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Create a file outlining game mechanics #2

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opened 2024-09-12 03:19:12 +00:00 by NorthSeaEmpire · 1 comment
NorthSeaEmpire commented 2024-09-12 03:19:12 +00:00
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We need a concise file to outline game mechanics before we can get programming. This should include an outline for levels, specific mechanics, enemy and tower types etc.

We need a concise file to outline game mechanics before we can get programming. This should include an outline for levels, specific mechanics, enemy and tower types etc.
NorthSeaEmpire self-assigned this 2024-09-12 03:19:12 +00:00
PoopBlasta was assigned by NorthSeaEmpire 2024-09-12 03:19:12 +00:00
NorthSeaEmpire added the due date 2024-09-28 2024-09-12 03:19:57 +00:00
chandler commented 2025-05-20 19:50:13 +00:00
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Game Name: Embers of Night

Game Synposis

You have a kingdom on the brink of an apocalypse. A mysterious disease is spreading through its populous, affecting human and animal folk alike. As a mercenary, you are tasked with protecting what you believe is the last bastion of sanity. Can you do it?

Game Mechanics

This is a top down rogue-lite that has you, a mercenary tasked with protecting a base with a certain number of NPCs. Think of Core-Keeper mixed with plants versus zombies. As a mercenary, you are tasked with guarding against 3 waves of enemies, with the 4th wave being a boss. Your overall mission is to keep yourself and the NPCs alive. The game continues infinitely, so after wave 4, the game progresses to the next round. I will talk about game balancing later. At the end of each wave, you are given time to fortify your base as well as switch any weapons you may have to embrace different play styles. Down time between waves decreases as you increase in rounds to a minimum of 30 seconds. If you are ready before downtime is over, you can forego the additional downtime you have. You can always interact with NPCs/upgrade equipment during waves, but this is not recommended as it is risky!

The game ends only when you lose all of your HP. In multiplayer, the game ends when the host loses all their HP. This will be explained later, but NPCs, your base and everything else are allowed to be destroyed, but when you die, your run is done.

Player

When you start a file, you have 3 different classes you can choose from:

  1. A marksman, who excels at ranged combat like bows, crossbows and rifles. Has ranged expertise, but sacrifices HP and Armor
  2. A knight, who excels at close ranged combat with swords, spears and axes. Has armor and HP, but lacking in the speed department
  3. A wizard/summoner, who can shoot magic from afar. By far the weakest in terms of defense, but can summon minions to do damage

This game will have a skill tree similar to Path of Exile 2, where you have different skills and abilities for your class with the option to spec into other classes. For example, a ranger can get knight perks for more damage close range with shotguns or ballistics, or a knight can get ranger perks for better damage with spears and throwables.

The player is given the option to dodge/roll. The dodge distance is determined by the player's speed and roll iframes are inversely proportional to that speed, so the faster the character is, the farther they can dodge, but less iframes. As always, perks in the skill tree can mitigate this/change this.

You start off with basic armor, with the option of upgrading by talking to one of the NPCs or doing it yourself (more on this later). Being this is a rouge-lite, you can get random armor from enemies you defeat, that will enhance your character with different attributes. Wearing the same set gives you set bonuses. Mix and match different sets to customize your build and play style. Sometimes, upgrading armor is better than abandoning it!

When you defeat enemies, you get currency, experience for skill points and randomly dropped materials. Bosses drop rare materials that only they drop which are useful for more powerful potions/upgrades/traps.

Weapons

The weapons fall under 3 basic categories:

  1. Melee - swords, spears, axes and hammers
  2. Ranged - Bows, Crowssbows, Rifles and Throwables
  3. Magic - Summoner, Tombs, Incants and Sorceries

You can scavenge weapons in the battlefield, and upgrade your existing weapons at the blacksmith. Excluding starting weapons, each weapon will have modifiers that will buff stats and potentially debuff stats similar to Terraria. If you get a really good buff, it may be worth keeping that weapon and upgrading it to the max! The weaponsmaker NPC can reroll buffs on your weapons like the goblin merchant in Terraria, but for a fee...

