TRICKFOOLERY! Design Document

This week, as we get started on our design document and presentation, we’ve begun to nail down the core aspects of the of the game, including a name update - we’re now TRICKFOOLERY!

Gameplay

We’ve solidified a gameplay flow for both an individual level and the overall game. Taking advice from the guests that gave feedback on our and other games, we decided to keep the player controls as simple as possible: running, dashing, and taunting. We’ll also focus on implementing 3 enemy types for now. We’ve brainstormed many types of enemies, but plan to narrow them down to the ones with the most interesting interactions by completing an interaction matrix.

Art & UI

The artistic direction , particularly with the game’s UI. We wanted the UI to complement the game’s theme, so we decided to draw upon ’80s sci-fi technology and sports technology to present information to the player. One particularly-loved idea is an arena jumbotron that shows a scrolling news ticker during normal combat, then lowers to reveal a pause menu.

The art team started assembling concept art for Tom, the aliens, and environmental aspects of the ship. The aliens will generally be represented with a cool color palette while Tom will wear warm colors to allow him to pop out.

We’ve also greyboxed a couple of arena concepts, and will start building levels from them to playtest in the next week.

Moving Forward

Our goals for next week are to further refine the interaction of our mechanics and implement a preliminary level while keeping the feedback from our guests in mind. We’ll also solidify our development plan and processes for keeping track of our progress. Working on the design document and receiving feedback helped hone our vision for the game, and we’re excited to see it come to form!

The design document as of today is attached to this post, but feel free to follow its development through the Google doc!