Assignment 3: Development Progress

I swear its a logo officer, promise I didn't crop the Design Page

Ok so, Lethal Cuts. Its a simple little fighting game but its got some interesting stuff going on. Lets start by going over the game as it was presented to the group and then ill talk about the changes I would (and hopefully will) implement as the lead designer. 

lets look at the Design Page for Lethal Cuts.

really this image should be all you need but ill explain anyway

See that black controller? that's the most important information as far as I'm concerned. Move with the left stick, jump with A, attack with X, block with B. Ignore the Attack Direction stick, that's not implemented. The attack works basically how you expect and theirs a different animation if you attack in the air buts its pretty much the same attack. Block is a bit more complicated, your character turns to stone after a small pause becoming immune to hits for a short time. No health bars just if you take 3 hits you lose. 

Now there's one unique mechanic to the game, the " Intensity Meter " it slowly depletes over time and the level of the meter determines how fast the game is over all, how quickly you move, attack, and block. Playing aggressively raises the meter and it effects both players. 

Its not a bad design and it won me over in our initial meeting on which game to take forward for the assignment but I think there are some clear improvers to be made. 

Firstly I would change the Intensity Meter to be player specific rather than shared. This way you can effectively buff your character by playing aggressively and the level of the bar is relevant information rather than just a background number. Also we should in general find more things for Intensity to effect over just general game speed. Further the fighting is designed around being on the ground but with a jump button and platformers to jump to we need to put design effort into making air combat interesting and unique from ground combat. 

Next post, we polish up the game and then get on to play testing.