The document below is a GDD that was made in the 48h we had to do the game. I've decided to leave it the way it was to showcase what kind of structure I can achieve in a few hours.

Greedy Hp

Game design document

Made for:

Gam Jam Behavior

Made by:

John Barry - 2D art

 Roxanne Corbeil - programming 

James Delson - 2D art

 Mathieu Fontaine - design/music 

Arthur Fournier - programming

 Linna Lim - programming 

Marianne Nobert - 2D art

26-04-2019

Greedy hp is a top down arena game. Four players will fight to control the most heart. The player with the most heart in his base win the game when the timer reach 0s. For this to happen players will need to think offensively and defensively.

Genre of the game

Greedy hp is a top down arena game. Four players will fight to control the most heart. In terms of similar CCC the game can be compared to Overcook

Victory condition.

The player with the most Heart in his base win the game when the timer reach 0s.

Defeat condition

If you have no heart left, you will lose the game.

OR

If you have fewer heart than other players when the time limit is reached, you will lose the game.

Camera: The camera is static in a top down view.

Controls:

The A or “ Pick Up” button is what players will use to interact with either power up or gathering hearts. To do so you can push the button as fast as you can to gathers hearts as quick as possible. Note that a

The B or “Dash” allow players to move faster on a short period of time. If you dash and hit another player, you will make them lose the hearts they are carrying. When I say lose I mean drop on the floor. They don’t just  disappear. Therefore the dash can be used as an offensive tool and an evasive one.

The Y or “Use power” button will activate the equipped power.

The X or “Throw” button will allow players to drop hearts in their base. However if a heart is thrown at a player and hit, it will stagger the other player. Be careful if your opponent is quick enough they will catch it and steal it with the A button.

Character: The character is….[ need to fill ]

Overview: The game is all about having the most hearts. For this to happen players will need to think offensively and defensively. All mechanics should focus on theses 2 aspect.

Gathering hearts : This is the main objective of the game. Therefore it's important to make sure this simple task is a fluid and pleasant as possible. Offensive mechanics should focus on helping the players gather them. Those mechanics can take the form as passive or active.

Defending hearts: defending hearts will take two aspects. It will either help the players protect their hearts while they are gone stealing others or directly help the players protect them. It's a very subtle differences so let me details this right now.

Defending while absent: While players are gone other players will target their stack. To prevent this from happening they will surely need some kind of CC (crowd control). Why CC? Because time is the most valuable gain in this game. If you are in any way faster than your opponent you will have most resources, in this case hearts.

Defending while present: Players who feel comfortable with the amount of heart, they possess can choose to strictly defend their stack. Players who choose this should have mechanics that help them do that.  

There are four random events, two positive and two negative. These events will take place in the centre of the map. Those events will always spawn in a fix interval. However they are randomly chosen. So players will have to react fast.

The bomb event is obviously a negative one. A bomb will simply fall out of the sky and explode after a certain amount of time. Players caught in the blast will be pushed away and lose all heart they were in possession of.

The other negative event would be a snow cannon. They drop from the top of the map it will spit out a freezing snow in a directional line. This canon is also rotating rather. All players caught will be frozen for a certain moment's time.

The most common positive event will be a drop of hearts. The exact amount will be determined by how much players have spent to buy some power. Those will be, of course, dropped from the top of the map.

The fourth event is called overpowered. It's very similar to the star in Mario kart. You hit harder, you move faster and you can’t get hit. This will be the least probable event.

Defensive ability

Slow zones : the slow zone is a power that allows the player to slow every other players in his zone. Note that the owning player of the zone will not be affected.

Cost: <3

Pulse Zone: all players that do not belong in the zone will be pushed back by an impulse. Players won’t lose heart and the owning player of the zone will not be affected. Cost: <3 <3

Holy protection:  This ability will allow the player who possesses it prevents any other players to steal from their stack of hearts. Cost: <3 <3 <3

Movement speed : This ability will drastically increase the movement speed of the player. <3

Personal Shield: This ability will prevent up to one hit ( being dashed on). Players will then not be slow or affected by other players. <3 <3

Invisible: Players who possess this ability will be invisible for a short period of time. <3 <3

Stun: Players will be stunned for a short time. Apart from the player using it, of course. <3<3<3

Zone 1 is the moving carpet. It's where all the abilities will be generated and move around the map in a continuous flow.

Zone 2 is the player’s base where he can drop all the hearts he collects.

Zone 3 is the player’s zone.

Zone 4 is the neutral zone. It's where all the random event takes place. Players will have to be careful it can either be a positive event or a negative one.

The game style will be pop, flat and vibrant. Even though we will use flat colour, the game will also have a feel of depth. Colour are dynamic and alive. We won't use any gradient. Only dark and light tone.

We are looking to give to the player a clean and simple user interface. The main goal is the gameplay, so we don't want to clutter up the user with too much UI.

The user interface will use subtle tone for the text and dynamic colour for CTA. It’s the only part of the game that won’t use depth. Everything will be flat. Button could use small drop shadow, but that’s the only acceptable depth.

Text like timers, name, number will use a “sans serif” font and light tone colour.

For the CTA, we will use a button style without the depth layer. So, the button will be flat with a light background colour and a white text.

The maps\Arena will use a dynamic colour tone with light and dark contrast. Background will always be darker. Environnement will have a strong border radius and small thickness. A small thickness is only a sub layer of the ground with a darker tone that gives a feel of depth to the ground.

Inspired by Bomberman and Binding of Isaac, the game will be in 2.5D. Enough angle to see the character direction (top, right, down, left) but not enough to get that 3D feel. Despite the fact that the character is in 2.5D, the game arena will be in full 2D with a small thickness.