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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsNinja Kids vs Zombie Teens - For my 2 boys
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MCHLVSSW
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« on: October 23, 2016, 08:19:43 AM »

Hi there,

Ninja Kids vs Zombie Teens (yeah I know…) will be a game for my kids (3 & 6) where you throw knives, kunai or shuriken to stop waves of funny monsters… I want it simple, fun but not absurd.

I am tired with seeing my two kids getting frustrated when playing video-games on my phone or tablet, assaulted with ads/payable contents, struggling to understand complex games, disappointed by settings that are never exactly what they look for and switching game after 5’. So I will be developing a small game just for them (and share it when ready).

Progress:
I spent a couple of hours sketching the concept: you play a Ninja (my youngest future dream job) shooting shuriken and such at zombies (they like story with monsters to pretend they are not scared… and also I found some great cute zombie sprites).
The exercise brought up an interesting design canvas as the need to keep things simple and entertaining help taking design decisions. There is a saying, not sure how to translate: ‘Constraints drive creativity’.
So this will be: simple menu, no need to read, simple touch-screen, waves of enemies, many enemies (because this will be a motivation for them), some funny bosses, spawning bonuses, combining bonus so that you can trigger chained reactions, some difficulty and a lot of game feel.

One of my principles on game design: draw and write as much as you can before developing as it’s faster to design on a sheet of paper than on your favorite game dev software (to the limit that you cannot test everything on paper  Durr...?). It is only me, but I can spend (waste?) one hour making or fine-tuning a decision in front of my laptop where it would have taken me 5’ with a pen (or an Excel Sheet).

And now:
I will try to time-box this to 2 months. My main challenge and what will take most of my time is to find / develop sprites, music and sounds.
My next step is to design a more detailed mock-up with clarified decisions on how the wave/level transition and the types of enemies and bonuses (and the relation between those).

So yes this is basically it for my first post. Yeah I know... best dev entry ever : Well, hello there!
Thanks for reading, any comments is very much welcome.
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Kyuugatsu
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« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2016, 08:27:52 AM »

“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.”
― Orson Welles

The drawing/writing is an interesting idea. Do you mean to make a paper protoype?
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Panurge
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« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2016, 10:28:39 AM »

Good luck with this! I've had lots of fun making games for my little boy and have found exactly what you anticipate - that the limitations are actually quite inspiring.

I made a couple of games designed for us to play cooperatively together with one set of controls for me and another simpler set for him. Our biggest success so far, Space Monkeys Escape Doctor Doom (it's pretty niche!) involved me flying a spacecraft while he shouted instructions and threw bananas with the arrow keys. I wonder if you plan on doing anything similar for your boys, seeing as their age difference will probably mean a bit of skill imbalance?
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MCHLVSSW
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« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2016, 01:39:25 AM »

Kyuugatsu, Thanks for the quote.
I am drawing many mock-up of the screens to test and fine-tune design ‘options’ like sprite size, explosion range… then computing some math to decide on health, damages, enemies speed, reload speed.. I have never built paper prototypes with tokens etc… but I think Hideo Kojima designed some levels of Metal Gear Solid using Lego to be sure of the lines of sight…
For another game (which I stopped for now), I have drawn levels on paper highlighting how the player would feel at each specific area (curious, stressed, proud, learning….) to make sure there is life in playing.
This is only me, but I have a tendency to think everything is clear in my head but as soon as I sit in from of my computer I realize I need to make many other important choices. Some can easily be decided (should player continue in the same direction or stop when no key is pressed), other can be tested in game (like what’s the best relative speed between player and enemies), other are more efficiently tackled on a shit of paper (because of the long time it would require to code, compile, arrive in your game to the specific point where you can see the actual in-game effect).
I do think that the best feedback happen from actually playing the game (even better by some-one else) but I like to get as close as possible to the best option before starting coding. Again, this is only me because I do not have that much experience. I guess the right decision come more easily to seasoned designer.

Thank you Panurge.
The age difference is a challenge and I may underestimate this. The little one would be frustrated if the game is too hard and the older one bored if it is too simple. My plan is to have an adaptive level of difficulty; tuning automatically number of enemies, health points etc… during level based on how the player performs (which I usually do not like because it does motivate to improve and surpass difficulties). I also need to work on death transitions to make them encouraging enough.
It is true that the idea of a cooperative play is appealing : 1-this could be interesting to see how the 2 of them organize 2-this is a solution when the two fight over my tablet (which is I think a universal issue around children). PS :  I like the ‘Space Monkeys Escape Doctor Doom’ title and the ‘shooting instructions’ description  Smiley
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MCHLVSSW
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« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2016, 10:31:32 AM »

Hello there,

As I have the sense of priority I have worked on a logo and a splash screen…


I put up the game mockup with the actual assets… 10’ job of creating empty objects attached to the correct sprite (the only sprite I draw is the nice fire trail down there…)


So back to design: #1 waves of enemies & levels then #2 bonuses & enemy’s types. But first things first: why will my boys (H & R) play this… I can think of 3 rewards:
- Proudness of having succeed to overcome the game difficulty.
So there need to be a fair amount of challenges, regular encouraging sounds/animations upon accomplishments and a view of their performance. And I am planning to use an unclassy trick which is to adapt the difficulty during the level based on how well the player performs.
- Curiosity of seeing what monsters are next.
So I need a bunch of IA (this does not worry me because they will be simple) and as many sprites. This is going to be an issues as I cannot spend ours recomposing Zombies.
- Fun.
For that I need satisfying sounds, funny monsters (ideally funny death animations), interactive projectiles effects, big explosions.

So back to #1waves of enemies & levels
There will be:
- Enemies spawning based on predefined timelines and player’s performance.
- Achievements / highlights every 60 seconds to congratulate my young players and give them an extra bonus. I do not want this to stop the game because I like to think they can stay concentrated more than that Tongue
- Then, something like a level break after 5 of those (so 5 min of play…).

I think of of #2 tomorrow...as tonight is walking dead (a bit of delay in France)
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MCHLVSSW
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« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2016, 11:08:40 AM »

So I thought to #2 bonuses & enemy’s types. The basics are:
- Some bonuses are better than other, but there is an upside and downside to all of them.
- Bonuses combine to multiply effects.
- Some bonuses work better on some enemies.
- There is a fair amount of randomness for bonuses appearance, effects

This gives me:
- 3 kinds of projectiles. 1-Navaja: fast throw rate, low damages, low range. 2-Kunai: long range. 3-Shuriken: slow, big damages, middle range
- 3 bonus. 1-Explosion: hit in a radius, 2-Pierce: go through enemy to hit in a row, 3-Multiple projectiles: one additional projectiles
- 4 effects. 1-Default metal, 2-Icy: lower damages, slowing enemy, 3-Fire: enduring fire damages, 4-electricy stop enemies for a blink, overcomes metal protection (some monsters are protected from some effects but more sensible to other).
- 3 miscellaneous bonus that do not combine. 1-Auto fire: throw with high frequency, 2-Big : Bigger Projectile, 3-Fragment: when hit throw other projectiles

Bonus & Malus spawns randomly upon every enemies’ death, giving the player some opportunities to increase firepower. Screen will be crowded with bonus/malus and make it difficult for player to exactly chose what he collects. Player does not chose his weapon and needs skills to adapt and take the most of what he has.

I have been coding a bit. I will update soon on where I stand.

M.
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