Scintillation Design Document – jollyCoop

 

Andrew Darrohn

Nicholas Watson

Tan Pham

 

Game type: Bullet Hell Rhythm Game

Objective: Survive the level and defeat the boss

 

Game Description: You are moving through the level and have flying light bullets being shot at you.  At the beginning, it appears that they are coming from nowhere, but you travel towards the source and come upon a boss creature shooting at you.  You must defeat the boss before you die. Once you encounter the boss, a timer will start which will be shown on the screen. If you do not kill the boss in this time frame then everything on the screen is killed, including you. The bullets/patterns will be synced someway with the music. Different beats/rhythms will produce different bullet patterns. The patterns will be quasi-random so that the level will have some replayability and will be intelligently directed as to not leave any large pockets where the player can camp out. If we execute this well this will mean the player will have to constantly be moving and cannot reduce their concentration level. The game difficulty will slowly pick up with the music and will become more difficult the farther the player goes in the level. This will hopefully help the player get into the zone while playing. We intend to make some interesting and cool effects between the bullets and the player and the bullets. This will hopefully create a visually awe inspiring experience that really adds to the gameplay. Through the combination of all these aspects, we think that we can create a fun dynamic that will also be visually and audibly exciting for the player. What we hope to accomplish is to quickly throttle the player into the zone within the first 15 seconds or so and create a really exciting and demanding experience for a short burst that will leave the player satisfied and wanting more.

Gameplay:
You move by moving your mouse.  Your avatar will move fluidly in the direction the mouse moves.  This allows for good control of the avatar, but without making it seem jerky or jittery.  If you run into a light, you will lose some of your health.  You can dash by hitting the shift key.  Each dash will consume part of your dash meter.  While dashing, you have temporary invincibility.  You also use the dashing ability to attack the boss.  Both your health and dash meter will regenerate over time.  Pick up power-ups to give yourself temporary boosts that make the game easier as you play.

Extras:
If everything goes according to plan and we manage to make it past just the target requirements, we hope to implement shooting capabilities for the player and thus adding buffs that will go with those, more AI and algorithms for both the light bullet generation and boss movement, and a notification that allows you to see where a bullet is about to appear.

 

Weekly Schedule

For the most part, the level design will be tweaked as the game is being made, but the general pattern will be made by the time the alpha is due.  All the objectives assigned to “Team” require discussion to ensure that it matches well with the music and the overall game feel.  We will be working on these as a group during our weekly Sunday meetings.  If we cannot meet a “Team” goal during that weekend, it will be assigned to a person as needed.

 

Expectations & Target Sets


Alpha Target List
Collisions
Light Pattern
Randomization/Variability
Song Mapping
Boss
Boss AI – Premapped
Dashing
Dash Meter GUI

Low Bar (+ Alpha List)
Power-ups
Improved Movement
Collision Sounds
Particle Effects
Timer

Target (+ Low Bar, Alpha List)
Light from different sides
Power-ups (even more)
Scoring

High Bar (+  Target, Low Bar, Alpha List)
Extra Level
Boss AI – AI Movement
Shooting to attack
Pre-Bullet markers

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