Slowly but surely, Design Method Pt. 1
The Mechanics
We already discussed how the Aliens are going to work and what they might be able to do so let’s translate that into how would that effect the Humans in the game, but let’s change the name Humans, considering that this is a game based in space, it’s safe to assume that maybe the Humans could be one Human and One Alien so there can be a narrative there which makes more sense and seems more suitable to allow a lighter tone than a simple Human Invasion, so these players will now be called Rangers, short for maybe Space Rangers.
Now with the Rangers how would they be effected in the game or what could they do considering we have gone over what they might be able to do, let’s be more specific.
One of the Rangers will be able to use telekinesis, so moving objects, pushing and pulling them at ‘will’
One of the Rangers should have a different ability that complements it, perhaps teleporting could be a good solution to that idea, as one can move objects and the other can go to them at ‘will’. (plus they both have the world ‘tele’ in it, so it has a nice theme to it)
Then regardless of these skills, they should then be able to play exactly the same to make the mechanics less complex as if they have totally different methods of play they would find that one of will be more useful then the other.
Additionally if enemies are going to be a part of the game, these Rangers need to be able to attack somehow, so if they are in space, they could be in possession of a Space Phaser or something of that nature.
So with all of this taken into account this is how the gameplay should be like from a general standpoint for the Rangers:
Now that’s somewhat defined, I can move on to what the Aliens are able to do, well at least we know they can do certain things, but how? I could understand that as Aliens they have created things or built things, so maybe they need to gather resources that they build up over time, which would make a lot of sense thematically, which then allowed me to create this general structure:
In order to consider some balance for the game, these Aliens should move slower than the Rangers for the fact that they will be to force that slows down progression. Finally, considering each team will have a type of resources let’s write that down so I can develop it further.
The Planets
Slowly we are starting to design the ideas for the game, so what we needed to find if this game was going to be a puzzle and a platformer at that was to develop the idea of the assets we had to figure out the level designs or at least start building them.
The approach we went with was to slowly but surely get ideas of what the levels could even look like. We are in Space, let’s look closely at the solar system for inspiration. What planets are there, and how many levels do we intend to make?
Well let’s get some basic ideas down and base them on planets which are already known or basic elements.
A Cold Planet called Planet Aurans based on Uranus
A ground like planet with some forest rich areas called Planet Reath based on Earth
A fire planet - still without name
A Planet that it’s consumed by a lot of water, and has some ground in a stormy climate based on Venus called Planet Seven
And finally a Moon planet - still without a name
But splitting these planets into sections and going down in detail about what Objects, Aesthetic and Hazards each level could possess we can start to ticker with the idea of what the Aliens can use as Skills in our game, and even the resources they need to gain.
However if collecting a certain type of resource activates a certain type of skill, this would lead to a lot of frustration with a reasonable amount of RNG dictating whether they can or not. It’s not to say RNG is bad but for example, if there is a somehow a chance they receive the same type of resource again and again, it would inflate one skill over the others which then would require loads of cooldowns. It seems unnecessary complicated and should be presented in a simple way rather than having different types. So one resources fits all type of game.
The World
The narrative can be something simple and easy to at least understand, as this game could be presented on different types of peripherals, it’s important to keep it targeted towards a specific audience, we don’t want heavy adult themes, we want something easy. Taking that into consideration, it was best to keep a cartoonish or child-like theme behind the narrative and trying to avoid serious themes like death and destruction. For now, it was clear to make a simple structure and with the new ‘Rangers’ maybe creating a place where you want peace is more pleasing, even with a little conflict that can be introduced it doesn’t have to involve any dark themes.
Other things
Another thing that I wanted to implement into the game was to create a customisation setlist, so players can customise their Ranger characters as well as their Alien characters all for the sack of some nice monetisationsand I too also know that pain of wanting to look good in game, so I thought it would be a nice thing to implement into that game as an overall structure.
And lastly, with taking inspiration from Crawl we want to incorporate a boss battle and end of each level, considering Rangers can shoot, maybe they have a better target than just generic enemies. So with each level that has to be a distinct boss that does something unique that will be controlled by the Alien players, in this case the concept for it would be to create tank controls. What I mean by that is one person shoots and the other moves. Simple as that.