You can also dismantle weapons to raw parts, like iron/gold ore and wood. This is done in realtime, and you will need to stay still for 5 or so seconds when you do this.

NPCs

When you start a file, you initially have a certain number of NPCs including an alchemist, a wood worker, a stonecutter, a blacksmith, a trapsetter/demolition expert and a weapons maker. These NPCs aren't just baggage, and they serve some key purposes:

  1. Alchemist: An alchemist serves to craft potions for various buffs. As you scour the battlefield for materials, some of these materials can be combined to form powerful potions that can help you in a time of need.
  2. Wood Worker: A wood worker that can refine raw wood you gather and help make furniture items that make your base more livable. Can also serve as an initial defense for your base (will get to this in the base section). Can also make better materials for setting traps/automated defenses. Useful for upgrading weapons as well.
  3. A stone cutter: A stone cutter that can refine stone fragments, helping make better furniture items that make your base more livable. Can also make better materials for setting traps/automated defenses. Can serve as an intermediate defense for your base (will get to this in the base section). Useful for upgrading weapons.
  4. A blacksmith: Refines iron and gold fragments, Useful for base defense/weapons upgrading and trap setting/automatic defenses
  5. Trapsetter/demolition expert: Automated traps/defenses like turrets and explosives like landmines. Be careful, as landmines can also hurt you and your base!
  6. Weapons Maker: Bring refined materials and rare materials to the weapons maker to craft better weapons/upgrade existing weapons you have. Rare materials are required for higher tierd upgrades.

NPCs can have levels as well, where they become better at their craft. Their happiness meter is separate thing entirely, but as you use NPCs to make things they gain experience and can transition from novice to master. A master NPC can output significantly more with what you provide. Some NPCs can even craft higher level versions of what they offer, so for example, stone/iron/gold turrets and gold/titanium ore smelting from the blacksmith.

NPCs in the game are important, as they serve a pivotal role to long term survival. NPCs are highly skilled and can make efficient use of materials you have as well as currency you have. Interacting with NPCs and systems they provide takes currency and materials. Some NPCs depend on others for refined materials. For example, the weapons maker depends on the wood cutter, stone cutter and blacksmith.

Happiness Meter

NPCs have a happiness meter. What influences this can change in development, but I was thinking to start with is the quality of your base (what furniture is there), how well the base is defended (it's health bar) and how long it's been since the base has been compromised/infiltrated. I may also add in a hunger meter, where well fed NPCs are happier than hungry NPCs, but that seems a bit excessive this early on and can always be added later. Happy NPCs are more efficient and charge less for the services they provide, so you have an incentive to keep them safe if you want long term survival.

Each NPC can have their own lore and what their backstory is.

When a base is compromised and a NPC dies, their station is abandoned. Without an NPC manning their station, you can manually perform their role, but it will be more expensive to do so and will require more materials while having reduced functionality (can't reroll weapon/armor buffs).

In later rounds, NPCs and their stations will charge more money and materials for upgrades (as you will get more money from enemies you defeat, game balance stuff). Without NPCs, this cost will be really expensive, so keeping these NPCs alive is essential.

If an NPC dies, don't worry! It's not the end of the run. NPCs will respawn at the end of each round. Well, sort of... their happiness will be reset, and you will have to make them happy again. The re spawned NPC will have a new backstory. The overall NPC respawn system works as follows:

  1. Let's say the wood worker dies in round 1. At the end of round 2, a new woodworker will appear and join your base
  2. If another NPC dies, it will take 1 more round than the previous NPC respawn timer to respawn that NPC, so in this case two rounds, three rounds and so on....

By doing it this way, it creates a balance where in order to survive long term, you need to keep your base and your NPCs alive. If you are careless about NPC survival, your run will scale up in difficulty big time, as it will get progressively longer for NPCs to respawn in This will ensure that you have reliable and efficient access to upgrades and defenses. You will not last long without NPCs, so beware!

