Low Level Design and Flow for a Roguelike Typestroid Game
Iteration 1 -
Duration
60 minutes for the total game.
Each planet represents 5 of those minutes.
Progression
Players begin at Planet 1.
The initial phases are easy and they are slowly introduced to new mechanics every 45 seconds or so.
After a player lasts for the first 5 minutes they unlock the next planet.
Therefore if a player manages to last for 23 minutes in their first play through they would have unlocked the first 4 planets.
Each planet acts as a save point for players to restart from if they so choose to.
Games are always slightly harder if the player chooses to play the latest planet unlocked, therefore encouraging them to play from the second last planet unlocked. This would increase time spent playing as well.
Lore
To explain this kind of level progression I was thinking of the following lore -
Lore 1 -
Players must try and reclaim the eleven planets in their solar system that have been colonized by demi god aliens that control the courses of asteroids in space.
After reclaiming a planet (by lasting for 5 minutes in battel on that planet) players can use a reclaimed planet as training grounds.
Losing a battle on any planet causes some percentage of resources gained from previous planets to be lost and causes the next battle to be fought on this planet to be harder. In order to be able to win on this planet that the player lost on they would have the choice to either get better in skill or go back to a reclaimed planet and train.
Training planets become slightly more difficult the more times a player plays but this difficulty is reset after a day so players can use these planets to farm resources for higher planets.
Lore 2 -
Players are the few remaining survivors of a solar system struck by a massive solar storm that has created multiple asteroid belts that are putting their planets into jeaopardy.
Players cannot choose to start the game at any 5 minute mark they want to like they could in the last game. In other words this version would have a final death mechanic with no save system. To compensate maybe every planet could be recaptured within 2.5 minutes to make it a more doable goal.
Lore wise each time a player respawns they are a new character that is trying to achieve what their previous commrades failed to do.
Whenever a player dies and they reach that stage of the game once again they will be able to see the debris of the ship floating around and they would need to shoot it at the right time to get access to the resources they lost (Maybe similar to the "Shooting Star" powerup mechanic).