Today was spent brainstorming about what features I would like to include in the shooter I'm creating. I've written it all down into a notebook but I'll type it all out here and show what I came up with.
Story/Main Character/Context
While not super important for the gameplay I thought about what the context would be for needing to shoot enemies. A playable character could be scrambled together too based on the context of the game, their environments and what they are capable of.
#1 You play as a secret military creation. A being created by humans using an mysterious alien energy resource. You were created to become the ultimate weapon, a perfect foot soldier, a one man army. Using your various alien techniques, abilities and your large arsenal of weapons you charge into battle to combat the invading monsters, who have taken over various continents of the planet. With the guidance of your human creators you must liberate continents by completing missions such as destroying the monsters army resources, or killing their army commanders.
#2 A run of the mill pizza delivery guy gets hit by a meteorite during a meteor shower and is crushed to death. In the afterlife he is given an opportunity to be revived by an unknown voice in the darkness of death. The voice grants the guy life, along with divine powers and weapons but with a cost. He must be revived cursed. The curse functions as a ticking time bomb, once time runs out, or the hero falls in battle, the world will be destroyed. In order to prevent this from happening, the hero must obey the voice's every command. Completing missions and tasks in different worlds until the voice is satisfied.
#3 The hero in this story is an alien child. Humans invade his planet and enslave his race. His mother is taken away from him and it's up to the hero to get her back. After escaping his captors he steals their tech and uses it against them in order to save his mother and take back his home planet.
I think out of those I prefer the first one the most. Seems like I could have an easier time to manifest a cool character design from the backstory, create enemy monsters and will be able to use the human companions as guides or a way to incorporate dialog or NPC interactions.
Main Gameplay Features
Haste Style & Strike Style: The player will be able to seamlessly transform between these two styles of gameplay with the press of a button.
Haste Style will focus on enhancing the player's movement abilities, when this style is active the player will change appearance and the camera will zoom out to allow the player to see more of their surroundings. The player will have increased movement speed, and have various movement abilities such as jumping, double jumping, sliding, wall running & jumping, aerial slamming, and gliding. Along with this they will gain access to quicker melee attacks that they can combat enemies with. In this style the player will NOT be able to shoot. When in Haste style the players crosshair will disappear. Players must rely on their melee attacks during haste style to deal damage, however while quicker and able to chain attacks together, melee attacks won't deal as much damage as shooting.
Strike Style will focus on enhancing the players shooting and combat abilities. When strike is activated the player will change appearance different to haste style, the camera will zoom in just a little away from over the shoulder and a crosshair will appear to allow precise aiming. Strike style allows the player to shoot many different shots depending on how they are moving, for example they shoot normally while the shoot button is held down, however performing actions such as directional dodge rolls, dashes and temporary lock-ons will cause your weapon to fire different kinds of shots. Charge shots, dash shots, and homing shots are a few examples which will have different properties and damage outputs from one another. When strike style is activated the player will not be able to jump, and they won't move as fast as they do in haste style.
Different Weapon Types
I want to make multiple weapon types to allow for different combat styles. Each weapon will have a "type" and will control and fire differently from one another. All weapons will be able to shoot projectiles as well as be used for melee attacks.
Some ideas for weapon types:
Pulse Hands
Arm Cannons
Mind Turrets
Magic Lances
Potions/Grenades
Elemental Fists
Blaster Blades
Virtual Mallets
Chain Sticks
Claws
Laser Daggers
I won't be able to make all of these but I'll pick out some favorites/ones I could do some cool stuff with.
Weapons don't need to reload.
They will have different fire rates, properties, and damage outputs from one another.
Some will be better for ranged attacks, some will be better for melee attacks, or some will be all round decent at both.
Weapons may or may not have ammunition, I'm still deciding on this. On one hand I want players to be able to not have to worry about ammo and let them be able to run and gun, but at the same time if there were ammunition it could be used to encourage the player to use different weapons when on low ammo with one weapon type. I think I'm leaning more towards having ammunition.
Exploration Pickups/Items/Power-ups
Players will be able to explore the levels, upon finding a secret area or a place of interest they will usually be rewarded with items that will help them during gameplay. Some examples of possible pickups and items include:
Health Pickups
Armor Pickups
Ammo Pickups (Maybe)
Weapon Upgrades
Temporary Damage Buff Power-up
Temporary Speed Buff Power-up
Temporary Invulnerability Power-up
Along with pickups you could locate usable items which will become mapped to an item button once picked up. Items will have a number of uses until disappearing.
Gamma Pushback: A shockwave that blasts away nearby enemies as well as poisoning them, slowly draining their health for a short amount of time.
Cyclone Trap: A portable tornado that sucks enemies towards it, immobilizing them and allowing yourself a clear shot.
Guardian Swords: Spiritual swords surround and spin around the player, protecting them from enemies and dealing damage to anyone that gets close.
Regen Talisman: Slowly regenerates health for a short amount of time once activated
Death Clown: Summon the legendary death clown, which causes enemies to cease fire and run away in fear.
Possible Scoring System?
While not absolutely necessary there could be a points system where the player is rewarded points for attacking and defeating enemies, collecting items and completing the level in a fast enough time. Points could be used to promote replay-ability for high scores and also increase player satisfaction by rewarding players with points when performing certain actions in game.
Goal of the Game / Win & Lose Conditions
The "win" conditions of the game will be to successfully complete the level(s). I would like the end of a level to be finished with a boss fight as I've never done one before.
The loss condition would be to simply die by having your health fully deplete. The game will however have checkpoints, allowing you to restart after you die. (If I include the scoring system the player will lose points upon dying)
and that's it for today's brainstorming.
Plan of Action
No time for dilly dallying, I'm gonna begin work on making the game straight away. Tomorrow I will create the Unreal Engine project file and get to work on creating the first prototype. I will show my development on here at the end of the day.
