Repurposing unneeded posts for archives
Original Concept Post V0.0.1(Abandoned)
This game idea came from the Gain Jam ‘Minion’ wildcard prompt and has gone through quite a few genre changes as I tried figuring out how it would work. (Which has unfortunately led to some conflicting overlap with overall direction) It has since grown much larger in scope than I originally planned and unfortunately because of life obligations occurring at the same time as the Jam, I don’t believe I can finish even a working tech demo in time. So I’m deciding to put it up as a project idea here and ask you guys for critique, assistance, and other kinds of help to get the project going as I think it’s too neat of an idea to not try simply because I’ll miss the deadline.
As a personal limitation, early on I decided to use free assets as a means of quick setup and ended up with ImpossibleSnail’s free SFRPG sprite pack and that has led to some creative thinking about how I went about things and led to something that I feel is kinda neat. If this project takes off I plan to remove the limitation but for now it works and has formed a fundamental basis on the game’s concepts. You can find the pack here:
FREE-TO-USE-FATTY-ASSETS by WeirdMidnight
The current idea is a ‘camera locked behind the player’ kind of view, in a 3D world with the characters as 2D sprites akin to games like Paper Mario. Ideally, I’d like for this to be able to work as a multiplayer game and that is WAY beyond my abilities but I’d like for the option to be there if possible. As a compromise I plan on going as a ‘campaign mode’ vs a scripted ‘ai’ though that is, also, a bit beyond my skills but still at least in the realm of possibilities.
Basic Concept Outline
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You control a character that is in charge of a swarm of smaller creatures and use them to move, alter, affect, etc., everything in the map. Originally inspired by this sprite sheet. I’ll refer to them as Spirits. There is a maximum population you can have and I’m aiming low-ish of around 50-60 or so.
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The spirits have weight classes of (for now just 3) light 1lbs, med 3lbs, heavy 5lbs that would alter how they interact with the world. Light ones could be thrown up high and weigh the least, med thrown less so and weigh more, and heavy barely throwable if at all and weigh much more.
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The map would have obstacles that are affected by weight and spirit count. Examples being a brittle floor that has a weight and unit limit (5 total spirits at a time with a combined weight of 10 lbs), a river crossing that can be made with enough heavy spirits to walk on (to fill the gap a unit must be heavy in order to not flow away), most areas have slopes but some have stairs that heavy units can’t climb, a crushable wall that requires a high enough weight to break (max 12 units can fit on it and needs a weight threshold of 25lbs), and other kinds of things.
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The spirits are used to move and transport large objects such as Food and also what I reffer to as ‘Hero’ units.
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Hero units I envision as, from an RTS viewpoint, mobile buildings to be used for attack/defense purposes as I don’t plan on having the spirits capable of combat themselves. Heroes are either incapable or unwilling to move themselves and have the status Immobile and Carried. Heroes have values for Carry Load and Surface Area. Hero units would specialize in Attack/Defense/Support/Runner as I currently have mocked up (still open for change). They must be Fed in order to use abilities or else they stop providing benefits until their hunger is sated.
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- Immobile status means they are now planted in position and can take action until picked up or they run out of food. They are also only able to be fed while Immobile. Carried status means, well, they are being carried and might be unable to use abilities depending on class.
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- Carry load is how heavy they are and how many spirits would be minimally needed to lift them and surface area refers to the max number that can fit around them to determine how much you can surpass the default carry speed by. ( X/10 spirits to pick up, and only 20 able to fit around them). This is to prevent spamming tactics of 100/10 to rocket things into place. A Fed Hero weighs more than an Unfed one so planning on when and how they move becomes important.
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- Classes is the area where I’m still working with balance/fun/ability-to-implement, mostly because of the aforementioned genre flip-flopping, and am open to suggestions here. Attack Classes are able to take out opposing units while Carried at a reduced melee range and at an extended range while Immobile. Defense Classes are able to Physically block off narrow routes while Immobile and take damage for other units in the area while Carried. Support Classes are able to store and retrieve food for other units while Immobile. Runner Classes are used to harvest map resources while Immobile and Carried back and forth from Main Base to deposit them. Main Base is the Win/Lose condition for you and your opponent that when Immobile also functions as how you progress along upgrade trees and create Hero units. Main Base is able to be Carried.
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- Alternative option 1: Support Classes function as resource Harvesters while Immobile. Runner Classes collect from Support Classes in order to transport to Main Base. Main Base takes over function of original Support Class as well as its role as Main Base.
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- Alternative option 2: Main Base functions as resource harvester and converter. Runner Classes function as solely food transportation.
