Mephs
02-07-2007, 08:53 AM
[If this post is too long, mods, please feel free to remove it or ask me to split it down, it's just that the 48 hour wait for account activation has been killing me and also allowing me to write more!!]
Heya all,
I've only just discovered this fantastic forum, though I am by no means a newbie as regards game development. I am very impressed with the high quality of posts here and look forward to joining the community.
I thought I'd perhaps run one of my game design ideas past you all in hope of some constructive feedback. You may want to hit back on your browser now if you don't have time to read a long (long long long.... loooong!) post!
I quite like my idea so far, but it is definitely still just an underdeveloped fragment of an idea and as such needs a lot of work as there are still several unknowns in the equation. My idea should be reasonably simple to develop, fits my needs as a portfolio piece and may even work as a good casual/semi-casual game if that way of life becomes an option (I'd love to be an Indie developer!). I've tried to keep the idea within the scope of my abilities as a programmer (I've almost completed my first serious project of a 3d Airhockey clone with powerups) and I've tried very hard to keep my idea as something that is interesting to me, whilst hopefully also appealing to quite a broad audience.
So anyhoo, rambling aside, my game idea is loosely based on a cross between Pool, Magic the Gathering, Speedball and Super Monkeyball (in my head at least). I hadn't set out with such a specific aim, but the description quite fits the idea. I would like players to control a team of "orbs" which are to be robots in a spherical form.
Players will either control a single "cue ball" orb in a top-down perspective. Players will compete against one or more opponents at a time. If there are in excess of 2 players, then players will be grouped into 2 teams.
The objective of the game is to knock orbs with the same shell or core colour together. If either both cores are the same colour or both shells are the same colour, the orbs will dissipate (after rolling a little further to cause chain reactions), leaving a collectible item remaining and scoring a point for the core team or shell team as appropriate. If there are no colour matches the orbs bounce around as normal pool balls might.
I'm not yet sure whether to make the game turn based or realtime, or perhaps whether to offer both modes in the game. Obviously turn-based will highlight strategy, whilst realtime action would highlight the action element.
The player should therefore attempt to collide orbs with either like-coloured shells, or like-coloured cores depending on the players team (cores or shells). But where is the long-term fun in that? It strikes me as a simple fun mechanic that will last for a while, but I feel it needs extra elements adding to it to give the player a lasting unpredictable challenge, a sense of fun and replay value.
To throw something into the mix, I would possibly like to have some kind of collectible spawned upon dissipation of a pair of orbs... junk, rings, coins, energy, gems or something else. I'm not sure what yet and it needs writing into the game story, but something that will essentially be used to activate powerups. I would like to provide the player with a mechanism that allows them to do such crazy things as turning orbs invisible, turning an orb into a kamikaze attack, making an orb magnetic so it attracts more energy and so on. In short, I want to provide an alternate goal that may potentially be more rewarding than simply aiming at clusters and firing. This would help make every game subtly different each time, allowing people to experiment with different combinations of powerups. We could even go so far as to allow players to collect powerups to satisfy the collection desires many gamers have.
I would like to keep the game accessible to as wide an audience as possible. So my control scheme will be slightly different to anything I have seen before. The player will control a mouse cursor to direct their shot. They may position the mouse cursor freely rather than simply moving a direction indicator, and simply need to hold down the left mouse button to charge up their shot, releasing the mouse button to sling the orb across the arena towards the mouse cursor. This would have a visual indicator such as particles reaching out from the orb to the cursor to indicate power of the shot.
In this way, players have precision aiming of their orb up to its first collision, so the game will involve a lot of strategy in determining where the ball will travel after the initial collision (perhaps giving bonuses for good ricochet shots?!). To activate powerups, players simple need to have collected enough energy/rings/scrap/whatever to power their ability. Once they have the power for the ability, they click the ability and then click the target. Abilities may either be randomly drawn like Magic the Gathering cards, or I may look into some kind of upgrade scheme where players can choose new abilities as a reward for completion of a level.. I'm a glutton for upgrade game mechanics myself and I suspect it would be enjoyed by less casual players as it could provide some longevity to the game. I'm not 100% sure yet!! I may even implement some kind of a sacrifice mechanism in return for a different kind of power (perhaps it could supplement the power from collectible items).
I have also wondered about perhaps creating some kind of a mechanism for giving pairs of orbs varying strategic importance. Perhaps rather than a binary "like coloured pair collision = score" it may work better to give orbs energy levels, or shields or something so that those with lower energy or shield levels make more appealing targets. This also has drawn me into potentially taking advantage of some kind of chain reaction mechanism. I'm sure theres something that could work in the game, but it hasn't quite come to me yet (any ideas appreciated!!). Alternatively, perhaps the player can take control of any given orb, but each orb has a given energy level with which to take shots which is replenished through a collectible.
With the game possessing a simple control system where everything can be controlled by mouse movement and a single mouse button. The game should be playable by a novice in seconds, though the ability system and subtle strategies in defeating clever opponents should allow expert players to shine in the long term. Like pinball, the game allows beginners to win often enough to draw them in with luck, but also allows experts to truly prosper with skill. I have a slight worry that the game may not give players enough information and interaction to make their shots anything other than pure luck, so perhaps this is an area of the game worthy of adaptation? Perhaps we need some kind of aftertouch mechanic to shots to enable players to make minor predictable adjustments after taking the initial shot... something like the aftertouch system in the Burnout game series.
On the subject of the arenas, I would like them to take on a variety of themes to cater for a variety of players. Perhaps adding some kind of a world map system to the game with discretely styles zones to appeal to varying audiences. If I had to stick with one style though, I think I would choose a cartoony steampunk feel, somewhat similar to Chaos Engine, with perhaps a slight bit more of a fantasy overtone, though I appreciate that this may be a bit hardcore for the casual players, so maybe it isn't such a good idea!!
Arenas would consist of 3d tiled models layed out on a 2d grid as I don't want the complication of playing on a fully 3d surface, since I don't think slopes and curved surfaces would add much to the gameplay other than frustration (though I'm open to opinion), whilst they would make a level editor and Artificial Intelligence much more of a pain in the backside to code!! I would like to add in some elements though such as speed ramps and bounce nodes. Speed ramps accelerating orbs and bounce nodes causing them to fly around pinball style. I may even throw in other element like magnets, conveyor belts, etc.
So uhh, yeah, anyhoo this has really turned into a mammoth post that probably isn't as coherent as it should be, but I am quite overflowing with ideas for this game, and it does strike me as being somewhat viable both commercially and personally in terms of my abilities.
I would love to make this idea my next project, but really want to do it justice and make it as good as possible. Would anyone be willing to suggest any improvements or minor changes? Have I got it all wrong, is it a bad idea? Are there any glaring flaws in the idea that I've not noticed? I'm happy doing this idea by myself, but also, if anyone else is interested in developing the idea, it might be nice to work with someone else on it :)
I'm quite open to rather sweeping changes to the design if this inspires anyone to create a better idea from it, so please don't hold back on the suggestions, even if they are far from subtle!! Any feedback, positive or negative is appreciated.
Many thanks for taking the time to read!
:)
Steve
Heya all,
I've only just discovered this fantastic forum, though I am by no means a newbie as regards game development. I am very impressed with the high quality of posts here and look forward to joining the community.
I thought I'd perhaps run one of my game design ideas past you all in hope of some constructive feedback. You may want to hit back on your browser now if you don't have time to read a long (long long long.... loooong!) post!
I quite like my idea so far, but it is definitely still just an underdeveloped fragment of an idea and as such needs a lot of work as there are still several unknowns in the equation. My idea should be reasonably simple to develop, fits my needs as a portfolio piece and may even work as a good casual/semi-casual game if that way of life becomes an option (I'd love to be an Indie developer!). I've tried to keep the idea within the scope of my abilities as a programmer (I've almost completed my first serious project of a 3d Airhockey clone with powerups) and I've tried very hard to keep my idea as something that is interesting to me, whilst hopefully also appealing to quite a broad audience.
So anyhoo, rambling aside, my game idea is loosely based on a cross between Pool, Magic the Gathering, Speedball and Super Monkeyball (in my head at least). I hadn't set out with such a specific aim, but the description quite fits the idea. I would like players to control a team of "orbs" which are to be robots in a spherical form.
Players will either control a single "cue ball" orb in a top-down perspective. Players will compete against one or more opponents at a time. If there are in excess of 2 players, then players will be grouped into 2 teams.
The objective of the game is to knock orbs with the same shell or core colour together. If either both cores are the same colour or both shells are the same colour, the orbs will dissipate (after rolling a little further to cause chain reactions), leaving a collectible item remaining and scoring a point for the core team or shell team as appropriate. If there are no colour matches the orbs bounce around as normal pool balls might.
I'm not yet sure whether to make the game turn based or realtime, or perhaps whether to offer both modes in the game. Obviously turn-based will highlight strategy, whilst realtime action would highlight the action element.
The player should therefore attempt to collide orbs with either like-coloured shells, or like-coloured cores depending on the players team (cores or shells). But where is the long-term fun in that? It strikes me as a simple fun mechanic that will last for a while, but I feel it needs extra elements adding to it to give the player a lasting unpredictable challenge, a sense of fun and replay value.
