Genre/Story Concept: The MC is the world’s most skilled mercenary sent on a death march by the Government to ‘Paradise’, an ethereal land speculated by world authorities to be nothing more than a ‘myth’. It is believed that deep within the heart of Paradise holds the ‘source’, an ancient chalice artifact that gives those who consume it otherworldly strength. Our MC treks through the depths of extravagant biomes and lavish environments to find the Source, fighting hordes of mystical creatures.
Due to Serpent’s Paradise's roguelike genre, it is paramount to reward players for their persistence and effort.
- Wave-based. Players must defeat all enemies in a stage before moving to the next zone.
- Enemies drop power-ups and weapons that can be used for a short time to enhance overall strength.
- Bosses drop Essence, which is redeemed post-games to upgrade abilities per-form. Normal enemies drop coins, which can be redeemed at the weapons shop to refresh health and upgrade the base weapon. Coins are lost runs the run is over, but Essense remains. The shop is after a boss fight, and before the next stage (a nice rest).
- Players can navigate through the menu to find the upgrades tree.
The world's best mercenary is versatile, possessing two main combat styles and specialties that can be cycled throughout a single run. He has access to a Primary Skill, a Dash, and his Ultimate ability, with each style possessing a different effect for all three abilities. The player has a fixed amount of health per
His primary Skill is Pulse Shot, which fires three distinct straight shots in a line, each separated by a short delay.
Dashing leaves a grenade at the start, exploding and dealing damage to all enemies within the area
His Ultimate skill is Ruthless Assault, which drastically increases the fire rate for a short duration. During Ruthless Assault, Dashing will leave behind 3 grenades instead.
His Primary Skill is Smokebomb, which is an AOE ability that damages and stuns all enemies in the radius for a short duration.
Dashing can be recast for another, slightly smaller dash.
His Ultimate Skill is Swift Surge, which dashes to a target, dealing massive damage and executing them if below a certain threshold. Getting a kill with Swift Surge refreshes its cooldown, and gives him a temporary movement speed increase.
The mercenary will be able to use base weapons and pickups in both forms, and the player is encouraged to experiment with different playstyles with weapons and forms.
Serpent's Paradise includes a point system in which players can redeem these points post-run to claim rewards or to upgrade themselves for a later run. This mechanic for Serpent’s Paradise primarily takes inspiration from another roguelike- Gunfire Reborn. Gunfire Reborn uses a perk tree (a different tree per form) in which players can redeem their points from in-game collection (through chests and kills) to upgrade their abilities and overall stat lines. In addition to the perk tree, Gunfire Reborn also boasts an incredibly high level of replayability thanks to its in-game power-up system. These come in `the form of 'scrolls' which increase a player’s stats or buff their abilities. There are hundreds of scrolls, as well as hundreds of different weapons, resulting in each run turning out completely different each time. Serpent’s Paradise aims to deliver that same level of continuity through the use of power-ups and unique buffs.
The players will be rewarded for their grinding by using their post-game points to increase the power or alter the effect of the power-ups they find in-game. A core example of this direction is to linearly increase the potency of a dash buff (increase total distance, reduce cooldown, or even REMOVE the cooldown for a short duration). The player will have a choice to unlock and equip various types of upgrades to their core skills, and the power-ups they find during the run. This point system will also have permanent buffs to a specific skill for either the Gunner or Samurai style.
Serpent’s Paradise implements a scaling system, resulting in all enemies becoming stronger as the game progresses. There are multiple pre-run difficulties to play on, each having a lower or higher amount of scaling on the enemies. For example, easy mode is a much more casual-friendly approach to the game, with the player usually being able to enjoy a challenge and be punished less for mistakes. As the difficulty increases, the player must maneuver much more methodically to survive enemy bombardment and pay much closer attention to enemies in general.
Each unique stage of the game will include base enemies, unique traits, and stage-exclusive foes. Each stage will also have altered terrain and traps designed to hinder or even kill the player. This is a core aspect of the game, and players must adapt to each stage independently, or they may have trouble obtaining the Source.
An anagram of Medusa, Samuda is a powerful creature able to turn all living beings and creatures into stone. Samuda is the toughest opponent in Serpent's Paradise with very powerful abilities and will require the highest amount of skill to take down. Beating Samuda will yield the highest amount of Essence out of all bosses.
Serpent’s Paradise is a game made for anyone who enjoys challenging boss fights, replayability, and high-octane chaos. Roguelike-type games, to the general population, can be a tricky investment. Games with little to no story progression can get quite tedious, especially if the game does not include any major progression checkpoints which reward the player for being persistent and grindy. This entry-level of dedication required to maximize enjoyment in the game can:
A. scare off casual players due to the grind and
B. wear out players who thought they’d be rewarded for their effort much sooner.
Ultimately, the target audience is not tailored for a casual player who prefers linear progression and story-building; however, these players will certainly gain enjoyment from the game from a few runs by being introduced to the game’s overstanding theme and mechanics.
