Ascension is a third-person hack n slash RPG set in a sci-fi fantasy world. In this world, the player is a Bahk hunter, and has access to swords and pistols. Bahk are alien enemies that came to Earth 3 years ago, at the same time the first humans started to ascend, and are intent on destroying humanity before all can ascend. Ascending is a process in which human's let go of their physical bodies and become pure energy.

The character themselves will be customizable by the player including gender, hair, and facial structure. They will be fully voiced for both male and female and dialogue options are varied and will provide choices at certain moments in the game.

When the player is exploring this semi-open world (big areas, but there will still be load screens for each region), they will encounter many Bahk, as they are quite plentiful and will swarm on lone travellers. Having such vast numbers of enemies during fights allows the combo system to flourish.

The combo system in this game provides a unique spin, once the combo meter is filled, the player has access to ascendant powers. This is what the world calls its magic, though only hunters are ever granted this power. During the time that the player has possession of these powers, their strikes with the sword sends waves of golden energy in the same direction, obliterating any enemies in its path. The player will also have access to certain abilities (accessed from the quickbar) like Ascendant's Justice, a massive finishing blow that will immediately execute weak enemies and send out an area of effect dealing damage to surrounding enemies, another ability may enhance the players pistol for one shot, letting them deal massive damage to a single enemy.

Themes that will be present throughout the game are the challenge of religion, and betrayal and deception.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/385409680591745092/

More submissions by CraigDuthie for MDS GDV110 - 'One Game a Day' Assignment

In this 3D episodic interactive graphic adventure game, players take control of the protagonist who repeats the same day over and over again. Though the day resets, both the player and character remember the previous events and that can help when trying to discover the mystery of why the day is repeating. This game focuses on explanation, playing on the feeling of curiosity and excitement. The game also focuses on plot-driven gameplay. Though the player will not have to do any puzzle solving, they will still have tense moments that will require the player to react quickly through the use of quick-time events. When a play decides to go a certain route they will follow the route to the end of the day (they only have a certain amount of time to investigate routes each day), and this may lead to nothing or opening up more avenues of investigation. This will all culminate in a linear manner, but players can follow any initial path at any time.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/61291244899979642/

In this 2D side-scroller game, players take on the role of one of many giant monsters with the objective of destroying cities while fighting off many different types of enemies, including feeble marines on foot, which are easily crushed, and many helicopters for you to chomp on. Players have many levels to go through, each one city, and a certain amount of time to cause as much destruction as possible. As players progress through the city and cause more destruction more reinforcements will come. The player will have the option of about 3 different moves depending on the monster. If a giant dinosaur is chosen, players may have access to slash, tail swipe, and chomp. Each will be effective against certain objects (buildings, helicopters, troopers). Players will also have to watch their HP and the special bar. The special bar can fill up and when at 100% can allow the player to unleash awesomely destructive moves. There will be mini-bosses and bosses for the player to fight throughout each level which will be more of a challenge for players than the cannon fodder troops.

A 2D game featuring both single-player and multi-player modes where players must use a little bit of co-ordination to make their amateur stickman rock climber climb to great heights. The character is controlled using 4 keys and the arrow keys, the keys allow the player to attach and detach from the wall and the arrow keys allow the player to control the character's body, moving it up/down or left/right. In single-player mode the players goal is to climb as high as they can, with each threshold adding a new challenge, such as wind, birds, or more slippery slopes which the player cannot grab onto. In multi-player there will be 2 options, one with a finite height where the player who gets to the top first wins, and the other with an infinite height, where the player who is last on wins. In this mode players can knock each other off, but have to be careful as the player who is falling can always attach their limb onto the other player's body and bring you down with them.

