by Annie | Dec 2, 2010 | Game Design
No one gets a game right the first time. Why? Because what you envision to be fun is often quite dull. The difference between good and great designers is the willingness to let go of the original vision and iterate again and again for the good of the game. For the past three weeks, I’ve been working on a top-down shooter using UDK. Though the main premise of the game – the fact that it’s top-down and that you shoot things – remains intact, pretty much every other factor has been changed and rechanged. Here are some of the various changes the game has gone through: Version 1 In this version, you control a colored circle and must shoot circles of other colors. You can collide with other circles of your own color. Some circles are one solid color, and others have a different colored core. If you collide with circle whose outer ring matches your color, you change into their core color. For example, if you’re green, and you collide with a circle that’s green on the outside and yellow on the inside, you become yellow. Version 2 In the previous version, the game goal was unclear, so in this version, the addition of navigation toward a certain location adds elements of strategy. Along your path, there will be obstacles of certain colors. Thus, you must ensure that your circle is a certain color at certain times. For example, you would have to become blue to go through a blue tunnel. Version 3 Instead of navigational obstacles, make the colored circles themselves the obstacles. The game is now...
