GDW3- Design Idea

 The following is a design idea for our upcoming game which we will make for this year. We may not follow this document exactly, however elements from this idea may be incorporated into the final game.
Game Type- survival

Game premise- you are placed in a strange arena one which will test your strength and skills. In this arena you will fight enemies of each element using weapons which specialize in each element. 

Gameplay mechanics

            Hostile arena –Even though the user will be in 1 area only, we will have so that it will change with each wave. No wave will be the same as the other wave.

·         Elemental enemies- each enemy will have to type of element which they will embody. With these elements they will have ones which "counter" their element and be super effective, while some other elements may enhance the enemy rather than damage them. 

       Mix and match- With each elemental weapon for the player, they will have special effects to the enemies. The player can use different weapons on each enemy to have multiple effects on it.

Shaders needed

•  (MAIN)GPU based Particles- With all the elements, you cannot simply represent them by texture, and we want to apply it to multiple objects. To do this we have to have to make particles and make a lot of them.
•   Mesh skinning- with this year we will need to create moving models which will need to be rigged and moving. 
•    Deferred rendering – Lighting will be required with with some of the effects, such as fire, light, and maybe even used with the darkness.
• Toon shading – If the game wants to have a “zany” toon feeling then we will need some form of toon shading in. Here we will need a edge detection and cel shading/lighting to be applied to all the models.

The elements

•  Fire- close and good for crowd clearing
• Ice- precise and far range
•  Light- precise and fast
•  Dark –good for crowd clearing and slower
• Earth (posion)
• Air( Earth counter) 

Possible references/influences 

Dungeon defenders: Similar in concept to our game, with survival, elemental magic and its toon looks. This may be a heavy influence if we decide to go for the med-evil/magical influence.  Also the gameplay could be similar if we decide to make it 3rd person.

League of Legends: In this case it just be purely visual, however with over 100 champions, there is a wide range of effects which we can look at.
Also if our game is isometric, we may have a cadiate for our game should look.





Borderlands 2: This game may be good if we decide to set our game in a sci-fi cartoony universe. Not only do they have over a dozen enemies to draw influence from, but also a ton of guns which we can get some influence from. Its bright and colorful art palet is right for the game, and we also have access to the art book too ;D

Rachet and Clank: If we decide to set our game in a sci-fi universe, this would be a good game to look at. The PS2 game would be a nice point of reference, and they have some great multiplayer ideas.  Also if we decide to make the player use wacky elemental based weapons, this would be a good influence.







There is no doubt if we were to follow this idea, it would be an ambitious undertaking. There would be durastic changes to this idea to fit our time constraints, and alot of content cutting to be done. We will see by the end of this semester, or this April, if we can make a game of a similar style or .