In this 3D side-scroller game, players must venture through many different areas to help save their shadow. A unique feature of this game is that the player will control 2 characters, the human character, and the human's shadow. This is used throughout the game to solve puzzles and help defeat certain enemies. When players are going through a level, they can click a button and separate the shadow from the human character. This shadow can then move up and around walls and roofs freely, ignoring gravity. However, the shadow cannot venture into lights by itself otherwise it is killed. The human character must help break the lights so both can continue through the level. This will be used all through the many levels of the game, with puzzles getting harder as the game progresses. Fights will also happen in the game, though these are not a main feature. During fights the shadow has its own special moves to help defeat enemies such as pulling them into a wall, strangling them, and tripping them over. Cover will be used in the game as well, this will need to be used mostly for the human character, though special mini-bosses and bosses will have lights on them where the player will need to think carefully about approaching.

http://narayanaoracle.com/?p=658

In this third person 3D simulation game, the player is a hyper advanced alien, one of many in their species, tasked with creating and testing new species by creating worlds (through the world machine). Every time a generation fails, the planet is wiped clean and player is tasked with trying again. Every generation of the species will fail at some point, with the first 10 generations failing quite quickly. Every time a generation fails, a player will get a notification as to why and be able to apply policies and upgrades to the species DNA to make sure that failure does not happen. Players will be able to monitor things such as food sources, buildings, water sources, health and medicine, and the infrastructure of the government (when one appears). The goal of the player is to evolve a species that can survive a long period of time. Species will go through things like the stone age, gold age, industrial age etc and the player will witness their species grow and evolve through a top down view of the world. At any point the player can completely wipe the planet clean and start a new generation of the species. The species can die of things such as early life expectancy, drowning, burning, extinction events, nuclear wars, greed, etc. Through the evolution process players will have to account for many of these things.

https://a2ua.com/evolution.html

You wake up, turn on the tv and find out your city has been overrun by zombies! You've prepared for this moment all your life, killing zombies day after day in the games you play. You grab a real gun and walk out the door, you start shooting zombies left and right, what a hero! But wait..there's zombies swarming on you and you're out of ammo, guess you didn't really think too far ahead did you?

Players take control of an almost-brainless zombie in this 3rd person action game and must complete series of objectives dictated to them by the hive-mind that is the zombie mass. The general goal of the player is to take complete control of the state and form a formal zombie country. Players will walk around (these zombies can't run) in a semi-open world, fast-travelling from city to city. They will have a variety of missions varying from trying to infect a whole bar/club or festival of people, shutting down government operations and buildings, and enhancing the zombie's hive-mind abilities. The one advantage the player has in these missions is the sheer number of zombies, and they will be able to show some control and give orders, such as ordering zombies to attack the main entrance while the player and another group of zombies attack from an undefended entrance allowing them to take control of the building. The player can never truly die since the zombie mass is a hive-mind, there is no individual player, and when they die, they will simply take control of another zombie.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/428967933236452610/

A turn-based strategy game where the player's goal is to try and successfully navigate 4 people out of a remote cabin and the woods filled with supernatural danger. In this 3D isometric viewed game, players must use a microphone to help four strangers find their way out of danger. The player themselves must know when to speak and when to stay quiet, as being too loud can draw the supernatural creatures to whoever the player is advising at the time. In the players turn, they will be able to do a maximum of 2 actions for each character in their party, both actions can be used to move further or moving can be the first action and another action can take place such as hiding in specific spots, calming the character down (characters who are too anxious may not obey the player and do random actions and draw the creatures too them), or a variety of other actions. At the end of the campaign players can have all 4 characters alive or any one of them could be the last one standing.

