Kongregators, help me design an awesome game!

Edited on 12/25/09 7:30 EST:

I’ve erased the original post, long story short: We made a game in about a week and a half to squeeze into the Stride contest. We finished on time, but it’s missing a lot of fun because we had to squeeze into that deadline. This thread is devoted to anyone in the Kong community who has a desire to design or give feedback on Flash games. I would like to harness the ideas and opinions of my fellow Kongregators and make something awesome with them. Anyone who contributes an idea that we end up using would of course be credited for their influence on the game, and would be included in any testing along the way to release.

Here’s the short and brutal concept that we constructed in about a week and a half of work.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/fairypoet/bear-rampage-island

So far, we’ve gotten some great ideas here, so I’m going to start constructing a public design document outline that I’ll update if anything new and cool comes along.

Title: Rampage Island (Working title, possible issue with the ‘Rampage’ franchise of arcade/console games. Possible alternative: “Monster Rampage Island” shortens to MRI, not a bad acronym. Any suggestions are welcome.)

Theme Possibilities:

1) From our team: You are a voodoo (not really “voodoo”, but for the sake of the argument, we’ll call it voodoo. sorry to any voodoo purists) witchdoctor who is creating magical monsters out of various animals that you have trapped and keep in your carribean temple. The witchdoctor (imagine a small character with a big painted wooden mask and a voodoo doll in his hand that is not a human, its fat and has a monster face drawn on) may ride on the back of the monsters he creates as they terrorize through the islands, or the monsters may go on their own, presumably remote-controlled by the voodoo dolls. Either would be fine, though riding on the back would be more animation work and could lend a human character to the game.

2) Submitted by Asam3: We could stick with mutants, either human or animal form. The main appeal here would be some form of “adding parts” perhaps through a system of art that allows for legs and arms to fit together on any body. For instance we could draw several leg types, several arm types, several body types, several head types. These could all be placed together and we could use coloring to make them blend better. The hard part of this is actually making that art work where the animations will look okay, but it is far from impossible. This mix-and-match system could be applied to other themes as well, but once again, the art overhead for making it work would be enormous and we’d need to be certain that it was worth the effort to attempt it.

3) Submitted by poogie101: Players could take the role of Satan himself, or some other demonic force perhaps not named “Satan” but clearly a demon in hell seeking to bring havoc to Earth. In your plot to destroy society and turn man into it’s most primal and vicious form, you unleash demonic beings into the cities and terrorize the population. The campaign map could be something like a map of the world, or maybe just a small part of the world for the first game and could be expanded to the whole world later. The point, however, would be to go from city to city, bringing chaos and destruction to each. Once every major city has fallen to your chaos (and some sort of giant face-off with the military’s attempt to vanquish your demons), you win the game.

4) Submitted by Gaka: Possibly retaining the humorous route, and by far this would involve the most re-use of art, which from a developer standpoint is ideal. We could retain the bear character and come up with some sort of story about how you were this cute humble bear in the woods… think something looking like Winnie the Pooh, just hangin out and enjoying your honey. One day an old man comes along and bonks you on the head with his rake, and steals your honey. Immediately you start to transform in a rage into this gnarled huge beast and you just bite him in half with blood everywhere. This would be the opening cutscene,the rest of the game could follow some similar concept. At the end of each level, once you have completely destroyed and burned a village to the ground, you are greeted by a pot of honey. Get all your honey back, and win the game. Final scene could be you as a happy little bear again eating honey while behind you there’s chaos and mayhem, burning buildings, dead children, women, and military vehicles destroyed all over the place. Could be very funny :)

That’s it for themes at the moment. I’ll start talking about game play designs later — and I’ll add more themes along the way. Looking for feedback on any or all of them. If I credited you to a theme, but then completely took the words out of your mouth and construed it into something totally different, well… that’s collaboration! But if you don’t like what I said, or see your vision differently, I will remove anyone’s name at their request. We should probably talk about it first though and come up with an even better idea! :D

Thanks again, everyone!

make a flash version of the game Rampage! where mutant humans rampage in the city or make it animals that changes forms, maybe there are hidden powerups that changes their form from maybe mutant dog, giant mutant dog, mutant dog with horns and extra arms, then mutant dog with wings and two heads. only one powerup in chosen levels and you need to look for it. maybe something like that. then at the ending they fight a mutant professor that also changes form. but only thrice. so it’ll be like some old arcade game thing. still make the game a side scroller.