Base

You are responsible for protecting the base your NPCs are in. You can do this by manually patrolling around the base and killing enemies, or you can use traps, explosives(careful about explosives)and turrets to automate the protection, whilst you go on the offensive. Depending on materials, you can craft better turrents/traps, so getting better materials is always a bonus. Your base can be upgraded and furnished. Upgrading a base will add additional defense (essentially an additional healthbar) and take longer for it to be compromised. Once a base is on its last healthbar, it's compromised if it takes any damage, and the NPCs inside will have their happiness reduced. Keeping a base well defended is key to ensuring long term survival.

If your base is destroyed, the flooring will remain and so will NPC stations, but the NPCs themselves will go into a panic mode and will bottom out their happiness, frantically running around (their base was destroyed, what do you expect??). You can rebuild the base with the wood cutter and stone cutter, but you will have to survive until the end of a wave or round to do so. Of course, all the while your NPCs are out in the open potentially getting picked off.

Enemies

There are a wide variety of enemies in this game from ranged to melee and sorcerers, and they all have the same goals

  1. Destroy/Infiltrate your base
  2. Destroy your NPCs
  3. Destroy you

The priority of the enemies is in this order. Enemies are programmed to target your base and decrease its healthbar. Some enemies will try to force themselves inside your base to target your NPCs. Any enemies inside your base will auto notify you and your base will be auto compromised regardless of its healthbar. This means you cannot simply ignore your base, at least not without proper protection.

At the end of a 3rd wave, a unique boss will appear, which will drop rare items/weapons. These bosses will drop loot for different classes as well as rare/uncommon materials used for crafting. These bosses are random per wave, but they usually match with the kinds of enemies you encountered on your round. These bosses can be reused in different rounds (they should not be the same in consecutive rounds), so if you want to farm materials, you can.

Balance

Players are designed to scale roughly on par with enemy scaling up until a certain round. If a player equips the right combination of armor/weapons with the right upgrades, defends their base properly with fortifications and traps along with maintaining high levels of NPC happiness, this will be alright. However, maintaining all of this will become tougher, as enemies scale and do more damage.

Players scale logarithmically, and enemies scale linearly, with enemies barely outpacing players, especially in the beginning. This will ensure that earlier rounds and waves are easier than later rounds, as after a certain point, player strengths will not be able to keep up with enemy scale, as players would not significantly increase their damage/defense levels, and enemies would still get tougher by a constant rate. As you progress in rounds, enemies will spawn more often and will be tougher. The motivation for this is multifaceted:

  1. The game is designed for accessibility. People can easily play the game and get dopamine hits in the first few rounds, but after that, it can get much much harder. This creates incentive to interact with the various mechanics the game and really lock into a play-style you want for that run

  2. This prevents the "Elden Ring" problem, where no matter what build you play, you will not be one-shotting enemies late game. I mean you probably still can, but it will get less and less common.

  3. This game follows the Smash Bros. Principle of easy to learn, hard to master. It will take skill and careful preparation to survive to round 1000, but casually you can make it to round 5.

  4. This avoids difficulty settings, I was never a fan of them and was more of a fan of integrating difficulty into the broader game design, with better weapons and better strategies.

  5. This avoids long game sessions, the game is designed so eventually you will lose.

Weapons/Armor

I have explained these mechanics before, but I wanted to explain them better here in terms of balance. Weapons/Armor drops and upgrades will scale logarithmically with the player, so yes better drops are going to be in later rounds, but enemies will outscale this more and more. Additionally, there will be a durability system for weapons/armor. Weapons without durability will deal significantly reduced damage with no bonuses (debuffs may still be applied), and armor will not provide defense again with no bonuses.

Multiplayer

Let's get singleplayer working, but I think this game would be really successful if you can play it with 3 players, similar to Nightreign. The person who starts the world will be the host, and other people can use P2P to directly connect with that person. Cross play will be supported, so mobile and PC players can play together if they want.

With every new person that joins, enemy spawn rate will increase, but damage will not increase. NPCs will take longer to get happy, and Bosses will have increased health pools and gravitate more towards AOE attacks rather than attacks targeted at a specific person.