http://dreamatico.com/darkness.html

This 3D 4-player co-op/multiplayer game allows players to truly feel a great sense of discovery as they travel on their ship and find hundreds of new planets, signs of ancient civilizations, and other player ships. Players will form a crew for their ship, consisting of at least 4 players, with people being assigned roles randomly, such as captain, repairman, and gunner etc. Together they will travel the stars, slowly upgrading their ships to become faster, and stronger and survive the harsh universe that awaits them. Although 4+ players will be in a ship, there will be multiple ships travelling all around the galaxy (and the universe eventually), so attacking another player is a viable option, although there are many alien species both hostile and friendly that await players. Each player will have their responsible role and the ship, but they can also land on planets and explore them, all giving them the classic FPS feel. Players can commit mutiny on a ship and any other player on that ship can become the new captain. The captain has special roles to fulfil such as being aware of any problems on the ship, and assigning crew members to tasks (repair the ship), those players can then choose to ignore or do the task assigned to them. Of course, if players choose not to obey the captain, it may not work out well for them. Ancient civilizations that exist in the universe may be very smart and cunning, and so a crew of players can form alliances with other crews for survival. These civilizations will also be aware of happenings in the galaxy, for example, if players choose to fight each other in the depths of space, an ancient ship may appear when both players have inflicted heavy damage to each other and destroy them both.

This game will very much be about survival all throughout the game, as even if the player has been playing for a long time, these ancient civilizations mastered space flight ages ago, and so have quite the lead on the player. There will be many special events that happen around the universe for all players, these include breaking of treaties (making all players hostile to each other), arrival of a new species, planetary wars etc. All players can choose to ignore or join in these events.

The idea for this game is for the universe's time to go slowly and players to build up their ships over long periods of time and spend a big chunk of their game just discovering and enjoying what the universe has to offer.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/473511348299497520/

A 3D third-person game where the players goal is to keep dropping from platform to platform, avoiding getting hit by a variety of obstacles such as rotation fans, patrolling enemies, and traps like arrows firing from walls and unstable platforms. Players will control their character with a normal WASD control scheme, where pressing S will make the player drop from the current platform or pole they're hanging onto, players will also be able to control where exactly they're falling with the left and right keys, to a degree. There will be special platforms where the players progress is saved when they land on them. As players progress there will be more difficult challenges that require more precise timing and other controls such as being able to slide along walls to slow your descent. There will be achievements in this game for things such as dropping a great distance without having to hold on to a platform, or simply completing a section between 2 save points very fast.

This game allows you not only to look after yourself, but also look after another version of you, your avatar! In this 2D side-scroller players are tasked with looking after a miniature version of themselves that grows from a baby all the way up to a senior and to the great beyond. Similar to the Tamagotchi pet, the idea of this game is to carry around your avatar (as an app on your phone and provide it with needs like water, food, and exercise – played through simple mini-games like jumping over obstacles on an auto-run path, along with games to help your avatar have fun like rock paper scissors. As the avatar grows, it will have specific needs depending on what stage of life it is in (baby, child, teen, adult, or senior), and you can celebrate things such as birthdays with it. Players avatar can have a child so they can continue their avatars run, or simply start a new game with a new avatar.

https://image.freepik.com/free-vector/user-avatar-collection_23-2147546968.jpg

The Weapon Master is a 2D side-scroller arena game where player's goal is to survive as long as they can. The character that the player controls is an elite warrior, master of many weapons. Players will have access to one weapon at the beginning of a game, a samurai sword. As time progresses in this game, players will unlock more weapons. When the game begins, players are presented with a countdown, the countdown to the player's death. This countdown can be slowed through kills and combos, and as the game progresses, these will become less and less effective and eventually the countdown will hit 0, resulting in the players death. New combos with different weapons are more effective then comboing deaths using just one weapon, players will unlock weapons such as rocket launchers, mines, and shurikens. The goal of this game is not for the player to survive, but to kill as many enemies as possible.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XOL43

In this 2D platformer/side-scroller players are presented with the goal of restoring balance to 2 dimensions that are fighting over existence, slowly merging the dimensions and bringing in all types of creatures from the different dimension. The core mechanic is the ability to switch between the two dimensions, an ability the player is gifted. They can use this ability any time during the course of gameplay, and in fact will have to for many situations. Throughout their journey players will face enemies that may appear to strong from them to defeat, or pits that are far too wide to jump over, these are situations where the player will need to switch dimensions to overcome the task. Bosses and mini-bosses in the game that the player faces will also have different strategies needed to defeat them, for example, a player may have to destroy a bosses armour in one dimension, and switch to the next dimension to land the final blow. Normal enemies will not appear in both dimensions, in fact, when players switch dimensions enemies may be replaced by others in the new dimension or disappear entirely, the same can be said for platforms and the like. Most bosses and mini-bosses will exist in both dimensions, as they will be a symptom of the two dimensions merging.

