Here is some early design documentation I created for the academic team project. The details I wrote were based on team discussions and reactions during our preproduction meetings. Written in early 2020 aside from some revisions that were made due to change the scope of the project, which was due to quarantining and transitioning online. I will wrap these changes in *asterisks*.
Our team's mission statement:
To complete a game as developers that results in a strong portfolio piece. We each have unique expertise in a variety of different field, but each of us wants to further our abilities and learn beyond our apparent skills
Priorities:
Focus on mechanics and function, placeholders can come before art
UI/Menus: ones that work well.
One well-designed level that ramps up in difficulty over time.
3 individual types of enemies that have rock/paper/scissors interplay.
Having their behaviors change based on certain actions
Enemy AI moving/action
Score system to track player progress.
Player Abilities
Top-down movement
Aiming
(projectile) Spellcasting
All of these core gameplay priorities were built off of the initial pitch of calamity witch. These particular core priorities were chosen to be present in calamity witch as they would provide players with unique and engaging gameplay with our relative short development time, as many of these priorities aren’t too hard to implement
Game Overview:
Magic is fun :)
Fast-paced top-down strategic action, where players must quickly make decisions to defeat specific enemy types
Score system to track the progress of how many enemies were defeated/how long you survive
1 large level that increases with difficulty over time, players can test their skill and compete with others to reach the highest score they can reach, use scrolling to manage movement on the map
Objectives:
Defeat as many enemies(NPC Monsters) as possible to increase your score, before the enemies become overwhelming and the player(Witch) is defeated
Background Story:
You are a clumsy witch who must undo the magical catastrophes that you’ve accidentally cast upon the land which causes elemental/magical monsters to attack
Genre, Inspiration & References:
Hotline Miami(top-down shooter) - moving and shooting in a topdown 2D plane
Endless modes(many video games) - survive as long as possible to accumulate the most points
Fire Emblem/Pokemon/Rock,Paper,Scissors/etc.(Advantage/Disadvantage triangle) - Explained later
Calamity Witch is a combination of these similar games/mechanics but concepts are flipped on their head through our many changes we have for these established concepts. Such as the triangle advantage system changing enemy behavior
Target Audience:
Any age, people who play games quick/on the go, people who enjoy friendly competition (high score), anyone who loves fantasy
Key Mechanics:
Magic Casting - aim with the mouse
Switching between casting different magic types
Magic advantages/disadvantages
Enemies fight back using their respective type of magic
Single Player
Moving the player character on a 2d plane by scrolling the background map - (wasd) up, down, left, right
Clumsiness mechanic -At the start of the game spells have a chance to fizzle, that chance to fizzle goes down as the high score increases
Mechanic Specification -Type Matchups:
Think pokemon/rock, paper scissors/etc. All enemies represent one of these three types, thus dividing the types of enemies you encounter into three: fire, water, and earth. Enemies have a unique attack method that relates to their elemental type. For instance, the Earth enemy has a strong attack that is directly in front of them, and the Fire enemy has a fireball attack that has more range but it has a smaller attack size, etc.
*The unique attack patterns were cut due to time constraints*
The player wields these elemental magic in order to fight back against the enemies. However, using the correct type of magic on certain enemies is key. Using magical attacks against an enemy that has a favorable type match-up, will result in that enemies becoming more powerful, for example casting an earth spell on a fire enemy, will not kill that fire enemy rather make its attack more powerful. Hitting an enemy with a neutral magic type will do nothing, not kill or enrage, unlike hitting an enemy with an advantage/ disadvantage spell.
*Neutral spells can kill, just deal less damage*
An idea that was in the initial proposal. When the player attempts to cast a spell, there is a
random chance for that spell to fissel, ie. not cast. This percentage chance to fissel starts high in the beginning, and decreases as the player accumulates more points for surviving and defeating enemies. Essentially making the player more powerful the longer they survive
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