We are a very small team with very real constraints on time and scope. So we have worked to narrow down our designs. We have come up with a list of Pillars and Constraints, largely based on discussions from last week’s playtests.
The current Pillars of our game are:
A Game You Want to Replay: We want to deepen gameplay so that players return to it and attempt to get better
“Oh that was close!”: The focus of the design should be on bringing together the players to fight and producing near miss moments. We should avoid elements that distract away from this.
A Game With Humor and Style: We intend the game to be stylishly silly. The music in particular creates a strong aesthetic. We want players bopping their heads as they play the game.
Easy to Play Fun to Master: The game is accessible to new players, but offers just enough deeper strategy that players can continue to work on the game
Bring the party: The game works well in party and group settings. It’s almost as much fun to watch as play.
We will use these pillars to guide our designs. Every choice we make will be with the purpose of addressing one of these pillars.
In addition, we have started a list of constraints, in order to keep our design from spinning out. A few currently are:
Characters can only have two attacks
3-4 classes
1-3 arenas
Music is tied to the level
Introduced mechanics cannot distract from fighting
These will continue to be refined. By the end of the week, we plan to have two character mechanics and one Arena with a prototype-able design.