Here's a rough idea of how multiplayer works:

  1. The host player creates a save file with a generated world. During world generation, they can choose how many players to have up to 3 players (which chooses how big the world size is). The host player will then decide the basic starting class for each player. For players that are not the host, a unique character id will be generated. The host can then share this ID over discord or something to their friends. During gameplay, the host can then open their world up to friends, which will have a game ID. The friends need both a game ID and a character id to be active and spawn into the host's world. All characters except the host have their ping available. Ping greater than ~300ms will be kicked from the game due to unstable network connections.

Leaderboards

A leaderboard system with the player(s) usernames and the round they made it do, for some friendly competition.

## Game Name: Embers of Night ## Game Synposis You have a kingdom on the brink of an apocalypse. A mysterious disease is spreading through its populous, affecting human and animal folk alike. As a mercenary, you are tasked with protecting what you believe is the last bastion of sanity. Can you do it? ## Game Mechanics This is a top down rogue-lite that has you, a mercenary tasked with protecting a base with a certain number of NPCs. Think of Core-Keeper mixed with plants versus zombies. As a mercenary, you are tasked with guarding against 3 waves of enemies, with the 4th wave being a boss. Your overall mission is to keep yourself and the NPCs alive. The game continues infinitely, so after wave 4, the game progresses to the next round. I will talk about game balancing later. At the end of each wave, you are given time to fortify your base as well as switch any weapons you may have to embrace different play styles. Down time between waves decreases as you increase in rounds to a minimum of 30 seconds. If you are ready before downtime is over, you can forego the additional downtime you have. You can always interact with NPCs/upgrade equipment during waves, but this is not recommended as it is risky! The game ends only when you lose all of your HP. In multiplayer, the game ends when the host loses all their HP. This will be explained later, but NPCs, your base and everything else are allowed to be destroyed, but when you die, your run is done. ### Player When you start a file, you have 3 different classes you can choose from: 1. A marksman, who excels at ranged combat like bows, crossbows and rifles. Has ranged expertise, but sacrifices HP and Armor 2. A knight, who excels at close ranged combat with swords, spears and axes. Has armor and HP, but lacking in the speed department 3. A wizard/summoner, who can shoot magic from afar. By far the weakest in terms of defense, but can summon minions to do damage This game will have a skill tree similar to Path of Exile 2, where you have different skills and abilities for your class with the option to spec into other classes. For example, a ranger can get knight perks for more damage close range with shotguns or ballistics, or a knight can get ranger perks for better damage with spears and throwables. The player is given the option to dodge/roll. The dodge distance is determined by the player's speed and roll iframes are inversely proportional to that speed, so the faster the character is, the farther they can dodge, but less iframes. As always, perks in the skill tree can mitigate this/change this. You start off with basic armor, with the option of upgrading by talking to one of the NPCs or doing it yourself (more on this later). Being this is a rouge-lite, you can get random armor from enemies you defeat, that will enhance your character with different attributes. Wearing the same set gives you set bonuses. Mix and match different sets to customize your build and play style. Sometimes, upgrading armor is better than abandoning it! When you defeat enemies, you get currency, experience for skill points and randomly dropped materials. Bosses drop rare materials that only they drop which are useful for more powerful potions/upgrades/traps. #### Weapons The weapons fall under 3 basic categories: 1. Melee - swords, spears, axes and hammers 2. Ranged - Bows, Crowssbows, Rifles and Throwables 3. Magic - Summoner, Tombs, Incants and Sorceries You can scavenge weapons in the battlefield, and upgrade your existing weapons at the blacksmith. Excluding starting weapons, each weapon will have modifiers that will buff stats and potentially debuff stats similar to Terraria. If you get a really good buff, it may be worth keeping that weapon and upgrading it to the max! The weaponsmaker NPC can reroll buffs on your weapons like the goblin merchant in Terraria, but for a fee... You can also dismantle weapons to raw parts, like iron/gold ore and wood. This is done in realtime, and you will need to stay still for 5 or so seconds when you do this. ### NPCs When you start a file, you initially have a certain number of NPCs including an alchemist, a wood worker, a stonecutter, a blacksmith, a trapsetter/demolition expert and a weapons maker. These NPCs aren't just baggage, and they serve some key purposes: 1. Alchemist: An alchemist serves to craft potions for various buffs. As you scour the battlefield for materials, some of these materials can be combined to form powerful potions that can help you in a time of need. 2. Wood Worker: A wood worker that can refine raw wood you gather and help make furniture items that make your base more livable. Can also serve as an initial defense for your base (will get to this in the base section). Can also make better materials for setting traps/automated defenses. Useful for upgrading weapons as well. 3. A stone cutter: A stone cutter that can refine stone fragments, helping make better furniture items that make your base more livable. Can also make better materials for setting traps/automated defenses. Can serve as an intermediate defense for your base (will get to this in the base section). Useful for upgrading weapons. 