To throw something into the mix, I would possibly like to have some kind of collectible spawned upon dissipation of a pair of orbs... junk, rings, coins, energy, gems or something else. I'm not sure what yet and it needs writing into the game story, but something that will essentially be used to activate powerups. I would like to provide the player with a mechanism that allows them to do such crazy things as turning orbs invisible, turning an orb into a kamikaze attack, making an orb magnetic so it attracts more energy and so on. In short, I want to provide an alternate goal that may potentially be more rewarding than simply aiming at clusters and firing. This would help make every game subtly different each time, allowing people to experiment with different combinations of powerups. We could even go so far as to allow players to collect powerups to satisfy the collection desires many gamers have.
I would like to keep the game accessible to as wide an audience as possible. So my control scheme will be slightly different to anything I have seen before. The player will control a mouse cursor to direct their shot. They may position the mouse cursor freely rather than simply moving a direction indicator, and simply need to hold down the left mouse button to charge up their shot, releasing the mouse button to sling the orb across the arena towards the mouse cursor. This would have a visual indicator such as particles reaching out from the orb to the cursor to indicate power of the shot.
In this way, players have precision aiming of their orb up to its first collision, so the game will involve a lot of strategy in determining where the ball will travel after the initial collision (perhaps giving bonuses for good ricochet shots?!). To activate powerups, players simple need to have collected enough energy/rings/scrap/whatever to power their ability. Once they have the power for the ability, they click the ability and then click the target. Abilities may either be randomly drawn like Magic the Gathering cards, or I may look into some kind of upgrade scheme where players can choose new abilities as a reward for completion of a level.. I'm a glutton for upgrade game mechanics myself and I suspect it would be enjoyed by less casual players as it could provide some longevity to the game. I'm not 100% sure yet!! I may even implement some kind of a sacrifice mechanism in return for a different kind of power (perhaps it could supplement the power from collectible items).
I have also wondered about perhaps creating some kind of a mechanism for giving pairs of orbs varying strategic importance. Perhaps rather than a binary "like coloured pair collision = score" it may work better to give orbs energy levels, or shields or something so that those with lower energy or shield levels make more appealing targets. This also has drawn me into potentially taking advantage of some kind of chain reaction mechanism. I'm sure theres something that could work in the game, but it hasn't quite come to me yet (any ideas appreciated!!). Alternatively, perhaps the player can take control of any given orb, but each orb has a given energy level with which to take shots which is replenished through a collectible.
With the game possessing a simple control system where everything can be controlled by mouse movement and a single mouse button. The game should be playable by a novice in seconds, though the ability system and subtle strategies in defeating clever opponents should allow expert players to shine in the long term. Like pinball, the game allows beginners to win often enough to draw them in with luck, but also allows experts to truly prosper with skill. I have a slight worry that the game may not give players enough information and interaction to make their shots anything other than pure luck, so perhaps this is an area of the game worthy of adaptation? Perhaps we need some kind of aftertouch mechanic to shots to enable players to make minor predictable adjustments after taking the initial shot... something like the aftertouch system in the Burnout game series.
On the subject of the arenas, I would like them to take on a variety of themes to cater for a variety of players. Perhaps adding some kind of a world map system to the game with discretely styles zones to appeal to varying audiences. If I had to stick with one style though, I think I would choose a cartoony steampunk feel, somewhat similar to Chaos Engine, with perhaps a slight bit more of a fantasy overtone, though I appreciate that this may be a bit hardcore for the casual players, so maybe it isn't such a good idea!!
Arenas would consist of 3d tiled models layed out on a 2d grid as I don't want the complication of playing on a fully 3d surface, since I don't think slopes and curved surfaces would add much to the gameplay other than frustration (though I'm open to opinion), whilst they would make a level editor and Artificial Intelligence much more of a pain in the backside to code!! I would like to add in some elements though such as speed ramps and bounce nodes. Speed ramps accelerating orbs and bounce nodes causing them to fly around pinball style. I may even throw in other element like magnets, conveyor belts, etc.
So uhh, yeah, anyhoo this has really turned into a mammoth post that probably isn't as coherent as it should be, but I am quite overflowing with ideas for this game, and it does strike me as being somewhat viable both commercially and personally in terms of my abilities.
I would love to make this idea my next project, but really want to do it justice and make it as good as possible. Would anyone be willing to suggest any improvements or minor changes? Have I got it all wrong, is it a bad idea? Are there any glaring flaws in the idea that I've not noticed? I'm happy doing this idea by myself, but also, if anyone else is interested in developing the idea, it might be nice to work with someone else on it :)
I'm quite open to rather sweeping changes to the design if this inspires anyone to create a better idea from it, so please don't hold back on the suggestions, even if they are far from subtle!! Any feedback, positive or negative is appreciated.
Many thanks for taking the time to read!
:)
Steve