Why a dev diary? Because we talked about it in IRC and as always, I'm the only one dumb enough to actually put his neck out there, that's why! Plus I figure it's like dog-shaming: Put me in a cardboard box with a sign on it and maybe I'll behave.
Why the Halloween Contest? Because it's the best chance I'm gonna have to actually finish a game this year and I hate to go a whole year without doing something.
So, what's the idea? An 8 direction top-down shooter, featuring old timey priests, cowboys and vampires in a showdown for the ages. Possibly get some of that sweet Civil War vibe in there.
Why is this going to succeed where that last shooter failed? That's a very good question, since I'm not directly re-using any of the systems and am in fact making things more rather than less complicated. I've also only got fifteen days, I got some kinda upper respiratory infection going on, and am busy out the slime with family obligations, PLUS I'm doin a stupid dev diary now! Make no mistake, this is likely to end in total abject failure, the way most games do.
What's done so far? Basically nothing, including the planning! Last time I had my scripts and graphics done to my satisfaction (which never happens) and then realized that I had made no consideration of how to advance the gameplay. I had planned to have "levels" but I hadn't thought about how you would get to the next level. Get enough points? Find a key and open a door? Just walk to it? Even if I had a satisfactory answer to that, the scripts themselves weren't prepared for a guy to be changing maps. So instead we got stuck with a tech demo.
So first up in this diary is going to be the planning phase, aka the Overthinking Phase, the dangerous realm where even the best idea can turn into slime on your sandwich. And unlike last time, we're taking nothing for granted! Every detail is going to be planned, so that when the times comes I can implement it without a second thought.
Oh, I do have a script that lets me move a rectangle slice around the screen and tells me which direction its facing, but at 60 FPS it doesn't move quite right and so I need to tweak my movement and inputs so that it feels better.
THE PLANNING PHASE
What is the basic mechanic for gameplay? Shooting enemies.
Define shooting. The player will begin with a small supply of ammunition. They can buy more rounds and of stronger varieties later. By using this ammunition they create a shot, a projectile which will inflict damage on an enemy if it hits. Different enemies may have weaknesses to different types of ammunition, making it economical to return to town and buy the correct type rather than wasting a non-optimal variant.
Define money. Killing enemies will drop money. As might further objectives.
Define enemies.Objects on dangerous maps that will seek to harm the player. Some of them (zombies, vampires, werewolves) will obey more or less the same rules he does (can't go through walls, move in 8 directions, fire shots or just run into you). Others (Bats, ghosts, fireballs) will ignore the walls and instead move in semi-predictable patterns (circles, waves, straight lines) off the map. These will probably be more obnoxious than the others and might require "bullet hell" type skills to dodge between them while firing at the object they're originating from. There might also need to be boss types, larger enemies who take multiple hits and fire larger projectiles, who require deeper thought to get past.
Define objectives/objects things originate from. Since the player's health is the limiting factor into how deep they can explore (they can restore their health for free in town or use "potions" to heal while in danger) and thus how much money they can make, it should be possible to make the earlier, less lucrative sections of game less dangerous, allowing deeper penetration as the game wears on.
No map should ever be totally safe (Except for town) because otherwise a player might get stuck without any money and no way of getting more. That would be bad! But by having monsters who simply spawn more monsters (Like a fireplace that shoots out fireballs) and remembering that that fire has been extinguished and is never coming back, we can allow the players to feel like they've made progress. By making a fireplace reward a big amount of money and fireballs no amount of money, we can also make it a challenge to their ammo supplies.
And in the most difficult cases, we could have rules like... "EVERY fireplace on a map must be destroyed, or else all of them come back!" to encourage the player to stick their necks out just a little farther and be forced to face every challenge the map has before it can truly be considered safe.
So there should be non-combat utility items, fire extinguishers, etc? No! The players only means of interacting with the gameworld is by shooting (In the dangerous parts) and talking (In town). In fact, unless there's a very good why-not, the town should just be a sexy menu of some kind.
Random Thought It'd be fun to have "ambush" maps where the enemies just keep pouring in until you're able to shoot down a door.
What if the player runs out of bullets and money? I guess there needs to be a "melee" option, where melee is a gun that doesn't consume bullets and has an extremely short range. If melee is a stronger option against some enemies, then we get players doing dangerous slime and that's a good thing. Most good gameplay mechanics boil down to gambling.
How do we advance levels? YOU'RE FORGETTING THAT AGAIN Most of the time, simply reaching the "Exit" to the next area should be sufficient, epecially since you're going to have to walk all the way back: That's a natural incentive to not go rushing right there. In other areas, I think it's fair to expect a certain objective to be cleared: Clearing all the enemies, , shooting some kind of magic gems to bring down the forcefield, etc.
How will the player know what to do? I guess we'll have to tell them. Have been considering a Bounty Hunter kind of main character, so a "bounty sheet" of goals to be accomplished on each "level" could be interesting and directly tell the reward. Maybe require the player to find a dead bounty hunter on the given level first? Maybe on later levels the bounty hunter isn't so dead and isn't so willing to share the rewards. Sounds like a game!
What is the plot? My original inspiration for this idea was Lee Van Cleef's character from "For A Few Dollars More". There's a scene where a guy tries to pull a runner, and he just calmly and professionally opens his saddlebags, flips out some kind of extender/rifle grip kind of thing for his pistol, takes careful aim and downs the guy with a single shot. It's a super sick move that shows you this guy isn't to be trifled with, but that he isn't a mad dog killer either. It reminds me a lot of Van Helsing from Dracula and I would've loved to see Van Cleef in the role.
I guess this game's plot is my way of exploring that concept of a Cowboy Vampire Killer. (If I call the game "Cowboy Vampire Killer", you all have permission to quit being my friend.) I don't want to take the idea too far out west, because the west is all about the wide outdoors and that doesn't make for good vampire drama. Vampires are an inside kind of a thing, meant to be more claustrophobic.
I'd kind of like to put the thing in New Orleans, but everyone puts spooky slime in New Orleans, the swampiness, the fogginess, the French influence and port, it's just too good of an answer. Would Richmond be too Confederate? Would a game where you fight Vampire not-quite-Jefferson Davis be in bad taste? Would setting the game in North Carolina say too much about my basketball allegiances? Hard to say and not important at this point. Literally one damn textbox.
You didn't answer the question, Mr. TrumpFINE! The plot is you're a bounty hunter, you roll into town looking for big game. A notorious lawbreaker has set up shop nearby, and the good people of the good town are harassed by night by the outlaws and bushwhackers overflowing from his palace of sin. (Should the game take place in Atlantic City? Was Atlantic City a palace of sin back then? Does it matter?) The deeper you get, the more obvious it becomes that the dude in question is a vampire and his palace of sin is a serious Castle-Castlevania kind of situation. I don't want to get too much more specific than that, because as the gameplay begins to unfold the story might naturally go in a certain direction that's better than what I can see now.
You do realize you've only got two weeks, you just wasted like 4 hours on this stupid diary slime, and you still have absolutely nothing to show for it, right? Right.
Progress report tonight or tomorrow. Current Goal: Preliminary art and coding.