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- Fed Status is basically a health/ammo/energy/storage bar in one for Heroes. There are currently 3 (technically 4) stages 0-Defeated, 1-Hungry, 2-Full, 3-Stuffed. Defeated is self explanatory of when they run completely out of food or are defeated by enemy attacks. Hungry is the default state and offers no inherent benefit or detriment until another stage is reached. It’s mostly a preparatory for later stages or a buffer from defeat. Full is when they are able to use their abilities and can be made useful. Stuffed is a special case for Main Base units once upgraded that can unleash unique game changing abilities but require heavy investment and management in order to utilize.
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I’ve cobbled together 4 Factions of units with unique specialties and upgrade paths. They still need work but they have a solid (I feel) foundation to work from. They all follow a basic upgrade path, with some variance.
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- Tech Tree works as follows:
Tier 1: Unlocks Main Base, Runner Unit, Support Unit
Tier 2: Upgrades Main Base, Unlocks Attack Unit, Defense Unit
Tier 3: Upgrades Main Base, Unlocks Ultimate Ability. Ultimate Abilities still require ‘filling’ once unlocked in order to be activated.
- Tech Tree works as follows:
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- Factions are as follows:
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- Barn Buddies: Bunnies, Chickens, Foxes, Cows. Designed around the Runner class with a focus on many weaker/lighter units. Main Base: Cow with Ultimate Ability ‘Milk Tap’ raises Spirit lift strength by 1 for faster unit movement.
Main Base Unit:Cow
- Barn Buddies: Bunnies, Chickens, Foxes, Cows. Designed around the Runner class with a focus on many weaker/lighter units. Main Base: Cow with Ultimate Ability ‘Milk Tap’ raises Spirit lift strength by 1 for faster unit movement.
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- Diet Demons: Mummies, Witches, Vampires, Succubi. Designed around the Attack class with a focus on sacrificial offensive units. Main Base: Succubus with Ultimate Ability ‘Hellfire’ performs a map wide AoE damage spell on enemy units.
Attack Unit: Witch
- Diet Demons: Mummies, Witches, Vampires, Succubi. Designed around the Attack class with a focus on sacrificial offensive units. Main Base: Succubus with Ultimate Ability ‘Hellfire’ performs a map wide AoE damage spell on enemy units.
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- Gator Grub: Gators and Reptiles. Designed around the Support class with average units who specialize in sustained output. Main Base: Snack-Shack, Ultimate Ability ‘Gator Glut’ allows regular units to become Stuffed upon unlock. Main Base does not Upgrade.
Support Unit: Delivery Guy Hungry/Full
- Gator Grub: Gators and Reptiles. Designed around the Support class with average units who specialize in sustained output. Main Base: Snack-Shack, Ultimate Ability ‘Gator Glut’ allows regular units to become Stuffed upon unlock. Main Base does not Upgrade.
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- Wallstreet Wolves: Dogs, Wolves, Bulls. Designed around the Defense class with a focus on preventing opponent play. Main Base: Boss with Ultimate Ability ‘Bureaucracy’ allows all units to temporarily inherit Defense unit blockade ability.
Defense Unit: Suit
- Wallstreet Wolves: Dogs, Wolves, Bulls. Designed around the Defense class with a focus on preventing opponent play. Main Base: Boss with Ultimate Ability ‘Bureaucracy’ allows all units to temporarily inherit Defense unit blockade ability.
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Um, I think that about covers what I got so far. I was planning on doing this in Unity but the last time I did programming was with actionscript years ago. I’m currently trying to wrap my head around how the hell Unity does things and with all the version changes and mismatched, outdated, and randomly ineffective YouTube tutorials I’m trying to piece together, it’s slow going. And while I CAN program it is not an aspect I enjoy doing but am trying to work through. I have a relatively solid grasp on the logistical aspects of how the mechanics can function, I just can’t figure out the proper words and steps needed to implement them in code properly.
There is still plenty to work through and implement and ironically, one of the things I’m having trouble with is, who is the character you control? As imagined, the Hero Units are very large and the Spirits are really small so the character needs to be kinda small/medium sized. They also ideally would have multiple animations but the limited selection I’ve got of sprites limits that severely. My thoughts were to use just a bigger spirit or one of the alternate versions but that doesn’t quite feel right. Another thought I had was to use the WG mascots as the character which could work but they only have a single image each. But if I ignore traditional animation techniques and go with math based ‘squish and rotate by a set amount’ options it might work.
Anyways, if anyone has ideas for things to implement or solutions on problems that you see feel free to voice em. I hope to work on this as I can but life is currently not being as agreeable to game design as it could be for the moment.