Day 3: Wednesday, 6/13
Design
I'm not a designer, so no design docs for me. Instead, my design is going to be more on the technical side, mapping directly to features to be implemented. Each feature is then broken down into smaller parts, because I'm a programmer and this is how we think (:
Translating the initial design into core mechanics:
- Main character follows behind mouse movement with a varying speed, up to a max value, depending on how far away the mouse is
- Multiple other NPCs on screen which enter the screen at regular intervals
- NPCs move randomly at a fixed speed
- NPCs have 5 states: Stranger, Acquaintance, Friend, RecevingEncouragement, CloseFriend
- NPCs start off as Stranger. Colliding with it triggers a state change to Acquaintance
- After a random amount of time, Acquaintance transitions to Friend, with a random type and key associated with it
- Colliding with Friend while pressing the its associated key triggers a state change to RecevingEncouragement
- After a fixed amount of time, RecevingEncouragement transitions to CloseFriend
- CloseFriend states cause the NPC to move out of the screen to be recycled
Additional features, in order of importance:
- Point system
- NPCs in CloseFriend state give a fixed amount of points
- Game ends when points reach a certain number
- Chain reaction
- NPCs in RecevingEncouragement state have an AOE which auto increments nearby NPCs state by 1
- Need to playtest if Friend can auto transition to RecevingEncouragement if it has a different type from the originally collided NPC
- Multiple NPCs entering CloseFriend state in the same collision give increasingly more points
- Energy mechanic
- Points are energy, and they constantly decreases at a fixed rate
- When energy hits 0, game over
- Recharging area which increases energy to 50%
- Wrong action mechanic
- Colliding with Friend while pressing the wrong key causes a state transition to Acquaintance
- Decreases your energy by a fixed amount
- Should this have an AOE?
- Powerup system
- Powerups have a random chance of spawning:
- When a chain reaction above a fixed number occurs. The larger the chain reaction, the higher the chance.
- After a fixed amount of time during which no CloseFriends have been made. The longer the duration, the higher the chance.
- Powerups include:
- Slow: All NPC movement speed decreases
- Fast: Main character moves faster
- Energy: Gain a fixed amount of energy
- Influential: NPCs in the RecevingEncouragement state have a larger AOE
- TODO: Think of better names and what icons represent them
- Powerups have a random chance of spawning:
Good to have:
- Other screens
- Start game
- Settings which automatically pause the game, resume, exit, back to main menu, restart
- Story / explicit explanation on how it links to the verse
- Tutorial
- End game stats
- Total time taken
- Largest chain reaction
- Time spent recharging
- Number of each type of close friends made
I may or may not do the good to haves, based on playtester feedback and how much polish I want on the actual gameplay. As for the artstyle, I'm thinking a combination of flat and material design., with low detail, humanoid characters. Audio should be fast paced, bright and cheery.
GitHub Repository
Right now, it has nothing of interest. Just the basic git files and an empty Unity project. I'll be adding more to it as and when.