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 45 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).

During the course of the game whenever players feel like a difficult phase may start they can deploy powerups crafted into the environment if they suspect they might die at some point in the planet. This would help them have access to extra resources on the next play through because they pre-emptively dropped a few resources into space which could be used in addition to the powerups they already have equipped next time.

Use of Resources -

Powerups

Unlike in the hypercasual iteration for this game, powerups should be craftable during gameplay.

Method to craft powerups -

Players gain MAGMA, ICE and GRAVEL similar to before and can click on the empty powerup icon on the right of the screen and a crafting menu should pop up.

While using the crafting menu obstacle speed could slow down to maybe 10% of their speed but not pause completely so as to keep some tension.

In the crafting menu players can create whichever powerup they want if they have the blueprint for it and the necessary materials.

New Mechanic - Blueprints

Blueprints are non harmful obstacles that float through space that the player must try and shoot.

These give them access to new powerups.

After creating the powerup they can choose to either keep it equipped and use it by tapping its icon or click on the deploy icon slightly towards the left of it to release it into space so they have access to it at that point during another play through.

Max Lives Available

Players could start with 3 available lives and through the course of the game the max number of lives available could be 7 through purchasing using in game resources.

Ship types

Different ships could have different attributes that each player could play and experiment with to see which suits their play style the best -

Examples of ship types -

1. "SOL-387" - Grants 10 seconds of immunity when a life is lost.
2. "GRW-100" - Grants players an extra life.
3. "STL-901" - 10% chance for bullets to pierce through obstacles and destroy others behind it as well.
4. "MGN-623" - When players reach only one life, a shock wave is emmited and all obstacles on screen are pushed back.

Max powerups equipable

Players could start with space for just one but the max could be something like 6. Players could start with only 1 powerup slot but using in game cuurency they can unlock more.