Management Plan

Plan

Problem Statement:

To create a new style of team and class-based multiplayer game that inspires player interest with a simple and appealing aesthetic, unique mechanics and addictive core gameplay. The game must be easy and fun to play, with simple menu and HUD navigation. Core elements should hold intrinsic, entertaining value.

Solution:

A capture the flag style game that draws appeal from the cute design of the player characters, all of whom are imagined creatures with unique abilities and talents. To mix up the stale team-based formula, players must 'grow' their character to become stronger and have a choice as to what they will grow into. The game will be rendered in a bright, stylised shader and a bright, cohesive colour palette.

Risks:

Team has little experience in creating a multiplayer game, must learn how to set up multiplayer programming, menus etc.

Fix: Experiment with multiplayer demos.

Team is not familiar with UDK, will take time to get used to and may result in unforeseen problems

Fix: Team members must get into UDK asap and attempt to familiarise themselves.

Does grow mechanic add anything to the genre? If it doesn't make play more fun, it isn't worth creating.

Fix: Set up simple grow test. Have prototype finished by uni semester start. Proposition of idea to industry members, lecturers and audience.

Will player's enjoy playing as animals? Will it be entertaining or will it distance players from characters?

Fix: Product testing with key audience. Proposition of ideas and concept art to audience.

May take too long to set up and properly balance characters. May not interact properly.

Fix: Attempt to set up 1-2 characters within first two weeks to understand and predict the amount of time needed, as well as potential future problems.

Attacking and moving must be interesting and fun.

Fix: Set up simple movement and attacking demos to see if designing intrinsically fun mechanics is plausible. Have prototype set up before uni semester start.

Players may not behave how we intend them to. There is a lot of room to abuse gameplay in a multiplayer game.

Fix: Goals and rewards must be perfected in order to ensure player's behave as we want them to. Lots of audience testing.

Design Overview

In Grow, players will:

• Grow

• Run

• Attack

• Die

• Respawn

• Capture eggs

• Swim

• Climb

• Shoot

• Use abilities

It is our aim to create the functionality for each of these actions in the order that they appear and to then perfect and balance them, also in this order.

Important factors

The focus points when designing this game are:

Fun

Fun is what this game is based around. The best games, in my opinion, are the games that are simply fun to play. If this game is going to work, it needs to be fun for players, even to just move around. An example of this done well is Super Smash Bros., which is enjoyable to play over and over because of its intrinsically fun mechanics and varied player characters.

Prettiness

The game has gotta look good. I don't mean amazing, realistic water or exploding volcanoes. I think the best idea is a cute, exciting, colourful matte-palette. Once again, smash bros. does that well. Pokemon games are where I'm getting my character colour ideas from. The new Pokedex on the 3DS really shows you how good a simple, flat colour model can look. Lots of work will be done on perfecting art style, but I think a good start is less texture and more painting.

Balance

The drawing point of the game is its unique fighting style, differentiating it from games like Unreal or Team Fortress. It's not another clone, which is really good, but it means a lot of thought has to go into how the game will work so that it can never be one sided. Most of this comes down to play testing of course, and once the base mechanics are set up that would be the main job for the programmer and designer. Lots of early design work will be necessary too.