Update

Here's an updated look at Mall Cop Rampage as we prepare for our first play test this Thursday.

First Playable

Here are some shots of Mall Cop Rampage's first playable.

Research

Similar Games / Ideas

Metal Slug

Metal Slug is fun because:

• Various weapon upgrades that make you much more powerful
• Can jump into vehicles such as a tank that add different gameplay
• Hyper reality. Everything is grounded in reality then blown out of proportion.

Left For Dead 2

The Left For Dead is about survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to escape to safety. In LFD2 the players venture through a mall level and end up stealing a car and using it to drive away which ends the level. This level works because it stays away from real life, there are no other humans, except for the players, there are no children involved. 

Left For Dead was highly rated by critics because it had a lot of unique zombies that made the game more challenging that the typical zombie game. For example, one zombie spits acid, another explodes like a bomb, and another can pick you up and throw you.

Unity

I've worked on implementing a Unity tutorial that is a 3d platformer. It implements some of the basic movement function we will use in a side scrolling shooter based on a humanoid character. I've also messed around with launching balls from a character that could operate like bullets form a gun. So far everything that would be needed to make the Mall Cop game seems completely do-able form a programming standpoint.

General Conclusions

People like feeling powerful when they play video games. As such weapon upgrades should scale exponentially in power. As weapons get better they need to sound much more powerful as well. Sound is a huge selling point when it comes to weapon power. Since this game takes place in a dream we can go crazy with the weapon upgrades.

With regards to level progression, the beginning of the level should be a fairly easy introduction and as the player moves through new enemies, which are harder to kill, should be introduced. In addition to the new and harder enemies more enemies should spawn overall. By the end the player should be doing all they can to stay alive and make it through. This creates satisfaction at having completed the level. Bosses should function similarly. As they lose health they should gain abilities and get more difficult.

Metal Headz

Our next game idea is a side scrolling shooter called Metal Headz. You play as the band Dead Zeppelin working to achieve super stardom and save the world from the clutches of the evil Mustin Fieber. Here's some concept art created by our groups artists:

Mall Cop Rampage

Revised Game Idea

Our discussion in class Tuesday led to a much different game than the one I had in mind before. We decided to make the main character a penguin with a jet pack. The main goal of the game is to get the penguin to his vacation in Hawaii, because its just too cold in the Arctic for him. Along with the jet pack he uses man made weapons such as missiles, grenades, or machine guns. In designing this game we decided to go crazy and come up with a fun, new idea that we don't think has been done before. Below is the one page design sheet of what we have so far.

Vertical Scrolling Shooter Idea

 My idea is a combination of the two games shown in the videos above. It would feature a top down PoV, with the player controlling a main character that switches between various vehicles and on foot. The vehicle gameplay would work like Ikaruga, while the foot gameplay would work like Metal Slug, except from top down PoV.

Redesigning the Trash Can

My group has been given the monumental task of redesigning a very common household item: the trash can. Our initial survey of the trash can brought up several key flaws with the current trash can standard:

• Not enough space for trash
• Hard to lift trash in the the trash can
• Hard to open trash can, while holding lots of trash
• Hard to move trash can from house to street for pickup
• Trash can blows over in heavy wind, causing a big mess

We have also received feedback from the class that would suggest not only do people want those problems solved, but that they want the trash can to essentially gather their trash for them and require no interaction from a human user at all. Looks like we need to get into contact with the people of the film Wall-E and ask them how they went about solving that problem.