In essence, Serpent’s Paradise aims to introduce the casual gamer to the roguelike genre’s gameplay direction and mechanics, while still enticing the player with an interesting concept, ethereal level design, and unique enemies. For the more experienced grinder or roguelike enjoyer, my game aims to satiate the hunger for a good grind by supporting the player with enjoyable, recognizably fun game elements including power-ups, weapons, movement abilities, enemy interactions, and maybe most exciting of all: the boss fights! At the end of the day, everyone has an itch to kick some butt, and it is my job to maintain the itch for as long as possible.
Much like Gunfire Reborn, the game contains 3 unique stages/areas, each with its own environment and an exclusive enemy type, traps, and boss. Since our MC is traversing a mythical land, Serpent’s Paradise aims to capture a feeling of progression through the fabric of the game as the player converges toward their inevitable descent into chaos. A great example of unique environments through progression is Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, a 2D platformer that boasts incredible scenery and landscape as the player moves through the game. A great way to compare the level design direction is to compare Tropical Freeze to a game like Super Mario Brothers. Mario’s art direction and level design are usually quite repetitive and maintain Mario’s iconic style, whereas a game like Tropical Freeze aims to culminate the adventure character is taken on through incredible artwork display.
Here is a basic example of level design between the two franchises:
Mario’s style is so iconic that its 2D platforming games often recycle a lot of aspects which can get over-saturated, but usually fine tunes it, depending on the environment or context. Serpent’s Paradise hopes to give that same feeling of being rewarded purely by progressing through the game towards the Chalice of Immortality! The art direction aims to add depth to the 2D background, with each layer moving independently rather than in sync. This gives the stage progression a much more centralized feeling to the player, with each step producing a greater feeling of discovery. Another fantastic example of this art direction is Badland – another 2D action adventure that captures a great sense of discovery as the player swiftly moves through each of the stages. It has a unique way of storytelling with the BACKGROUND rather than with the gameplay, as the scenery of the Badland jungle becomes more ominous and mysterious the further the player progresses.
To wrap up; Serpent’s Paradise does not guarantee the player to be enthralled by its visuals and its ability to tell a narrative, but provides the player an avenue of story building, both with the gameplay from unique enemies and terrain, encapsulated by a multilayered, separate moving background, bolstering a higher sense of being connectivity and relation with the game itself.
The idea to implement a 2D shooter/roguelike stems from my enjoyment of games in the same genre. Since the beginning of my grinding days, I have always been so impressed by how games are able to keep you playing and keep you invested through an array of means – whether it’s battle passes, events, or power spikes. MMORPGs have always been a staple in my life from early on, and I enjoy reaching a game’s achievements or milestones if I believe I will gain enjoyment or overall game value from it (being stronger, unique cosmetics etc..). I think these types of games have a unique approach to maintaining their player base through assurance of success rather than the initial fun of the game. Another two fantastic examples that I believe are roguelikes done right are Realm of the Mad God (ROMD) and Hero Siege. In both 2D top-down shooters, players have a very clear progression system, whether it be through leveling up, gaining money for upgrades, or gaining valuable item drops from enemies.
Serpent’s Paradise takes its level design and stage progression from Hero Siege – the player acquires harder difficulties as they continue through the game to beat the same bosses and enemies. With the unlock of these harder difficulties, the game rewards you by significantly increasing the drop-rate of rare and super-rare items. I believe this concept gives the player a greater motivation to persist through the game, well past the end-game content. Even if the player has defeated all the stages on all the difficulties, it is still incredibly gratifying to play with unique dungeons, leveling systems and grinding for that class-unique item set to drastically boost the player’s strength. In contrast, Serpent’s Paradise is a much smaller game, with only one distinct character to play, resulting in difficulty in reserving the game ‘fun’ with less variety. Serpent’s Paradise focuses on its core, initial gameplay to entice the player to complete the game and reach those upgrade milestones.
Realm of the Mad God also uses a seemingly limitless leveling system in an open-world setting, allowing its players to interact with each other and the environment, fighting open-world bosses, entering dungeons together, and obtaining rarer loot as they dive deeper into the game. The player loses their character if they die, along with all the loot they gained during the run. So what is the incentive if all their hard work is wiped out? Players in ROMD unlock new classes as they complete challenges and level up their current class in-game, which are upgrades of the class they already have. I’ve taken inspiration from this aspect of ROMD and applied it to the upgrade system for the buffs/power-ups, hoping to produce that feeling of variety through each run of Serpent’s Paradise and to reward the player for their persistence through gameplay.
J. Creswell, CBR, 2022, What Makes a Good Roguelike? , viewed 26 August at:
https://www.cbr.com/roguelike-game-genre-good/#:~:text=Good%20roguelikes%20alway....
Steam, 2023, Gunfire Reborn, viewed 26 August at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1217060/Gunfire_Reborn/
Youtube, 2023, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Launch Trailer (Nintendo Switch), viewed 26 August at:
Steam, 2023. BADLAND: Game of the Year Edition, viewed 26 August at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/269670/BADLAND_Game_of_the_Year_Edition/
Steam, 2023, Hero Siege, viewed 27 August at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/269210/Hero_Siege/
Steam, 2023. Realm of the Mad God Exalt, viewed 27 August at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/200210/Realm_of_the_Mad_God_Exalt/
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Overall a fun idea -- the main thing that might take some time is the different enemy types, and you may find that having a boss battle quickly becomes a "nice to have" feature.