I say just go with your idea about adding tons of more things ‘cause the controls are good and the gameplay is really fun. There’s already a base so just add on to it and the end result would be really good.

Thanks for the feedback from both of you. Glad that the core seems good riffsan, that’s encouraging. Hopefully we can really build it into something better.

I think the main thing missing from this version is persistence. Things to acquire that you keep from gameplay to gameplay. In most games those take the form of upgrades or unlockable content of some sort. So, I think that would be the main focus of the real gem. Persistence, and keep a good fun theme.

I would really like to hear any ideas of specific systems though if anyone has any cool ideas and enjoys designing games, nows the chance to try and get an idea realized :)

Maybe you could be like satan and you spawn demons in a city and each level the city gets larger and you can spawn other creatures: blood hounds, Banshees, demon bats.
Later around level five you start seeing cops and eventually the army, If you get MAYHAM a grim reaper kills all humans.

I say you definitely pursue the concept. I can see a great game coming from it.
One idea (note: I didn’t fully play the game, so I might restate some features already in the game):
Use the same art definitely. If you get a certain kill streak, enter rampage mode(invincibility/speed/etc.) no idea if this is already in the game. Upgrade system would be good. Some moar obstacles too(paratroopers, planes, etc.)

But please, make another version!

I’ll play it and give you my opinion momentarily!

More varied levels would definitely be nice. An upgrade system might be a good way to add play value. I’m not sure what upgrades would actually make sense in this context.

This is far more entertaining then it should be XD good job

Upgrade system would be very nice, and possibly a short campaign, that is all about how villagers stole your honey or something. use your imagination.

Could use more warning before some of the shooting folks you get on screen and the shot’s already in the air.

Could use more enemies and different little areas, for example an icy slide that you cant control, or a rockfall in a cave, maybe.

Still playing, nicely done :D

Great feedback guys, taking it all into account. I particularly think a campaign would be very beneficial. I think in the revised version, while I love the strangeness of all the villagers we would help differentiate “dangerous” humans from pure victims. I think all dangerous humans would be clearly military people. Probably wearing green with helmets, tanks, helicopters. They would be obvious danger. Meanwhile, regular victims would just be civilians in plain clothes. I think the Old Man is too deceptive in that he looks like a great victim and then unloads a blast of bear-killing rocketry on your ass. Which is fine for this small game, but in a larger game I would try to avoid that sort of trickery because it’s kind of cheap and makes the deaths feel unfair.

Yes, a more obvious and instant identification would be great.

Playing it more, i think it could benefit from smaller characters and enemies, with more on the screen at once. It just seems too large to me.

Great idea.

It would need multiple levels, different characters to play, more achievements, upgrades & unlockables.
The game itself right now is already good it just needs more content to keep the player interested.

Maybe multiple modes even? Story mode and like a challenge mode where you complete various tasks under specific settings.

@Gaka: I agree. I think if we scaled down the art it might even look better as well. The art style is good and unique, but since it’s vector based, it has a lot of solid color fills and not much detailing. Making them smaller may make them look a bit better as you do not need many details at a small scale. Good call.

@coolboyrulez: Couldn’t agree more, glad you like it!

i think if the levels had an ending it would feel a lot better. like right now it’s fun, but eventually you have to die, so that always feels pretty lame. if it was possible to run through a level and complete it, you could actually feel good about surviving the full level, and go back to play it again to try and get a better score (kill any of the villagers you missed the first time).

other than that, it’s a good game! I hope you make a real game out of it with more art and bloody violence :D

keep it up!

Possibly add power-ups, a “level-up” screen – make your beast even MORE fierce, be able to customize the beast/character?

