The theme for my first Ludum Dare is “Evolution.” Apparently this theme has been present in the last 10 theme slaughters but only now has it been voted up enough to actually be the theme for the contest.
I’ve spent the last 80 minutes coming up with my concept. I’m trying to scale a concept out based on what I know I can do in 48 hours and I have to say, it’s really complicated trying to cut things that would be cool (or cute) but might not fit. I know that if I get decently into the development of a skill-tree system for instance, if I can’t finish it, that would mean not finishing the game.
Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Title
Actinium the Wrought
Concept
Actinium begins the game with no weapons or armor. Searching the first level allows the player to equip themselves with a simple weapon of some sort (a cudgel.) By slaying creatures in the game world the player collects [strands] that accumulate to allow basic upgrades of statistics (strength, dexterity, health.) The event in which the player evolves causes a mass transformation of all remaining enemies in a level. Each enemy randomly selects from an available pool of traits or adaptations and is assigned a score bonus for that set. The player must find their way to the exit point on the level map. A single enemy is chosen at random to acquire an equal adaptation to the player’s elevating that enemy to the “boss.”
If the player’s health increases, the boss may increase in damage per hit or dexterity. If the player increases strength, the boss may adapt by increased health or movement speed.
When the player evolves in some way, color / texture may change to reflect the most recent adaptation. Higher strength might convey a red/orange hue on the textures, a new ability could be represented by a sprite that floats around the player.
Enemies evolve more simplistically; they acquire a cube of a specific color and intensity, and the level background color nearest them is tinted to reflect their ability. It could be interesting to have periodic (or event-based) changes in the environment itself such that the player has to change course based on the path they’ve taken to the end-point, or actions they’ve taken throughout a level. Explore time requirements here. Actinium has been left behind by his tribe. He overslept the morning of the great migration because he drank too much fermented Rasgoll urine the night before. Having slept through most of the day, his tribe is quite a ways ahead of him. He must follow a trail of satchels of Shangsnaks left by his younger brother to catch up with the migrating clan. When he finds the clan, they are under siege by an army of creatures from the wild. Defeating those creatures and their pack-leader saves the clan.
Game Type
Overhead tile-based levels with start and end points using kinematic rigid bodies for actors. Direct control of the pc using arrows/wsda - attack using mouse/ctrl and utility on the space bar. Player defeats enemies and gains strands that can be combined to evolve. Player may also pick up weapons that (while not particularly effective) keep enemies it a distance. An armed player should factor into an enemy approach pattern.
Enemies can move to the player if they have vision and the player is visible, have hearing and can hear the player moving. (Raycasting and radius checks.) Hazards only make sense if you can move freely in the environment. Single unit moves would make hazards almost always avoidable unless they moved position which seems a bit too expository.
Hazards
Various components in the environment should be charged to harm the player (or enemies) should she come too close. e.g. lava pits, poison gas clouds, insects. Degeneration could be an interesting thing to play with as well…
Art
First levels take place underground. Caves were used by the tribe for shelter but now that the snows are coming they must migrate south to the grasslands. This will mean walking through a few climate zones (biomes) on their path to safety. As such, the player must traverse through 5 levels to reach the clan and rejoin them.
- Caves - rock, dirt, water and snow.
- Mountaintop - rock, snow, coal / pumice
- Forest - rock, dirt, leaves
- Jungle - vegetation, leaves and grass
- Savanna - high grass, hills
Each of the zones have established boundaries that cannot be moved outside of; each can be designed as if they were cave regions with different environmental characteristics.
Actors
The player should be humanoid, something of an early homo-sapien origin. We don’t want to get bogged down with realism here so going a little cartoonish is probably okay.
Enemies, creatures and the like should be fantastical but we won’t have time for too many variations. Animation of quadrupeds might prove difficult but we can probably wing it. (pun intended.)