Game Brainstorm

 Game Brainstorm

Concept 1: Roll-a-mole

So in this game I wanted to create a space where the player had to get the highest number of points before dying or the time running out and what I came up with was this area with a 3x3 square with holes in each section and an extra 1 grid of space around perimeter of holes. The player boundaries is a boxing ring style of ropes which the player can run into and bounce from, sending them back into the action. 

The player is a ball that will roll forward very fast and the only control they have is turning them left and right. Their objective is to aim for the moles that pop out of the holes to score points. The first mole is 10pts and the second mole is 50pts. However, there are bombs, much like the ones in minesweeper, that will protrude from the same holes as the moles and if the player hits them they lose 1HP. The goal is to reach a high score before losing all of your lives.

I came up with the concept of this when I was asleep and knew I had to write it down. I really like this concept because its small and concise allowing me to focus more time on a smaller area. This makes me think I can add more features in the future like a round based system where the player becomes increasingly faster and the likelihood of a bomb showing up being increased. Power-ups also crossed my mind and might be something I look into in the future if I have time. 

I've included a link to the wiki of Whackamole history to help design my game!

Basic Map Layout

Concept 2: Colorscape

For Colorscape, I really wanted a game based around the fluidity of movement and efficiency. So I wanted to create a mini-world, maybe a few blocks of a city devoid of color and the player has to land on each building to restore it to its original colors. The game will be first person as the player has to jump around, building to building, with lower gravity to make the player feel like they can jump far distances. There will be a timer counting how long it takes the player to completely restore the whole world. Now that I have the basic premise I need to make sure I can code it to work but if I can be ambitious I would like to add enemies the player has to take out and that will deduct time if the player picks up a stopwatch icon that they drop. 

Other ideas I had were "The Floor is Lava" Where the streets in the world are covered in hot lava that the player will die if they touch. This prioritizes them to think about their movements. Wall running and jumping are mechanics I would love to add to the game to open up the environment to the players abilities and bring traversal to the next level. Another thing in the wish list is a mechanic for a grapple. The grapple will allow the player to hook to and swing from any building within range and allows for some interesting run and gun momentum speed runs for the high-score time.

DeBlob is a game with a very similar premise but different approach and I will be using it as a source of inspiration if I need to.

Concept 3: Flip Industries

Flip IND. is a first person game set inside a facility where the player must battle enemies within set rooms and corridors. The player is first given the ability to flip the gravity whenever they want. This will help traverse the strange puzzle corridors that lead to the next areas. After teaching the player how to use the gravity mechanic they will be introduced to some enemies that they can fend off with some guns. Maybe starting with a pistol, then a smg and later on a shotgun. These rooms will be "kill all enemies to proceed" levels that open to another corridor where they need to use the gravity mechanic to get through.

The player will also have the option to flip the gravity in the combat rooms to help take vantage points against enemies and kill them. Ultimately if I can manage to code this I hope to include 3 main levels of enemies and gun pickups and a Final boss section where the player can switch between all the weapons and also flip gravity to help defeat them. I plan to use the gravity flip mechanic to be integral to how you defeat the Final boss and all the levels before hand are there to subtly teach you these tricks. Between all these levels will be "puzzle corridors" reminding the player about the main concept of the game.

The mechanic of changing gravity will be very difficult and I will probably be using some tutorials from youtube to achieve this.

Concept 4:

Concept 4 is a throwback to old arcade games to battle for high-score. I thought of this idea mainly because I want to see if I can learn to make a code that procedurally generates the world the player then has to experience. So, in this game we have a Spaceship that is travelling through this Cylindrical map that's perpetually coming towards the player. The players movement is limited to going up and down, left or right around the perimeter of the cylinder.Now I want to see if I can code obstacles and enemies to come towards the player that they have to avoid or kill. The spaceship is equipped with standard blasters at first that take one shot to kill enemies. However, the further you get you can obtain power-ups that the player has to catch as they come at them in the cylinder. These power-ups can be double blasters, lasers or machine guns. I think learning to code the spaceships movement and the procedurally generated world will be hard enough but will be a good lesson. The player will be given three lives to start, they then have to rack up as many points as possible to achieve a high-score. If the player gets hit three times they lose but there will be 1ups to replenish the players life supply and let them keep playing.

The procedurally generated obstacles and enemies might be a difficult task to create so I will be using forums and tutorials online to help me understand the mechanic.