No visual, no story stuff here - only gameplay ideas. Write down everything you have, even crazy stuff.
Levels
Level overviews
Puzzles
Puzzle ideas
…
Stock puzzle elements
- floor button
Floor buttons will be used frequently as triggers in the puzzles. We will have two basic type of buttons, one that toggles between on and off and another that is only on while it is pressed.
- box
The box will be a standart puzzle element. The box can be used in multiple ways. The box is pushable. The player and NPCs may move the box by pushing it. This however lowers movement speed. As the box has weight it can be used to keep floor buttons pressed or it may be used to add weight to scales, act as counter weight etc. Finally the box can block laser beams that might otherwise kill the player or NPCs.
- Bombs
The bombs will inflict damage and force when detonated. They will kill the player and NPCs if they are close as the bomb goes off. Bombs will not destroy boxes but they will apply force to these. Bombs can also be used to destroy weak walls to might be blocking the player or NPCs.
The bombs cannot be armed by the neutral creatures. I a robot has enough speed and collides with a bomb it will be armed. Other game objects that have enough mass and speed will also be able to arm the bombs by colliding with these. After being armed the bomb will go off after XX sec [note. the countdown should be set depending on our needs. However it's important to maintain consistency].
By contact with the laser beams the bomb will egnite immediately.
- Laser Beams
The laser beams are straight lines that shoots from a source. The neutral creatures will die upon touching the laser beam. Robots are unaffected.
- Conveyor belts
Conveyor belts will be a central part of the puzzles. These will be used to transport boxes, bombs, NPCs and the player to introduce an element of timing to some parts of the puzzles. E.g. the player is in Room A containing mine that he needs in Room B. However the player needs to MC/tele to get to Room B, why he must place the bomb on a conveyor belt leading from Room A to Room B and then make his own way to Room B in time to pick up the bomb.
In some puzzles the player or NPCs will be able to start and stop the conveyor belt using triggers.
- Chain link fence
The Chain link fence will be a special type of wall that will prevent the player and NPCs from moving through but allow to player to mind control NPCs on through the fence.
- Moving Platform
Self explanatory. Even Mario likes those f#%kers.
Enemies
- Behaviour
Here is an initial behaviour tree for the enemies chasing the player (updated version now with implemented backlying
functions in the prototype):
The enemies should check if the player is in sight (within their viewing anlges and within a certain distance)
and start chasing the player (using a constant acceleration). If the player is not in sight the case where the player has just lost should be checked and if true start searching for the player (start looking in random directions). If neither cases are true the enemy should be during its standard routine (for example patroling).
The enemy robots will ram a player controlled creature to shake off the avatar. The player can jump unto the robots like he can jump to the slaves. The player cannot however entirely control the robots as they will overload from the contact with the avater making them freak out and act chaotic before blowing up after being possessed for some time. If the avatar is still on the robot as it explodes the player dies and the puzzle resets. The exploding robot can also kill other robots, move boxes etc.
Good stuff :)
Cool ;)
Just let me know if there is something which doesn't make sense
Cool. I made the AI enemy fall down the hole.
About the level mockup I made: all textures are on a 1k map and It wasn't till later I realized it all kindof looked like meat - wasn't the intention :)
I imagined that outside the fence you would be able to see old trees, which would then be blossoming towards the end or whatnot, to ad the outside feel without compromising the puzzle design.
_jonas
great that you added textures.
and I guess it is just to see how it functions with some other stuff than grey boxes..together with Bidda we will work on a mockup tomorrow, that we can get something in ,that is giving us more a direction of the visual universe we are heading for.