4. A blacksmith: Refines iron and gold fragments, Useful for base defense/weapons upgrading and trap setting/automatic defenses 5. Trapsetter/demolition expert: Automated traps/defenses like turrets and explosives like landmines. Be careful, as landmines can also hurt you and your base! 6. Weapons Maker: Bring refined materials and rare materials to the weapons maker to craft better weapons/upgrade existing weapons you have. Rare materials are required for higher tierd upgrades. NPCs can have levels as well, where they become better at their craft. Their happiness meter is separate thing entirely, but as you use NPCs to make things they gain experience and can transition from novice to master. A master NPC can output significantly more with what you provide. Some NPCs can even craft higher level versions of what they offer, so for example, stone/iron/gold turrets and gold/titanium ore smelting from the blacksmith. NPCs in the game are important, as they serve a pivotal role to long term survival. NPCs are highly skilled and can make efficient use of materials you have as well as currency you have. Interacting with NPCs and systems they provide takes currency and materials. Some NPCs depend on others for refined materials. For example, the weapons maker depends on the wood cutter, stone cutter and blacksmith. #### Happiness Meter NPCs have a happiness meter. What influences this can change in development, but I was thinking to start with is the quality of your base (what furniture is there), how well the base is defended (it's health bar) and how long it's been since the base has been compromised/infiltrated. I may also add in a hunger meter, where well fed NPCs are happier than hungry NPCs, but that seems a bit excessive this early on and can always be added later. Happy NPCs are more efficient and charge less for the services they provide, so you have an incentive to keep them safe if you want long term survival. Each NPC can have their own lore and what their backstory is. When a base is compromised and a NPC dies, their station is abandoned. Without an NPC manning their station, you can manually perform their role, but it will be more expensive to do so and will require more materials while having reduced functionality (can't reroll weapon/armor buffs). In later rounds, NPCs and their stations will charge more money and materials for upgrades (as you will get more money from enemies you defeat, game balance stuff). Without NPCs, this cost will be **really** expensive, so keeping these NPCs alive is essential. If an NPC dies, don't worry! It's not the end of the run. NPCs will respawn at the end of each round. Well, sort of... their happiness will be reset, and you will have to make them happy again. The re spawned NPC will have a new backstory. The overall NPC respawn system works as follows: 1. Let's say the wood worker dies in round 1. At the end of round 2, a new woodworker will appear and join your base 2. If another NPC dies, it will take 1 more round than the previous NPC respawn timer to respawn that NPC, so in this case two rounds, three rounds and so on.... By doing it this way, it creates a balance where in order to survive long term, you need to keep your base and your NPCs alive. If you are careless about NPC survival, your run will scale up in difficulty big time, as it will get progressively longer for NPCs to respawn in This will ensure that you have reliable and efficient access to upgrades and defenses. You will not last long without NPCs, so beware! ### Base You are responsible for protecting the base your NPCs are in. You can do this by manually patrolling around the base and killing enemies, or you can use traps, explosives(careful about explosives)and turrets to automate the protection, whilst you go on the offensive. Depending on materials, you can craft better turrents/traps, so getting better materials is always a bonus. Your base can be upgraded and furnished. Upgrading a base will add additional defense (essentially an additional healthbar) and take longer for it to be compromised. Once a base is on its last healthbar, it's compromised if it takes **any** damage, and the NPCs inside will have their happiness reduced. Keeping a base well defended is key to ensuring long term survival. If your base is destroyed, the flooring will remain and so will NPC stations, but the NPCs themselves will go into a panic mode and will bottom out their happiness, frantically running around (their base was destroyed, what do you expect??). You