During this week’s workshop, I made the basics of an Asteroid space-shooter game. I later changed the game entirely, using the shooting code to work with individual turrets.
Changed the spaceship into turrets. The placement is at certain locations on the left and right side of the truck. To make coding flexible, I made it so that each one was assigned a variable. This is so in future I will be able to allow a player to upgrade, choose a different turret, or change the appearance of their turrets with ease.
The truck moves on a horizontal plane for the moment. I considered limiting movement to jumping in-between lanes grid-style, however It may allow players to feel more in control by having the ability to weave in and out of lanes. Doing so would require more skill and fulfil a player’s need for competency as described by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (McLeod S. 2020). Once more formal elements have been introduced - mainly hazards - I will need to test the feel of the gameplay.
Turrets rotate to aim at the cursor’s position. I will play with having a ‘blueprint’ or ‘marker’ to indicate certain weapons’ line of fire, such as shotguns’ spread range, bouncing bullets’ trajectory, and charged lasers’ line of sight.
Hazards should appear on the road. Accompanied with the freedom of movement, players should feel challenged with these basic dramatic elements. As covered by Fullerton, part of enjoyability comes from a balance of challenge and ability as well as giving players a sense of control over their actions (2018. p99-100). As the level progresses, it should get faster, higher priority enemies will start to appear on the screen, and eventually, once the player fills up the progress bar, a boss fight will appear.
Enemies. Defeating them will award coins that can be used to upgrade guns and buy new ones. Later in development, enemies that deal damage to the player using various methods will be added.
Different weapons. Allow players to gain a sense of achievement and progress as they gradually unlock new and different weapons. Each weapon will have what my lecturers have covered as orthogonal differentiation; weapons will have unique damage ratings, shooting styles, and reload times. This will give players a unique choice and allow them to tailor gameplay to their play style. For the Collectors, (Fullerton T. 2018. p.104) it will give them incentive to play and discover the variety of weaponry.
McLeod S. (2020). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. SimplyPsychology. Accessed 2 September, 2021 from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Fullerton T. (2018). Game Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition. ProQuest EBook Central. Accessed 2 September, 2021 from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698