Project Gelcast
Step -1: Planning
- Each step is to be started and finished within a week.
- These steps can be taken in any order.
- The overall goal is to recreate the base project upon which we can build Tiny Tinkers, Nemea's Battle Brawler, The Story of Skyla, and Corinne's Game
Step 1: Tinker's Cardworks
- Game Type: Card Battle
- Categories: Competitive, Deck Builder
- Description: Build a tool out of parts. These parts have four stats: speed, damage, durability, and style.
-- Whoever makes the highest stat wins and the difference is deducted from the opponent's morale. Lose all twelve hearts of morale and you lose
- Character in Charge: Merdiwen
- Significant Systems: Items, Modifiers
- Purpose: Working inventory system and item stats
- Status: Design
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Hang-ups: This might be such a good game that I want to make it a full thing
Step 2: Mighty Gelly Warehouse!
- Game Type: Puzzle
- Categories: Platforming, Physics, Arcade
- Description: Bouncy boxes and items fall from the top of the screen. They must be sorted - left for boxes, right for items - by Thruul himself. He has four arms to hold these items and can only survive for so long before the warehouse fills up
- Character in Charge: Thruul M'Gon
- Significant Systems: Movement, Physics
- Purpose: Define character movement, bouncing of items, 2D physics, and related
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Basic-Moderate
- Hang-ups: Simple Design
Step 3: Geltroid
- Game Type: Map Exploration
- Categories: Upgrade, Maze
- Description: A slime wanders around a grid and picks up items to go through doors along the way
-- Lock and key design. The character "falls" like a platformer, but is tied to a grid. Multiple upgrades
- Character in Charge: Slime
- Significant Systems: Tilemap
- Purpose: Map-based interactions like doors and hazardous areas are defined
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Basic
- Hang-ups: Map design without enemies might be easy. Or hard.
Step 4: Melvin's Gel Farm
- Game Type: Farming Simulator
- Categories: Farming, Research, Factory
- Description: Melvin grows some crops, raises some slimes, harvests some grass, and writes it down. Then he combines them for more things
- Character in Charge: Melvin
- Significant Systems: Time|Weather, World Objects
- Purpose: Worldbuilding
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Hang-ups: Two systems working together might be a bit much, but the game doesn't work well without that
Step 5: Gel Arena!
- Game Type: Brawler
- Categories: Beat 'em Up
- Description: Enemies come in waves. Beat the snot out of them
- Character in Charge: Nemea
- Significant Systems: Combat
- Purpose: Combat Definition
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Hang-ups: This is necessary for the plan
Step 6: Gelantis Discovery
- Game Type: Exploration
- Categories: Whatever Ecco the Dolphin has
- Description: A fun time under the sea. Make sure not to drown
- Character in Charge:
- Significant Systems: Swimming, Oxygen
- Purpose: Platforming Movement Alternative
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Moderate-Advanced
- Hang-ups: Underwater movement in platformers tends to be bad.
Step 7: Gelfrost
- Game Type: Resource Management
- Categories: Survival
- Description: An icy cold winter threatens to freeze your entire life down to nothing.
-- Hunting, gathering of bark, and uncovering mushrooms under the snow will be necessary
-- Basic equipment attributes and item behavior is the core of this game
- Character in Charge: Skyla
- Significant Systems: Equipment, Cooking, Temperature
- Purpose: Explore harsh environments
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Hang-ups: There are a lot of systems that interact to make this kind of experience happen, but each one is more or less separate
Step 8: Gelcraft Story
- Game Type: Visual Novel
- Categories: Story
- Description: A short jaunt through the halls of Selena's personal library
- Character in Charge: Selena
- Significant Systems: Dialogue, Menu
- Purpose: All games need some kind of dialogue system. Probably built on top of menus
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Basic
- Hang-ups: This core is so generic that games don't readily come to mind
Step 9: Gel Breeding
- Game Type: Creature Simulator
- Categories: AI, Interactive Simulator
- Description: It's the chao garden
- Character in Charge: The Warden
- Significant Systems: Decision Making, Pathfinding
- Purpose: This is necessary for the plan
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Hang-ups: I will want to make this a lot more in-depth than one week allows
Step 10: Gelcore Mining
- Game Type: Incremental Miner
- Categories: Terrain Destruction, Incremental
- Description: Dig to the center of the world
- Character in Charge: Saki, Wrench
- Significant Systems: Tools, Tilemap
- Purpose: Some amount of world manipulation from tools is required
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Basic
- Hang-ups: This might be boring
Step 11: [Shop]
- Game Type:
- Categories:
- Description: Recettear or Moonlighter, but worse
- Character in Charge: Yalin
- Significant Systems: Currency, Shop, Inventory
- Purpose: Someone has to make this happen
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Basic
- Hang-ups: Does this need dialogue?
Step 12: World Manipulation
- Game Type:
- Categories:
- Description: Become the level designer you were always meant to be
- Character in Charge: Corinne
- Significant Systems: Blocks, World Growth
- Purpose: The world needs to change and be manipulated over time. Blocks are core to both Tiny Tinkers and Corinne's game
- Status: Concept
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Hang-ups:
[Minigames]
Step A: Gelementris
- Game Type: Tetris Clone
- Categories: Puzzle, Minigame
- Description: Like Tetris, but four tile types spawn from tetrominoes that are harvested if 8 consecutive pieces are touching. The field is extra wide to accommodate this
- Character in Charge: None
- Significant Systems: None
- Purpose: Simple item to port
- Status: 80%
- Difficulty: Basic
- Hang-ups: The logic doesn't work at all. Full rewrite required
Step B: [Fishing]
Step C: [Worm of Bemer - Commodore Game]
Step D: [Cartoon Bowling]