messiah. The main character is given few starting options for skills, but the main choosable classes will be DND primitives, ranging from Rogue, Wizzard, Sorcerer, Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Cleric. The user will acquire a party of NPC's throughout the game who fill 3 "party spots". These members will be controllable in a similar fasion to the Might and Magic series, where the entire party is represented by pictures, and each players action is controlled time based (each character attacks based on the cooldown of his/her previous action, first attack in combat is determined by the "dexterity" stat, AKA initiative). Combat is thus real-time, and the parties movement is synchronous, FPS style. Ideally, this would be written in the HL2 engine. Of all my ideas, this one is the most developed as far as gameplay and features go.
The storyline of this game would take some working on as well. I would probably chose a more open approach, as taken by Baulders Gate, by Bioware. Once the main character leaves the initial area (most commonly referred to as the noob level), they will be able to navigate in a few different directions, leading to spearate areas of, say, a city.
Getting out of the city requires completion of a few major storyline tasks, such as, say, quelling a rebellion started by the Guild of Shadows.. or something like that. The possibilities here are endless. I just hope Bioware won't sue. Think the first city of Final Fantasy 7. Until you got out, that city was your whole game.
By going this route, I'm able to create a scalable game, which I can take with me and continually develop outside of this class. I'm heavily leaning towards this game concept.
That's all for now. More to come!
I'm toying with a few general game design ideas, but without first hand knowledge of how powerful the materials we will be working with this semester, I suppose I'll just have to go with the stars and dream.
My first idea stems from Earthbound gameplay and Diablo 2's style of asthetics (2d overlay with top-down scroller)
These concepts work well together because Earthbound was similar to diablo 2 in its camera views. What I want to take from eathbound are the fundamental characteristics that describe a "feel-good game". Cartoonish characters swing wacky yet slightly plausible weapons around beating snakes, mushrooms, and corrupt police officers to gain EXP and powerful special attacks.
What I take from D2 will be a skill system that allows for more in-depth character development, and "acts" that the player unlocks, each one more difficult than the last. For a 4 month project I would only attempt at developing 1 or 2 acts. Anything else is shooting for the stars.
The storyline is something I'd consider to be the most important part of a game of this type and so I'm not going to bother trying to write it all in this post. I have to select which idea I want before I go ahead and develop it further.
Another option is the ubiquitous 3d world PSO style of game. Again, this is fringing on developmental restrictions when I say this, but negating ability to program, I would have this game function similarly to Might and Magic; Dark Messiah. The main character is given few starting options for skills, but the main choosable classes will be DND primitives, ranging from Rogue, Wizzard, Sorcerer, Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Cleric. The user will acquire a party of NPC's throughout the game who fill 3 "party spots". These members will be controllable in a similar fasion to the Might and Magic series, where the entire party is represented by pictures, and each players action is controlled time based (each character attacks based on the cooldown of his/her previous action, first attack in combat is determined by the "dexterity" stat, AKA initiative). Combat is thus real-time, and the parties movement is synchronous, FPS style. Ideally, this would be written in the HL2 engine. Of all my ideas, this one is the most developed as far as gameplay and features go.
The storyline of this game would take some working on as well. I would probably chose a more open approach, as taken by Baulders Gate, by Bioware. Once the main character leaves the initial area (most commonly referred to as the noob level), they will be able to navigate in a few different directions, leading to spearate areas of, say, a city.
Getting out of the city requires completion of a few major storyline tasks, such as, say, quelling a rebellion started by the Guild of Shadows.. or something like that. The possibilities here are endless. I just hope Bioware won't sue. Think the first city of Final Fantasy 7. Until you got out, that city was your whole game.
By going this route, I'm able to create a scalable game, which I can take with me and continually develop outside of this class. I'm heavily leaning towards this game concept.
That's all for now. More to come!
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