Design Pitch

I had a few vague ideas going into creating my design pitch for my game. Working on VampPR showed me how much more lively and immersive a game can feel by having many independently moving parts and a densely populated scene.

Some of my initial ideas were as follows:

• Simple main mechanic but lots of juice
• Chaotic Gameplay
  • Lots of flashy visuals
  • Minimal negative space
• Prioritize visuals and other extra effects
  • Animation
  • Sound effects
  • Particles
• 2D with simple artstyle
  • Pixel art or hand drawn
• Chain reactions
  • Player times input to maximize combos and create maximum chaos.

I also really liked the simple one-key input that VampPR had. It made the programming simple and gave us more time to focus on visuals. I struggled for a while to think of a main mechanic that could work well with minimal input while allowing the player to create complex chain reactions by timing their input.

In the end, I landed on a space game inspired by asteroids and the third minigame from OUTBREAK (made by Liv, Laynie, and Danielle). You control an orbital demolition drone equipped with a chargeable pulse attack, and you must destroy various space themed obstacles (decommissioned satellites, asteroids, etc.). Your attacks are limited and you must collect fragments from destroyed obstacles to recharge your weapon. You will have to release your pulse attacks at the optimal time with the optimal strength to create chain reactions. Chain reactions are necessary to create the most fragments in order to recharge your weapon.