In this 2D arena game players are placed in increasingly difficult linear levels with the objective of escaping through a door (to the next level). In all levels, the door will be quite out of the characters jump height, and players must pile up bodies to jump up and get to the platform with the door. Players in this game only have 1 life, and the objective is to get the furthest they can without dying.

In the first level, the player will start in the middle of the arena, with a portal to hell on the right side of them, below where the platform with the door is. They will have access to a simple pistol for the first level. As zombies spawn out of this portal, it is the players objective to kill them and subsequently pile up the bodies, jump on them, then jump up to the platform. Players will be able to pick up and throw bodies into a pile, but simply by killing the zombies in the right spot, a pile can be automatically created.

Players will get gold depending on the amount of enemies they kill in a level, and after the level is completed, are able to spend it on a number of new weapons such as machine guns, grenades, even automatic turrets, along with upgrades to increase the health and armor of the character.

It is viable for a player to stay in a level even if they are able to get to the exit (though there will be a time limit to stop players sitting at level 1 trying to gold farm), however, the longer a player stays in a level the faster enemies will spawn. So if the player stays too long, they may become overwhelmed and die.

An incremental game for players who want to become the most powerful character ever. Players will be able to choose their starting character, and from there, start clicking. Available on both Android/iOS and PC, players will tap or click their way to become the strongest. The main focus of this game is to achieve the next higher form (corporeal, ethereal, demi-god, god, etc) and each tier will be harder to achieve than the next. Players will have power ups available to purchase, such as the usual auto-clicker and certain items that will enhance each power up (clickers give 2 points of power instead of one). Once a transformation is achieved, the model of the character will look more powerful with a new aura, more amazing armor, or electricity around them. There is no real end to this game, instead it is more of a casual game that can entertain players without causing them any stress.

http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Inexperienced_Power_Up

You were born in a village where the strongest people are chosen to become Titan Climbers. They adventure out into the world to gather power from the titans, a process which does not harm the titans, but is hard to achieve nonetheless. This game is presented as a 3D platformer/side-scroller where players are required to move around and up the titan.

The challenge presented here is that players will have to time their movements correctly to avoid falling off the moving titans. Platforms are attached to both the titan's body and arms, and as such, the arm platforms will move. Players will be running across platforms and scaling the titans at the same time, with the players ultimate goal to reach the head of the titan, and take one of the power crystals to help their village. They will also face a small number of enemies along the way, these enemies will be either from growths on the titan, since the titan itself is not hostile, or others who want the titans power. However, combat will not be a major feature in the game and smart hopping over and avoidance of enemies will be more of the focus.

Players will face many challenges as they scale different titans, where some might be of earth, some more inspired by fire, or ice.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/AVAm42R2WzPd2aZMRmqvDt1P_1nXKaZOxZ6rvvxvnbk0YHKN76Y93Qc/

Work as a lowly minion in an overlord's army in this 3rd person RPG. Start out being hatched and immediately ordered to mine minerals, but a special defect makes you question…why the hell are you even doing this? Players are taken through the basics of mining, gathering minion allies, and attacking creeps (which players must do in a group, they're only 1 minion after all). This serves as both an introduction to the story and a quick easy tutorial without breaking game flow.

The overlord is represented by a huge figure hovering in the sky, he's controlling all of his minions after all! Think where a player views their base in an RTS from.

