IGB400 Project proposal - Uneven Odds

As it get's closer to the end of my degree, it becomes an ever-closer inevitability that my collective academic effort must be somehow displayed. Who would even look at it? So far everything I have made has been for myself. I’m especially passionate about small projects, where my effort is showcased in multiple aspects. So, I would like to avoid losing my individuality in becoming just a cog in the wheel of a large corporate world, also considering my lack of experience in working in a large team, I think my goal is starting or working in a small indie studio.

However, an indie studio is no small feat. So far, I have gathered close to two years of game development experience using Unity. It started with three rushed prototypes that I developed solo for PC; one Shoot’em-up and two FPS horror, and followed by two more mobile projects, both unfinished, one abandoned. I am currently still working on the unfinished mobile project acting as a co-producer, sound designer and programmer within a team of six.

The years have taught me much of my inadequacy in many areas of game production, especially in scoping and user-testing. I believe, my greatest weaknesses and what is very important for an indie dev lies in these areas. As such, I have decided to focus on the design, development and play-testing analysis of a single gameplay mechanism rather than an entire game. The full realization of this project, however, will be a mobile game, as such I will test my design skills considering a mobile audience and will be programming using Unity with android support, and finally conducting playtesting via a mobile phone running android OS.

The aim of this project is to showcase my efficacy in designing and prototyping something to be play-tested in a small amount of time. This will also serve to improve my skills in project management and analyzing user-feedback. I believe this is a crucial component of developing any successful mobile game. As an idea, no matter how novel, must be implemented and targeted for the right users, for it to be successful in the current overflown market of mobile games. As such, I believe that it’s important to establish evidence of success in the market, from predominantly positive feedback from real users, as soon as possible within the development phase. I believe this is especially important within a small indie studio, where resources are limited.

Uneven Odds – a rogue-like dice rolling RPG

Imagining a die, but instead of faces representing number 1 to 6, it has 6 special symbols – one for reach face:

The central gameplay mechanism is rolling a certain number of such a die, one after the other, something like this:

A pattern of symbols will form as a result of all the dice rolls. These symbols will now carry out an action each, however if two or more of the same symbols are consecutive to each other, they will carry out the same action, but stronger, thus forming a ‘combo’.

These actions will either interact with the player, or the enemy during combat. Combat is carried out in turn-based order, where the action of the enemy will be displayed during the player’s turn prior its execution in the enemy’s turn. The player, once knowing exactly what each face of the die does, will strategize based on the enemy’s action and roll for specific faces to perform a desired combo. Since a dice roll is random, and the player has a 1/6 chance for any given face for just a single die, it’s safe to say that they will not always get the outcome they desire. As a result, the player will improvise during their turn, and utilize their ability to re-roll any die a certain number of times before the end of their turn. This may look something like this:

Once the player’s turn ends, the symbol of each die will perform an action on the enemy, and as aforementioned, they may combo with each other. For example, the following order of dice, will perform the following actions on the enemy:

Thus, the difficulty of the project will include coming up with unique abilities for each of these symbols on each face, the actions combos will perform, and how many of the same faces are needed for each combo. Meanwhile, the player must feel effective enough that they could – although never to a certain extent – consistently come up with and execute a strategy. Currently, the only action the player has, is choosing when and which die to re-roll, this may prove inadequate for combat to be engaging. As such, some additional actions may be designed for the player’s turn.

Once the first iteration of all the actions and combos are designed on paper, they will be implemented as soon as possible against a very simple enemy. This will then be play-tested, and the results analysed. The game will then be redesigned and improved slightly, and play-testing will resume once again. I aim to document and cycle through this process a minimum of three times to establish evidence and characteristics of a player base, also improving on the existing game in these iterations. Finally, the project will end with a final document showcasing all the evidence collected, an inference made on the degree of success this game potentially has, and the major or minor changes it will likely need to reach that success. From this, I will learn the importance of play-testing, research and management to help in maturing my thought process as a potential indie game dev.