Fridays are called Design Day at Hamumu lately, which means I get to play! Not actually play, but play around with ideas. Discussions in chat lately got me playing
Moon Invaders (You should too, it's
so fun, and you know I don't normally toot any horns). I was thinking I wanted to make Moon Invaders 2, so I thought I'd share with you the idea I just wrote up for that. It's kind of instructive also in that you can see how I write up ideas in rough form. Not a lot of numbers to be had, because those will always come out in testing - not much point deciding on them now! It's more about how it will feel and what options the player will have. So with no more such ado, here is the design document I wrote today:
MOON INVADERS 2
Oh no, now that the invaders have landed, they are heading into your secret caverns beneath the moon's surface where your moon people actually live!
This is still a tower defense game, but now it's a side scroller. You are the enemies in a side-scrolling shooter. The enemies actually maneuver and shoot. There's an element of attrition, because of that. Turrets take enormous abuse before dying, though.
You get to build your things on the top or bottom wall, which affects their usefulness, and badguys will try to avoid them, or maybe attack them.
LAUNCH BAY
Upgrades: rate, life, life of ships, damage
Launches little suicidal fighters that dive into the enemies. They can be shot.
BIG BAY
Upgrades: rate, life, ship life, damage
Launches big attack ships that fly up and down shooting at enemies. They gradually head towards the level start, so they can only do so much damage. They pass right through enemies themselves, only dangerous by their bullets.
MISSILE TURRET
Upgrades: rate, damage, life, radius
Fires homing missiles at a low rate. They do big damage over a radius.
GUN TURRET
Upgrades: rate, damage, life
Fires very rapidly and not too accurately.
TRACTOR BEAM
Upgrades: slowdown, pull, width, life
Fires a beam that slows any enemy caught in it, and drags them toward the tractor beam. It won't drag them closer than super close, no crashing. The slowdown effect can reach 100% with max points (or with two or more tractor beams working together), but it is capped at 90%, and for each extra enemy in the field after the first, the effect is weakened on all of them by 5% (still, you can get 90% on many of them at once by having an overabundance of beam to start with).
CRUSHER
Upgrades: rate, limit, life
Fires a death orb that can't miss and instantly kills the target. Unfortunately, it will only fire at targets that are below 5% health. Upgrading Limit raises how healthy the target can be. It can also of course only fire so often, hence the Rate upgrade.
SHOCK GUN
Upgrades: effect, rate, targets, duration, life
Fires an electrical beam at 1 or more targets, shocking them so they take more damage from all other attacks. Effect upgrades boost how much extra damage they take.
RESEARCH OPTIONS:
Shields – All buildings have shields, which take damage before their life does. The shields replenish over time, rapidly.
Repair bots – All buildings repair slowly over time.
Triple Shot – Attack ships fire in a triple shot formation.
Shrapnel – When a Crusher explodes, it fires out shrapnel in 8 directions, each doing 1/8 the damage that the crusher did (so raising Limit will boost this damage, as will the enemies simply being tougher).
Overload – Shock guns overload the weapon systems on the affected ships, cutting their fire rate in half.
Piercing Shots – Gun Turret shots pass through enemies to hit more.
Knockback – Missiles and kamikazes push the enemies back when they hit.
Shield Drain – Tractor Beams vaporize any shields the affected victim may have.
ENEMIES
Weenies – regular guys who shoot straight ahead. They won't attack turrets, but try to line up to shoot your ships.
Bombers – Bigger, tougher, slower guys who fire diagonally up and down. Their shots will of course hit turrets a lot. They don't maneuver at all, just head in a line.
Boss – Super big, super slow, super tough, equipped with shields that replenish over time. Fires a big spread shot that tends to annihilate your fighters and hurt your turrets a lot. Also has a turret that fires directly at the nearest target of any type.
Missile – Doesn't attack at all, just rushes in very fast, with very little life.
Evil Missile – A red missile, just like the regular missile, but even less life – why evil? Because it tries to divebomb your turrets (suicidal) for huge damage. You definitely want to stop these.
Cruisers – Has a turret that aims at your nearest target, and shields. Tougher than Weenies, weaker than Bombers (except for those darn shields).
Waves consist of an arrangement of all the enemy types (usually not all, of course).
So what do you think of that? Don't expect it to get made or anything. It's just another on the immense pile of ideas.
This is the seedier side of London... The game begins with you heading down an alley (in order to railroad you through a couple key things before you can be set free on the world), so we've got dumpsters and trash cans. And yes, the trash in both is actually the stuffing from LL2 teddy bears! Then we've got the postbox and phone booth, both of which I researched on Google images! Then I took liberties with them. Phone booths are going to be a key component. I'm not entirely sure of their exact function yet, but since nobody else is in town, you need to interact with people somehow! Phone booths may relate to saving your game in a way, but since your progress is always saved as you go, I'm not quite sure what way. They will probably act as 'respawn points'. The mailbox is just decoration, though.
And of course, it's the Warrior for Loonyland 3! In case you are having a fit of hysterical blindness, he is very much based on the Bunny Knights from LL2. I know he's not all that exciting, but other characters will get more interesting. After all, he's the warrior. How much more generic can you get? I may actually go back after I've made some other characters and re-do him. There's an interesting different style I came up with for another game idea I had, kind of like living Weebles, which I might consider for these guys. But then again, this is a Loonyland game, it makes sense to look like LL2.