Arcade game concept.

[LaDestitute]

Small side project of mine, for the time being.

Core Details
*The game's main focus is simplicity balanced with thinking outside the box.
*Level scheme is inspired by classic arcade games like Pacman and Duruga, and the graphical style is 16-bit/retro
*Controls are: Enter = pause, Up/Down/Left/Right = movement, B = Use capsule ability, and Space = Swing tail to attack
*Four diffirent colored capsules to bestow skills used for dealing with enemies and solving block themed puzzles
*The goal is to find the key in the level and use it to open the exit door to the next level. Sometimes keys are in plain sight in levels or the player must defeat enemies and/or solve puzzles to make the key appear.
*Although a name has been undecided, the storyline details are in place. The main character is a lizard named Pozzo, and he is a lab-rat attempting to escape from an animal testing labratory.

Capsules
Red Capsule: Sets the player on fire. Can quickly defeat enemies but also cause a chain reaction with other enemies. Destroys normal blocks but allows metal blocks to be temporaily cooled down as long as the red capsule is active or until the metal block cools down.
Blue Capsule: Causes enemies and liquid tiles to freeze on contact with the player. Frozen enemies can be used as projectiles and for iceblock based puzzles.
Yellow Capsule: Electrifys the player with a large amount of voltage. Stuns enemies on contact, and is used for electricity based puzzles.
Grey Capsule: Turns the player into a living being made out of steel. Can knockback enemies, and prevents Pozzo from sliding on ice tiles.

Blocks
Normal Block: Your normal block. Beige colored, and most attacks can destroy them. They can also be pushed around or destroyed for goodies.
Ice Block: A block made out of solid ice. Can be pushed around or destroyed with the red capsule.
Metal Block: A block out of metal. Normally indestructible and immovable, they can be temporaily moved with red capsules.
Generator Block: Block used in electricity puzzles. Activated by contact under the affect of the yellow capsule.
Prize Block: Rare, and colorful red, blue, green, and yellow blocks. Contains goodies, often good ones.

Notes
*I'm trying to go for a difficulty curve where it be easy to pick up but hard to put down/easy to learn, difficult to master. What I meant was going with a difficulty curve climb that's confortable enough for most players and have simple and easy to follow tutorial levels in the beginning.

 

[LaDestitute]

No input on my idea, hmm?

 

[Xilef]

Could at least draw up a mock-up image to show what it is you're describing, pictures speak 1000 words.

 

[LaDestitute]

Here ya go, a mockup as you suggested. Just a mockup, so while the vast majority of details are in, I have yet to work on graphics and all that jazz.

 

[Xilef]

So it's a rock/paper/scizzors vs. blocks game, with the goal of getting a key to open a door and get to an exit?

I know you said arcade, but this seems far, far too simple of a concept. Then again, on my game programming course the other students have only just braved making donkey-kong styled platform games where all the objects are represented by different coloured squares...

Perhaps think outside the box some more?

 

[LaDestitute]

Well, it's only arcade in the perspective/graphical style and this matches more of a platformer feel. I'm trying to think out of the box, but the majority of the later levels are much harder and not so much straight-forward as "find the key, grab it, exit" as most of these said levels will require the player to think as well probably use the in-game reset function to restart and learn later levels by trial and error.