This is the mood board that is for my game. It consists of basic models from other games that will be used as references for my game. Each choice is simple to explain so I will explain each of them, where they are from, and why I used it. Starting off in the top left the robot scout from tf2 will be the base refrence I will use for the enemy robot. Scout in tf2 is known to be annoying and to have many bad ideas. So the robot version of him from MVM makes the most sense. Then we have robot 98 from undertale which actually goes unused. The robot you play as starts off similarly to it with no arms and very short and overall very weak. It's the base line start for the game. Then we have the scientists from half life. The scientists play a minor role in the game as they are just their for the setting and for the game to feel more lively. Then we have an arena found on the forums of MODDB, meant to be a reference where you fight the enemy robot. Then we have upgrades, the two on the bottom are stock images while the top are from tf2's MANN POWER mode. It's fairly obvious but these are meant to be upgrades for the robot you will be controlling. out of the idea i have- from left to right on the top- defense for the shield, a recovery upgrade for the recycle symbol, a self destruct ability., and a reflect damage ability. the two bottom ones will be the upgrade for armor and weapons. In the bottom left I decided to use a location from madness project nexus which is the stand in for the lab. and after that is the scene from the game Metal gear. The contraption that the character-solid snake- is on will be similar looking to the upgrade station that gives you personal modifications. But without being shocked for information. And lastly is the fortnite upgrade station which, very similarly to it's in game counter part, will allow you to upgrade items such as weapons you get or healing items.
These are the basic rough sketches of the game character that I would like make for my game. It's face design is based on my game and art design teacher. Character design: The backstory of the character is simple. The main enemy of the game is constantly giving scientists bad ideas and going through with it. So the lead scientist-Roberto- creates a Robot to only give good ideas to make the other bot malfunction. The game would mainly focus on the two bots so many wires had been given to the bot. Reflection and finalization: At first I wanted the bot to look more human and accurate to my teacher while still looking like a bot, But the more I thought it the more I realized how hard that would be. So I decided To make the bot more blocky and simplified while keeping some of the details needed to show that it's based on someone.
Storyline
In the year of 20 a group of scientist had just traveled back in time using a time machine that can send any room of the lab they worked in back in time using one of the ideas that the robot #Ah56m94e-t had created. "egad Doctor Roberto!" cries one of the scientists "You finally created a time machine!". The eldest of the scientist turns to the robot "thank you Met-ton, now to turn back to the present". However the robot looks at the scientist with an evil grin on its robotic faceplate "but doctor... I never decided how to turn it back,,, so my machine only goes to the past" The science team looks at Met-ton in awe and horror... "what...?" Doctor Roberto looks at Met-ton is horror "Why did we ever create you... I KNEW IT WAS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE". Met-ton was a robot created by doctor up Stalin Grad as a joke for all the scientists, however it does have a good idea every once in a while. But it was made to create bad ideas, however new scientist and sometimes veteran scientists forget that and listen to it. Now that Roberto and his group are stuck in the year 20 they need to rig something up fast. So the group of three doctors, Dr. Roberto, Doctor Grad, and Doctor Armes all work together and create the first wooden robot #M815r01-b. The robot that was made only to make good ideas. Now begins the fight between Met-ton and 01-b and their ideas of clashing against each other.
01-b is put into a jungle situation where his creators teach him how to move his wooden appendages and gets Viciously torn to shreds and his creators have to rebuild him. Luckily he was not completely destroyed but one of the scientists managed to create a temporary electrical system consisting of a frog jumping. The scientists begin to repair 01-b and even gave him a small speed upgrade in the form of longer legs.
A the fight goes on between 01-b and Met-ton continues they both continue to be damaged, with the fight ultimately being won by 01-b. Thus allowing the scientists to go back to the present. And with Stalin grad being told never to make a robot while drunk again.
reflection: This simple short story is the plot of my game, in which scientists are sent back in time because one of them listened to the bad idea of Met-ton. Now paying the consequences they build you, the player to try and destroy it.
