Dev Blog 1: Session 0

An early rendition of what the inside of the game might look like

Intro

This is going to be an ongoing notes page for what the game is going to be. I will come back here to add changes to classes or mechanics at a high level as progress goes on. The following Dev Blogs will just be progress updates and will take some time before they start coming out on a normal schedule.

Basic Premise

AntiVirus(working game title), is about a physical representation of your computers anti-virus system fighting back malware and other computer issues. This was inspired by the pill in Osmosis Jones, Tron, late 1990s early 2000s renditions of computer virtualization.

Classes

Gunner

This class will use a laser machine gun as a primary weapon. The skills will be rocket/explosion based. The theme of this class will be focused on immense firepower.

Technomancer

This class will use magic. I was thinking it might use a digitalized version of elemental magic. The primary weapon will be a pistol when mana is low.

Hacker

This class will be themed as an assassin. It will focus on debuffing enemies and minor stealth mechanics with later levels allowing you to turn even the strongest of enemies into allies. Primary weapon is a throwing knife.

Samurai

This class will be themed as a warrior using a laser katana and dashing around the battlefield to fight in close quarters.

Gameplay

I will divide this into two categories. Ideal and Realistic. I have a vision for what I would like the game to be and I have a more realistic gameplay loop for a solo developer.

Ideal

The game I initially envisioned when starting this project was a 4 player coop, drop in drop out, game where you get downloaded onto a computer and fight from the modem to the kernal of the CPU to clear the machine of viruses. The reason this would be difficult to pull off is that I wanted there to be procedurally generated computers that will greatly alter the experience each time you start a mission. There would be different difficulty missions with different objectives. For example, one mission has you hunting a particularly bad virus forcing you to find it, another might require you to focus on clearing a particular computer part.

Realistic

My more realistic, easier to make, game idea is a wave based defense style game with some mild tower defense mechanics. You might be able to buy a turret or walls or other defensive structures with currency you get from defeating enemies and waves. The main reason this gameplay loop will be more realistic is because it only requires me to make one environment. I won’t need variations on game assets other than enemies. It is also a much easier gameplay loop to build.

Mechanics

Upgrades

I want a class upgrade system that gives as much player choice as I can as a solo developer. My first thoughts are to base it off of borderlands, where there are 3 main styles of playing a class that have different upgrade paths. For example the gunner class might have a path focusing on shooting a ton of lasers downrange from their gatling gun, or another path that focuses on using explosives to blow up enemies.

Abilities

Each class will have a primary weapon that has infinite ammo/uses with no resource cost, and 3 flexible abilites that can fall under 3 categories: damage, healing, support. Damage is self explanatory, healing might heal yourself or allies, support might debuff enemies or buff allies. Each class will have ways of specializing in each of these roles or mixing them.