After a hard day's work, you decide you've had enough! And sneak out while the overlord is asleep. Players are tasked with navigating themselves out of the overlord's domain, which is quite big to a little minion, by using simple stealth mechanics, where the overlord's loyal minions vision is shown by a glowing red beam out of their eyes.

Once a player has escaped to the forest, they are tasked with gathering resources to build a living space or house, which they will already know how to do as they've been through it at the beginning of the game. Both the main quest and many side quests follow on from this, eventuating in the player growing a band of minions and possibly become an overlord himself.

Players experience things like

  • -Getting to be the worker instead of controlling them
  • -Resource gathering to build your own little town, and defend it from the overlord's army (and other overlords)
  • -Growing your little minion allies, so you can band together and defeat threats (minions are quite weak alone)
  • -Hear the ramblings of minions when the overlord isn't looking

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/261631059572821161/

A 2D simulator-like game where you play as a seedling from a tree, trying to grow and spread your own seeds and eventually grow all around the small little planet you are on. The planet is quite literally, small, players are able to rotate around the entire planet, and zoom in and out. While the seedling is growing, players will face the many challenges of droughts, snow, and fire. They will be able to adapt the tree's DNA to better handle some of these challenges. As they grow into a tree, they can choose the direction of the roots, for example, a player may want to grow towards water or wet soil if the tree needs more hydration. Players are warned of when another season or a special event is happening (for example, a forest fire) so they can better prepare before it comes. Later stages of the game will see players manage multiple trees and they will be able to see things such as height of the tree, age, and how much water or sunlight the tree needs. The players end goal is to have trees around the whole planet.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/201184308332230180/

A truly breath-taking VR experience, players will be guided through a small number of levels filled with interesting sea-life and coral reefs to discover and research, along with figuring out mysteries of sunken ships. This is a first-person experience where players will control both a deep sea submarine and their own character diving in the water. Audio, both from dialogue and music, is an important part of this game. The players only communication will be with their colleague on the boat, over 5000 metres above them. Players will have linear levels to travel through (and down) with a few diverging paths that always go back to the same ending path. They will encounter sea-life that they have the option of scanning, to discover more about it. And there will also be an over-arching mystery about a sunken vessel that the player discovers that will be a main focus of the game, though simply exploring is a big part of this game.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/486740672202469457/

Nuclear Material Transporter is a 2D side-scroller/platformer for the PC. Like most side scrollers it has the usual controls of walking and jumping, however, in this game you can only jump in certain circumstances. And that is when you aren't holding delicate nuclear material. Objectives for each level will be the same, however the levels will increase in difficulty and complexity.

For example, in the first level a player will be presented with the task of delivering the nuclear material waste to a safe container, they will simply have to cross a pit. But to jump over the pit requires not holding onto the nuclear material, and the material can't touch any walls, including the ground, so they can't just drop it. To solve the first level, players will have a box in front of them, just before the pit, and they will be required to throw the nuclear material up in the air, push the box down into the pit and then catch the nuclear material. They can then walk over the pit and safely deliver the nuclear material.

As levels progress there will be certain objects such as pillow where the nuclear material can be placed or bounced off of in order to cross a certain barrier.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/141159769543156455/

Another great first-person VR game, 30 Second Hairdressing requires the player to complete as many haircuts as they can, having 30 seconds for each haircut. A simple and free game for the PC that provides hours (worth of 30 seconds) of fun for all players. Share your results after completing them to make sure your friends never want to get a haircut from you. There are no levels in this game, instead the client will have 2 minutes to complete a clients haircut and then have to move on to the next. As players progress through different clients the haircut they want will become more complicated, requiring more time to get completely right. Players can finish a haircut early and can progress as long as they receive higher than an F grade. Players will continue until they receive their first F grade and that will be the end of the game. Players will be able to use a range of hairdressing tools from different types of scissors, to electric razors, to blades.

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/121878733645415805/

MDS GDV110 - 'One Game a Day' Assignment

Media Design School's GDV110 students come up with a game idea a day.

daily from 2016-07-19 to 2016-09-09