Dungeon Crawler: Space Explorer is fairly self-explanatory, a dungeon crawler set in space – the dungeons refer to spaceships or planets that the player can infiltrate. This is idea is an expansion on a previous game I made of the same name, except with a better understanding of mechanics.
This game will take into account a crew system – this means that the player will generate a crew of four random members. Each member will have random species, abilities and stats – the reason for this is to have strengths and weaknesses dependant on the environment (procedurally generated planet/space ship). For the sake of immersion simple story components may also get randomised, such as name, backstory and perhaps even home-world.
The crew select screen will be similar to that of Risk of Rain with all crew members strapped into the ship, if I have the time and skill I would prefer random or premade ships in which characters will walk around speaking random dialogue.
An example for strengths and weaknesses is generating an alien fish-based species, with the benefit on damp worlds, buffing stats – however weaker on desert planets (both hot and cold deserts in this case). The purpose of this is to pick crew members wisely for missions (dungeon exploring) and punishing players who lose their members that benefit from certain zones.
This idea also takes into account the rogue-like mechanics, therefore following a similar system as Darkest Dungeon in regards to multiple characters, except without the ability to hire other members – once a crew member dies, they're dead for good. Unlike Darkest Dungeon the player will only send in one member for each mission, successful extraction will mean better weapons, stats and possibly abilities.
The gameplay will be similar to that of Nuclear Throne taking into account the pace, however with larger environments. Only some missions will have bosses.
Features:
Intended for PC (Steam)
PS: This is a project I'm currently working on
Reference Image: "Space Crew" by Aidan Fox (Me)
Scouts is a sci-fi exploration game in which the player takes control of a man-made robot with limited battery power, whilst you have energy it is your main goal to gather as much information possible to assist mankind.
After each exploration, the player will be scored based on how many different things get analysed, such as flora, fauna and other substances – this will be represented as percentages under each category, and depending on how low the values may be will result in a news feed, telling of the troubles that may have resulted in human deaths. Dying to any hostile life-forms will end the scouting prematurely sending even less information, almost making the humans go in blind when personally colonising the planet.
If a score is too low then the robot will get decommissioned or memory-wiped, ending their exploration spree – this is because scouts only run out of battery but can be recharged once humans set foot on the foreign terrain, therefore keeping the superior scouts.
A strong feature in this game will be the art direction, both a reward and a distraction as your limited-life requires quick movement, sacrificing important exploration time just to absorb the atmosphere and environment. A couple sources for inspiration are Hello Games' "No Man's Sky" and Thatgamecompany's Journey (PS3).
Features:
Intended for PC, Xbox One and Play Station 4
Reference Image: "Desert Ghosts" by Kurunya
Hereditary Hero (HEROditary) is a 3D open-world rogue-lite consisting of randomly generated tasks that a player must complete, dying at any point will cause you to take control of one of the next heroes in your bloodline. It shares this next-generation-after-death mechanic with the Infinity Blade series and Rogue Legacy – similarly inheriting the choice mechanic from the latter, player input alongside random power generation, deciding on which of your children to play as.
As the bloodline continues, the older powers (inherited for the most generations) become weaker until they're no longer present in the hero's abilities – the purpose of this is to not give the player too many skills that they become unable to keep track. Each new character will inherit or introduce flaws, that will limit the player in some aspects – this is to prevent the hero becoming overpowered and decreasing the overall difficulty of the game. Flaws can either be presented as weaknesses like Superman and kryptonite, or asthma reducing hero stamina.
After each death, one child will reveal a bonus ability, say for example 'Laser Vision', however they will in turn inherit more weaknesses, therefore adapting the player's gameplay further – in terms of balancing.
Features:
Intended for PC, Xbox One and Play Station 4
Reference image: Pixar's 'The Incredibles'
