Week 1: Game Idea

Starfish: Battle Royale (name subject to change)

Introduction

Starfish: Battle Royale will be a party fighting game in the same vein as games such as Rag Doll Kung Fu™: Fists of Plastic, and the Super Smash Bros. franchise. The game will feature several traditional multiplayer game modes such as King of the Hill, Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch. The game will be geared to more casual audiences and will be easily accessible to most age groups.

Gameplay Overview

Starfish: Battle Royale will feature simple gameplay; players can move, jump and hit each other with a stick/sword/lightsaber. Items in the future may have on-hit effects such as freezing, slowing or burning, however, at this time we will be focusing on the simple mechanic of players being able to hit each other. In the future we also plan to introduce hit-streaks such that if a player gets several consecutive hits without a miss, they will be rewarded. Levels will feature deadly obstacles that players must avoid, and levels will be designed to accommodate as many game modes as possible.

Game Modes

All game modes feature the same gameplay. The only difference will be the win condition and rules for each game mode.

Capture the Flag

Capture the enemy team’s flag and return it to your base for points. First to X amount of points wins.

Survival Zombie Tag

One player starts as a zombie. All other players are trying to survive until the end of the round. When a player is hit by the zombie, they also become a zombie. If all players become zombies, the zombies win. Otherwise the last surviving player wins.

Deathmatch

All players are trying to knock each other out for points. The player with the most points wins.

Hunter

A team of players are designated as hunters who hunt the opposing team. The opposing team’s objective is to survive or eliminate the hunters, while the hunters’ objective is to eliminate the opposing team.

Protect the King

Two teams of three or more each. One player on each team is designated as the King of that team. The opposing team must kill the king, although they do not know who the king is until the king is hit. First team to eliminate the king wins.

King of the Hill

Object is to stay on top of hill the longest. Other players try to knock each other off the the hill to become king.

Project Scope

The game's design is very simple at its core. The reason for this is because we really have to limit our scope. In the past we have designed complicated games that had to constantly be redesigned. This game is very basic, and we can always build up on it later on as opposed to completely redesigning. 

In terms of the design of the engine, the only thing that seems to be an obstacle at the moment is learning how to use the TwoLoc framework. This will obviously change in the coming weeks but at the moment I only have a basic understanding of game engines and I hope that what we're planning will work. More on the engine design in the next post.