Character list
Dr.Roberto: the lead scientist of a team that listeed to one of #Ah45m94e-t’s actually good ideas, what it didn’t tell him though was that it was only a one way machine. Now he and his team of scientists must listen to #Ah’s bad ideas till they make a robot that either gives them a way to go to the future or to destroy #Ah so they can have some peace and quiet (Based on Robert with permission to add him as the lead scientist) wants to get out of the past to warn others to not create the same creation as he did
Dr up stalin grad: a russian scientist that the players go to for upgrades (Doesn’t think #Ah should be listened to unless drunk) Wants to get out of the past so that he can share his crazy adventure with his son… if he ever sees him again
Dr Arme: A french scientist that gives the players weapons (A play on words of “arms”) Only is making weapons for the money for his family, and the wine
Dr Old stone: once a merchant now dedicated scientist, will sell player items based on performance (Performance based on how much damage inflicted in time- and how little damage the player took) A merchant from medieval times.
Robot #Ah56m94e-t (or met-aton for short): The robot the scientist created that eventually grew a mind of it’s own after Dr grad gave it some bad ideas while drunk on vodka. Eventually gives ideas that sound good on paper but once executed are very horrible (Based on ahmet-obviously- will try to sometimes grab player and treat everything like one big joke) Gives horrible ideas and makes everyone want to pull their hairs out.
Robot #M815r01-b (or just B depending on how many times the player is killed): The “robot” that the scientist rigged up out of conductive stones, wood, and vines. Just the start of one of many robots to come. (B’s name will change depending on how many times the player dies, depending on difficulty the player will have a certain amount of lives before they die, I.E would start on 01-b but then would max out at 10-B for the hardest mode.) A robot that-at first- was made of wood and started to become upgraded
GAMEPLAY MECHANICS
Gameplay Mechanics LIST & Explain
In the game there is only one boss fight. however it has a lot of health (health amount is currently unknown to me). When fighting the boss it will be expected that you won't beat it on your first attempt. However dealing damage to the boss will make it occasionally drop materials for you to use on upgrading at an upgrade bench in the hub area, or create a better weapon at a weapon bench in the hub area. dealing a certain amount of damage to the boss will also reward you with a certain amount of XP which is used to level up to acquire new skills and abilities in a skill tree like fashion.
There would be different styles of fighting, long range or melee. Melee weapons, which are as follows: blunt objects such as a pipe or bar, sharp objects such as swords or ax's, or unarmed weaponry such as "hands" and gauntlets. Blunt objects are the basic and starting weapons, dealing small amounts of damage (anywhere from 10-50) but can swing relatively quickly. Sharp objects are the heaviest hitters dealing the largest amount of damage (from 50-100) but at the cost of being much slower than any other weapon type (10-25% slower than blunt) and lastly unarmed being the lightest hitters dealing minimal damage (5-10) but also can stun the boss the most often and being the fastest weapon type (25-50% faster than blunt). You can find all weapon types in upgrade areas, but you start off with "basic" starting weapons of each category so that you can test each one to find which one best suits your play style. in order to gain more weapons however you must create them from materials, which you can gather from fighting the boss.
Upgrades would work in a similar fashion to weapons. In order to upgrade you would need certain materials dropped by the boss and to be a certain level to equip them. The upgrades would be as follows:" body plate upgrades would decrease the damage you take ranging from 10-50%. Computer chips which would decrease the chance of the player being stunned which would range from 1-5%. And batteries which would increase the players stamina depending on how many times they get it, with each subsequent acquirement of the battery upgrade costing more and more. Stamina is explained below.
A stamina system would be in place where the meter would be displayed on the robots back as a battery. The "battery" would start out with 100 watts (or stamina points) and could be increased by 10 points per upgrade "purchased". Stamina is required to be able to run which costs 1 watt per second, and dodging which costs 10 watts per dodge. however if the player gets hit then they lose 30 watts per attack landed, and getting hit by an electric attack will always drain half of their current power (I.E if the player currently has 55 watts then gets hit by an electric attack they would then have 27.5 watts which would be rounded down to 27 watts left). The reason why the attack wouldn't take 30 watts of then drain half because of electric "attacks" is because the electricity would take priority over the regular attack. dodging is explained bellow.
there would be both a dodging and rolling mechanic where the player morphs into a ball or use jets at the bottom of the players feet to avoid attacks.
There would also be "special" attacks that the player can use and they would be split into two categories. specials used by the player and specials used by the weapons. The player unlocks specials as they level up from fights, player specific level ups come in the form of healing 10% of your current health, stunning the boss for 3 seconds, inflicting a status on the boss such as paralyzed, burning, frozen, and short circuiting (which would be the in game equivalent as poisoned. Weapon specific specials would be locked to the certain weapon types. For example, blunt objects would have a hard hitting attack that causes knock back, sharp objects would deal the average amount of damage for a sharp object with the added bonus of always short circuiting the boss, and unarmed/gauntlet weapons would have a multi strike attack that locks the boss in place hitting them 5-10 times. Statues are explained below.
