#game documentation

First hurdle to get over is actually having an idea! We settled on a game that would be a spin on the survivors-like genre, something that would be inspired by games like vampire survivors but with card games mixed in.

Two devs on this game instead of six! So that's a lot of work that 2 people have to do, isn't that scary? But! we got a lot done for our first day of development! Mostly just making what we actually need for the game. I made a shared documentation thing ( which I most likely will be the only one writing in ) and my co-dev made the github + project itself! Thanks co-dev! We're aiming to get the basic things down this week ( Basic AI, UI, some art, core game mechanics.... ) so wish us luck! Here's a couple snapshots of a reaaallly basic prototype of our game is made using powerpoint!

Our game is like if you were playing vampire survivors.... but you have to defend yourself by playing the right cards at the right time... lots of combos you can do and synergies that can be played with overwhelming amounts of effects on screen. Originally, we wanted to have a whole bunch of things! like 20 abilities with upgrades and 3 different enemy variants. after talking through it more, and a lot of questions asked by me, we whittled it down to 5 abilities with 3 possible upgrades, and only 1 enemy variant. For this game, we wanted to focus on producing a high quality game with limited features but a clear game mechanic that was a twist on the survivors genre. Not only are you unable to move, but you're basically having to wait for abilities to appear for you to be able to play! A feature we definitely wanted to add is something like an auto card player, so a player doesn't need to worry about playing the card, and let it happen automatically when they would usually need to manually play it as soon as it entered their hand!

My co-dev loved this integration of cards into the gameplay, but a lot of discussion went into how exactly we would present the cards. we both agreed in the end it would be on the bottom of the screen, presented in the same way someone playing cards would do it. I also proposed an idea that, if we were not using the top corners of our screens too much, we could use that space to make card descriptions appear when you hover over a card. My co-dev did not accept this idea, since in most card games, once you use a card a couple of times, you become familiar with what it does over time. Originally, we wanted 20 different cards, but later narrowed it down to 5 for the sake of scope, as well as 1 character type and 1 tome they could have. If we wanted to make the scale bigger, we would want there to be different synergies and characters to better the game's replayability.

A lot of discussions went into the style of the game, with us settling on a 2d game that would gradually expand in screen size with time, and a varied colour palette, as we wanted to have colours pop against a monotone-ish background. We browsed a lot of art forums and websites to find the exact colours and style we wanted to go for... which took some time.

I finally found sometime to brush my messy head that was full of crazy ideas and narrow them down to a more “sane” scale. Note to self: Simple is Best. Also had some helpful feedback from some of my friends (gamers and not)! (Yes, they shouted at me AGARIO!!!! haha ) ============================================== So here`s a taste of my mind: Game Scene & Basic Game Logic/Player’s Aim:

 Player Movement to where the cursor is then consider ‘Q’=’Left Click’ & ‘E’=’Right Click’.

Player loads in a fairly decent sized playable area, one that is not too big (boundaries are reached fast), but not too small (boundaries are not on the edge of viewable game screen).

 Player has to beat his own best score in the game (like a mini arcade e.g., ‘Snake’).

Player has to fight or dodge enemies while trying to collect his points.

Enemies:

 Enemies will be simple AI who target the Player with mini projectiles but do not mindlessly spray them on sight (e.g., 3 bullets per 3 seconds).

 1st Enemy spawns at 1st point, at 10 points->2 Enemies will be hunting the Player, at 20->3 Enemies and so on according to x0 Points obtained by Player.

 If the Player ignores killing Enemies, Enemies will overwhelm Player.

 Player:

Player will have to either dodge bullets or ‘Shield’ against them. ‘Shield’ will deflect bullets and will have a cooldown of 6 seconds (Will be Accessed with ‘E’/’R-Click’).

 A way to get rid of enemies will be to use ‘Pulse’ that will push away enemies out of the boundaries or ‘Black Holes’ to kill them.  Cooldown of 3 seconds (Will be Accessed with ‘Q’/’L-Click’).

 Black Hole Mechanic:

 If the Enemy gets too close to the Player, they will explode causing a small ‘black hole’ that will draw the Player in.

 ‘Black Holes’ are not generated when Enemies are knocked out of boundaries.

 Enemies are not affected by the gravitational pull of ‘black holes’.

Player can use ‘Black holes’ to their advantage by using ‘Pulse’ to push Enemies into the ‘Black holes’ and rid of them.

 If the Player triggers an explosion and gets drawn in a ‘black hole’, their only way of escape will be to ‘power struggle’ against the gravity by spamming a key to get out of the specific pull radius.

‘Power Struggling’ out of a gravitational pull will not affect the speed of the Player (will not be exploited for gaining speed).

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Extra Notes:

Can use the ‘Dash’ mechanic instead of a ‘power struggle’ but it should still be only for when a gravitational pull is pulling the player in (so that it will not be used for gaining speed) as well as having a small cooldown (so that it will be more challenging for the Player to think his route instead of going through multiple gravitational pulls without having to worry).

 Enemies can still collect points (adds to the need of killing Enemies for more Points).

Could also add some extra points for killing Enemies.

 It would be better if I remove the casual Agar.io mechanic of orbs absorbing each other and growing, there should not be any growth mechanic.(?)

 Instead of the Player dying when exploding Enemies do explode, a strong knockback will be nice (like this the Player still has high chances of dying to boundaries if knocked back out of them or when thrown into previously generated black holes).

Playable Area Boundaries can be continue to infinity instead of hitting a “wall”.

Simple Main Menu Screen with a ‘High Score’ indicator (updated per play).