Concept art by Nils Wennergren
Theme Park
We’ve been tasked with creating a Game for a course called Theme Park. This involves building a game cabinet and then design original and interesting controls for said cabinet. The games we’ll be creating during this course will be presented at the GGC (Gotland Game Conferance) in Visby, Sweden. Croikey!
Totemic – Our Game
Alright, so we got together, and managed to salvage three people from the last group, Myself (The lead designer), Camilla Jacobsen (The lead Artist, Her blog!) and Anthon Fredriksson (The lead Programmer, His blog!), which I’ve mentioned several times in my blog.
We’ve brought in another Programmer, an Artist/Designer who’ll be helping me out with design-work and another graphical artist who’s style suits our new project perfectly (and who’ll be providing this post with concept art). Speaking of which:
The Idea
We started of by agreeing on the fact that this is a game that has to fit the environment in which it will be played; a game conferance.
The premise of our game is as follows:
The Game is set in a Fantasy Tribal world that bears marks of ancient cultures (Now remember, story is not important in this game). The characters wears tribal masks, clearly colour coded so that each player will be able to identify who they’re playing at any time.
We’ve decided to make the game in to a “competitive party game”; which basically means it’s supposed to be played by four friends at the same time. Each played is equipped with a Trackball and a Joystick – Yes, you’ll be controlling two characters at once.
We’re using Box2D, a physics library for C++, that allows us to create bouncing physics for the character’s, and it will allow us to create cool particle effects.
The game is set in an Arena, and the game play mode is King of the Hill, controlling a Totem in the middle. You’ll be controlling two character’s at once, fighting for the control of the middle. Here’s the twist: Only one of your character’s can control the middle: The “gatherer”, which is a small character, who is controlled by the joystick. The other character, the “Defender” is used as a defensive AND offensive tool, who’s main purpose is to keep other defender’s away and to pick off other “Gatherer’s”.
Let’s break each character down:
The Gatherer
– Fragile – Immediately dies if it comes in contact with an enemy defender’s.
– Picks up Power-Ups (Risky!)
– Controls the Middle, making the Player the King of the Hill (Risky as all hell!). First player to have controlled the middle for 30 seconds wins.
– Controlled by the Joystick.
The Defender
– Invulnerable – Can’t be killed. It does have to respawn if the player’s Gatherer is hit.
– Bounces – As the Defender collides with objects and other Defender’s, it will bounce off, which is based on the amount of force it’s exerting based on the speed at which it is moving
– Controlled by the Trackball.
Two Defender’s colliding and bouncing of each other while a Gatherer is running away. Concept art by Nils Wennergren.
Features
– Two Controls per person. 4 Player’s in total.
– Power-Ups that creates negative feedback loops for the player controlling the middle. (Think Mario Kart)
– King of the Hill Arena styled Game play
– Interesting settings; Tribal Shaman’s stirring up a ruckus.
Future Updates
Once again, I’m in charge of Game Design and Level Design. This is what I’ll be focusing on in upcoming blog updates. I’ll be talking about the issues and the solutions to balancing a multiplayer game, and how to take a simpelt concept and making it interesting enough to keep player’s from leaving our cabinet.
That’s it for now, thanks for reading!
Perkulatorn's Game Design Blog 