Kinda good. Missing some stuff to add. 3/5

Originally posted by SAL37:

Kinda good. Missing some stuff to add. 3/5

That’s exactly what he asked, what kind of stuff he could add to make it more enjoyable.

The title screen looks great. I like having the list of achievements readily available, and the graphics are really good too. One thing I think would help (if possible for you to do) is to to move the hint notifications to the top rather than at the bottom. Helps the player keep an eye on what the bear is doing much better. The gameplay however is too simple for my taste! :P Some things I think that would be a major improvement would be to make it get faster as you play, and have the background do something to try and throw off your attention. The main idea of this game is to pay attention to what is up ahead, try and throw us off a little. :D

Also, not sure if you put this in later into the game, but powerups? Maybe the ability to fly, invincibility, laser beams shooting from eyes. Just an idea. Now about the music.. If there was a vicious bear going around killing villagers, I’d expect something less peaceful. :O Maybe have the music change the more you start killing? Then have it go back down to normal when you get hit? Levels would be nice too! :)

Hope this helps, and great game so far! :D

The bear should leave a much more impressive trail of destruction. I was expecting the ground to be torn up behind me, the trees to fall as I passed, bodies flung high into the air etc. Leaving the blood and corpses on the screen instead of having them just fade out would be better as well. I also like Zshadow’s idea of the bear having crazier and crazier upgrades as you progress like lazers from the eyes and flying. The name and the title screen made me expect a really over the top game, but it’s actually quite mild. One last thing:

Originally posted by Damijin:

burning buildings, dead children, women, and military vehicles destroyed all over the place. Could be very funny :)

I don’t see the funny side of dead women and children.

I don’t see the funny side of dead women and children.

I do.
What’s your point?

I think your point about it being not over the top enough is valid Aldrin.

I think ideally you would have more environmental destruction. There is some limitation to how much you can have animating on screen at once before significant slowdown occurs, but I do think you’re right. Environmental destruction would be ideal (obviously wasnt enough time to put that into the small game).

Re: Dead babbies and womens, if killing everything else in video games is fine, then the virtual babies and mommies can be diced up too! Great way to portray evil, and equal opportunity American violence. Very politically correct, if I do say so myself.

In a related matter, many of you probably did not think this way, but in my mind the villagers of Bear Rampage Island are the same thing as coins in games like Sonic of Mario. You try to hit them, and if you collide, they disappear and you get points. It’s exactly the same as a coin, except mine move around and have a people graphic instead of a coin graphic. But from a gameplay and programming perspective — they’re basically coins. Pretty neat how just changing a graphic around changes the entire theme of the game, eh? Welcome to game design! :)

if it were mixing body parts, then it’ll be easy. look at thing thing arena, they made a good work in the mix n’ match style thing…

Originally posted by AioriaRox:

I don’t see the funny side of dead women and children.

I do.

What’s your point?

^ this

On another note.. the summation of what i’ve said sounds a lot funnier then it does when i say it. heheh

If you want coins… upgrade system (dunno, claw range, jump height, ect) could be paid for by the people you kill… awesome.




I can also totally see a level with the bear in a super-hero like flying pose… and a red cape flapping behind it… with red lasers firing kind of like a side-scrolling RAIDEN…. out of it’s eyes… …oh wow XD

Originally posted by asam3:

if it were mixing body parts, then it’ll be easy. look at thing thing arena, they made a good work in the mix n’ match style thing…

Totally correct, asam. However, thingthing accomplishes this by removing limbs. Limbs (arms and legs) are the toughest part of animating a body. By removing them and creating invisible Rayman-style bodies, you can attach any hands, head, body, and feet together with no issues.

However, if you want to have a monster that has limbs that conntect, you need to think about how those limbs animate (the style of running) and also the edges that touch each other. How to make it look like the arms and legs are connected to the body and not pasted on top of it. It would look strange to have a green scale-y arm connecting into a furry body, but with a bit of work it could be made to blend better. Still, it’s tough from an art perspective.

Can we use this as the sunset screen music?