can rebuild the base with the wood cutter and stone cutter, but you will have to survive until the end of a wave or round to do so. Of course, all the while your NPCs are out in the open potentially getting picked off. ### Enemies There are a wide variety of enemies in this game from ranged to melee and sorcerers, and they all have the same goals 1. Destroy/Infiltrate your base 2. Destroy your NPCs 3. Destroy you The priority of the enemies is in this order. Enemies are programmed to target your base and decrease its healthbar. Some enemies will try to force themselves inside your base to target your NPCs. Any enemies inside your base will auto notify you and your base will be auto compromised regardless of its healthbar. This means you cannot simply ignore your base, at least not without proper protection. At the end of a 3rd wave, a unique boss will appear, which will drop rare items/weapons. These bosses will drop loot for different classes as well as rare/uncommon materials used for crafting. These bosses are random per wave, but they usually match with the kinds of enemies you encountered on your round. These bosses can be reused in different rounds (they should not be the same in consecutive rounds), so if you want to farm materials, you can. ### Balance Players are designed to scale roughly on par with enemy scaling up until a certain round. If a player equips the right combination of armor/weapons with the right upgrades, defends their base properly with fortifications and traps along with maintaining high levels of NPC happiness, this will be alright. However, maintaining all of this will become tougher, as enemies scale and do more damage. Players scale logarithmically, and enemies scale linearly, with enemies barely outpacing players, especially in the beginning. This will ensure that earlier rounds and waves are easier than later rounds, as after a certain point, player strengths will not be able to keep up with enemy scale, as players would not significantly increase their damage/defense levels, and enemies would still get tougher by a constant rate. As you progress in rounds, enemies will spawn more often and will be tougher. The motivation for this is multifaceted: 1. The game is designed for accessibility. People can easily play the game and get dopamine hits in the first few rounds, but after that, it can get much much harder. This creates incentive to interact with the various mechanics the game and really lock into a play-style you want for that run 2. This prevents the "Elden Ring" problem, where no matter what build you play, you will not be one-shotting enemies late game. I mean you probably still can, but it will get less and less common. 3. This game follows the Smash Bros. Principle of easy to learn, hard to master. It will take skill and careful preparation to survive to round 1000, but casually you can make it to round 5. 4. This avoids difficulty settings, I was never a fan of them and was more of a fan of integrating difficulty into the broader game design, with better weapons and better strategies. 5. This avoids long game sessions, the game is designed so eventually you will lose. #### Weapons/Armor I have explained these mechanics before, but I wanted to explain them better here in terms of balance. Weapons/Armor drops and upgrades will scale logarithmically with the player, so yes better drops are going to be in later rounds, but enemies will outscale this more and more. Additionally, there will be a durability system for weapons/armor. Weapons without durability will deal significantly reduced damage with no bonuses (debuffs may still be applied), and armor will not provide defense again with no bonuses. ### Multiplayer Let's get singleplayer working, but I think this game would be really successful if you can play it with 3 players, similar to Nightreign. The person who starts the world will be the host, and other people can use P2P to directly connect with that person. Cross play will be supported, so mobile and PC players can play together if they want. With every new person that joins, enemy spawn rate will increase, but damage will not increase. NPCs will take longer to get happy, and Bosses will have increased health pools and gravitate more towards AOE attacks rather than attacks targeted at a specific person. Here's a rough idea of how multiplayer works: 1. The host player creates a save file with a generated world. During world generation, they can choose how many players to have up to 3 players (which chooses how big the world size is). The host player will then decide the basic starting class for each player. For players that are *not* the host, a unique character id will be generated. The host can then share this ID over discord or something to their friends. During gameplay, the host can then open their world up to friends, which will have a game ID. The friends need both a game ID and a character id to be active and spawn into the host's world. All characters except the host have their ping available. Ping greater than ~300ms will be kicked from the game due to unstable network connections. #### Leaderboards A leaderboard system with the player(s) usernames and the round they made it do, for some friendly competition.
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