The status in the game would differ depending on if the boss inflicts a status, or if the player inflicts a status. Only the boss can inflict a "shut down" which locks the player in place and drains their stamina completely. And only the player (with a specific item that is talked about below) can inflict "slow" in which the boss moves and attacks slower for 5 seconds. Other than that both the player and the boss can inflict the following statuses: Paralyzed would prevent the characters from moving but still allow them to attack; burning would cause who ever is inflicted with it to set on fire dealing damage over time, however the character can also deal "contact" damage to the other by running into them. Frozen causes either character to be frozen in place encased in a block of ice. In this state their damage that they can take is increase by an extra 5%. and short circuiting would simply cause either character to lose health over time until 5 seconds have passed.
And lastly items that the player can purchase with materials that they earn. a list of items that are included are as follows but more items are planned to be added:
a stun gun which will always cause paralyses,
a helmet which is a one time use in battle decreasing damage taken by 5%.
A bat which allows you to drain health from the boss,
an apple which allows you to gain extra health,
a squid which slows down the opponent,
a cat which increases your attacking speed and movement speed
a guitar which you can throw for 30 damage.
There also will be a hidden boss, which while not hard to unlock, will be much more difficult then the regular boss you fight,
Scope
The game would be relatively small in size of areas you can explore and do. However the weaponry and combinations of offensive and defensive capabilities will allow players to play either aggressively and drain as much health from the boss as quickly as possible, or passively and use counters and stuns against the boss to chip away at health. The gameplay wouldn't push the players into thinking one specific weapon, item, or ability is required to finish it which allow and almost infinite number of gameplay styles from defensive quick draining melees to heavy hitting but punishing range gameplay. The game would also have skills that players can combine into their fighting styles, such as a life draining system or moves that put statues on the boss. The game could take an average layer around 5-10 hours to complete, with saving as a feature.
Flowchart +lay out of game
Planned schedule
This is a Schedule that I will try to follow, the amount of days I wish to spend in each category. Both an image and a link are provided.
I plan on creating a small amount of assets of my own. Using them to show the player were they can acquire items before a battle or traps that the player can interact with during a battle. The Assets are also a personal challenge for me, as I want to avoid grabbing assets from free asset stores as much as possible. Of course this won't be 100% possible and at some point I will need to go to an asset store to receive some. But for a personal challenge it will be fun. Below I have included an image showing one of the assets that will be in the game, that being a stand.
Story board
White boxing video
For this section I will be talking about the process of white boxing out my level. Firstly: how I converted my level plant to a white box environment. I took a sketch that I had made for both the "hub" area and the "arena" area and used that while using the cube grid tool in UE5. I tried to determine the scale for the environment and object by observing from a distance, sadly this meant I accidently over estimated how large certain objects were and made the areas too large. Even certain aspects like a simple pole was extremely large compared to how I wanted them to be. The most difficult part of white boxing the level out was actually seeing the level form in front of me and trying to make good level decisions so that it wouldn't feel so empty while at the same time trying to remember that I don't have to go too over board on details. As for skills I have noticed that white boxing kind of can be seen as related to using blue prints in UE5. Both skills require you to try and simplify how you want certain aspects of your game to look. The only difference is that white boxing is how you want your level to look while blueprints are needed to be simple to not need to use too much code.
Grey boxing
For this Section I will be talking about Greyboxing, which is an extent from the whiteboxing I did. for greyboxing you simply add more detail than what you added from your white boxed map. For all the changes visually there is a "walk through" on the below the text. For starters all the models currently used were designed by me, built by me. The stands, floor traps, wall traps, and while slightly untouched, the upgrade bench in the middle were all changed. I selected to use these specific models as 1: I thought it would give players an easier time to see what they could interact with and 2: because the way they were originally were too baron and simplistic in white boxing, so I changed them to give them more unique looks. Since grey boxing needed more details the wall obstacles and the wall of the rooms themselves, as well as the floor all had materials from the basic UE5 material section used. but seeing as how they were mostly metal, plus the unique hexagon designs for the room floor and room walls. I wanted the stands and bench in the man room to be a solid grey for a more smoother metal, where as the wire traps, wall traps, and health items are meant to bring out the color of the room.