For my FMP i have been asked to think of a concept of which revolves around the theme Pocket Planet, I am working with Salman on this Final Major Project and we are working in unison to create a Rogue-Like Dungeon Crawler 2D Game, of which will include the relevant elements of the Pocket Planet theme.
The main reason i chose this project in particular is because I have a passion for games, and I wish to further understand as to how they are made and what goes into them, this is something I wish to pursue in my career, as I wish to be a level designer and or a narrative designer for games in the future, whilst the majority of the skills and experiences in this course are oriented around film and media of which is similar to film, I still have a passion for game, which is helpful as alot of the skills gained from the course can be used in gaming also, such as character design and graphic design/sound design.
Aims:
The aims of my project is to create an entertaining game of which is fun to play, and can be played for extended periods of time, bringing enjoyment to those who play it and allowing them to engross themselves in said game, my aims also include making a functional game of which doesn’t glitch often and has many functioning mechanics, such as an inventory system and a fluid combat system.
One other aim of my project is for each experience of this game to be separate, meaning that no runs of the levels will ever be the same, I am aiming at this as I want the game itself to be randomised, running on a random number generator to decide loot, enemies, level design and level props, this is essential too our game as it is one of the core elements I wish to employ, being a RNG Based game, here is a good article rundown on what RNG is and how it effects gaming environments.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/lesson-gamers-rng/
Theme:
The theme of my game will be oriented around a time jumping nomad who is stuck in time, the game’s premise is that the character is hopping throughout time and exploring different cultures as they go along, using different elements to their advantage to try and find a way back to their original timeline.
The influences that effect my aims:
I researched various different similarly themed pieces of media for my project, games such as Moonlighter, Binding Of Isaac, ROTMG, Undungeon, Enter The Gungeon, which I took influence from, taking pieces of each of these games and combining them into my own idea, making note of how each game runs and how it’s played, picking out aspects of each game which I personally find entertaining and enjoyable, whilst also deconstructing them technically, below is some videos of which I watched and learned a great deal from about the genre of the game I intend to make and what it usually entails.
ROTMG:
Realm Of The Mad God is a MMORPG Rogue-like bullet hell of which was made on the 20th Of June 2011 by DECA Studios, the main inspirations I took from this game would be the combat system and art style, I personally find the art style very appealing due to its simplistic yet understandable theme.
The video features a breakdown of many of ROTMG’s mechanics as the creator of the video attempts to predict the future of the game, giving me a fairly accurate breakdown of some of the inner workings of the game, allowing me to think of some similar concepts within my own game, whilst also knowing how to implement them.
Enter The Gungeon:
Enter The Gungeon is a Rogue-Like dungeon crawling bullet hell game of which was released by Dodge Roll on the 5th April 2016, the game features several ingame mechanics which I find interesting and draw inspiration and references from, such as its inclusion of a roll command which allows the player to roll in the direction of the mouse cursor to avoid incoming bullets.
One other topic of interest that is discussed in the video would be the reveal that Enter The Gungeon is originally created in a 3D environment, whilst giving off the illusion that it is infact 2D, this is done to add depth to the game and enable the environment to look more polished and clean, whilst this isn’t something I believe me or Salman are wanting to implement, I still find it interesting as it adds another layer of creativity to the game.
Moonlighter:
Moonlighter is a Digital Sun Action RPG Indie game released in 29th May 2018, the game features various in-game mechanics and features of which I found very interesting and useable within my game idea, such as the inclusion of a death inventory (a section of the player inventory which will be saved upon death, unlike the rest of the inventory which will be lost) among this various other features such as RNG based rooms I also found useful.
The video features the game developers discussing how the game was made and what went into it, the video was very insightful into how indie game studios operate, whilst also being very insightful on how randomly generated environments are made, which is something I found even more useful as I intend on my game featuring said environments.
Binding Of Isaac:
Binding Of Isaac is a Rogue-Like dungeon crawler which was released by Duo Developers Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl on 28th September 2011, inspirations I took from this game would be things such as changeable weapons and loot caches, these are things of which can spruce up the randomly generated environments, to ensure the player never gets bored or feels like the levels are repetitive.
The game also introduced me to the world of solo and smaller developer studios, as the game was developed by 2 people it opened my eyes on how these games are made by smaller developers, often being made as passion project which later gets released fully after mainstream success, the game itself is another example of a small game receiving commercial success.
Another thing I found interesting of which I will be using in my game, as mentioned before will be the randomly generated loot, levels, monsters and themes, ensuring the freshness of my game and the replayability, as replayability is essential in Rogue-Like games, which tend to get boring fast if poorly made.
Undungeon:
Undungeon is a tinyBuild Action RPG released on November 18th 2021 which includes various different elements which I took influence from, such as the changing of organs/items to make the character stronger, and different set builds which influence playstyles.
One other thing I took influence from would be the dash mechanic seen in the game, and the death animations of the enemies which are slain, the dash mechanic is similar to the roll mechanic seen in Enter The Gungeon but features damage upon contact with enemies which where dashed into, and the inclusion of the in-game buff mechanic in which enemies and players can be buffed to increase various stats, as seen by the skull and bones mechanic above.
Techniques
The techniques that are going be used will be my use of Unreal Engine, due to my many lessons with Jake getting used to the Engine and how it works, and my history with 2D based game makers such as GameMaker and Scratch I have a fair bit of experience in creating topdown 2D games, I will also attempt to incorporate physics into my game, to prevent players from moving straight through the walls and escaping the boundaries of the game.
Target Audience
The target audience of my game is 10+ as in line with the Deer Shed Festival family element, I will ensure that the game is PG in all areas and shows no explicit content, to strengthen this target audience demographic I will keep all aspects of the game accessible to all players so they can all experience the same game, this will be essential as it allows the younger players to have a chance.
We later updated this target audience to the age 12+ after we discussed what themes within the game match this audience.
Summary of Aims
In summary the aims of my project include the following, to be able to construct a convincing narrative that keeps the player hooked, to construct a functioning game which works as intended, to implement a functioning RNG system which randomly generates levels and lot, and to create an in-game environment that is fun and intriguing for the player to explore, on top of being able to properly support my co-developer Salman in any of his tasks when needed and able.
I was advised to follow the template given to me and my classmates on teams, to further strengthen my proposal, this would help keep my idea concise and readable, whilst also expressing all the things I wished to get done clearly, the following are screenshots of said template:
The downloadable PDF:
The project timetable is still under development and will be uploaded when discussed with my partner Salman.
Pitch: