Design Synopsis

1

• Design Synopsis
• The idea of my game is a side scrolling
  adventure game. I didnt want to create too much
  of an action adventure game as they never work on
  hand held consoles, people who have hand held
  consoles are usually on the go so I think its
  best if the game has a simple theme. I am going
  to do it in a very personalised art style which
  gives the player a more of a light hearted
  feeling when they play the game, so hopefully
  full of nice colours.
• The DS version game will be more challenging
  to build as I will be trying to think of
  something that the stylus for the second screen
  can be used for.
• As for the PC version I would like to keep it
  a little more like a normal platformer.

2

• Competitive analysis
• Yoshi touch
  and go.
• The duel screen for this game is a really nice
  design for this game. What you do is draw a
  course out of clouds for mini Mario to follow
  while floating down in the air on balloons.

These pictures are screen shots of the duel
screen in action. The bottom screen is used to
draw your course with the stylus which lets Mario
down safely. The bottom screen also adds up as a
normal Yoshi game once it hits the bottom of the
course. Its a really interesting way to design a
level.
The New Mario Bros DS
Super Mario Bros for the DS uses the touch screen
like a navigation bar. It shows how far you are
through the level, how many stars you have
collected for the level, and gives you an item
slot so if you pick up a mushroom or a power up
you can save it for later when you loose your
powers. On the main map screen you can touch the
bottom screen to fly you to different worlds. A
nice little throw in.
3

• Styles Looked at.

I looked at several games and art styles I
enjoyed like the ones Above to find a style for
my characters.
4

• Invader Zim
• I love the style of Invader Zim. In fact
  everything about it is funny. The story of
  Invader Zim is really simple and the characters
  are unique. You have the main character Zim who
  is an alien sent to destroy Earth ( or so he
  believes) with his trusty robot side kick who was
  made out of trash parts and a pair of keys. Zims
  task should be an easy one for a person who
  struck destruction through his own land, however
  his nemesis Mandrake always manages to stop him
  one way or another but never gets recognition for
  being Earths saviour.

5

• Goals
• My main aim of this project is to create a
  playable prototype of a flash animated Nintendo
  DS game. I would like the game prototype to show
  the basics of the game play like how you run /
  walk, what type of platform game it would be and
  how the player will use the stylus on the DS to
  create a route around the level.
• Side Goals
• To create a interesting / funny opening story
  line that everyone will like the sound of.
• I am still new to flash so one of my goals is to
  understand how flash action script works in
  games.
• Game Goals
• To create my game I shall be looking at how you
  can use flash to drag things around as if you
  were using a stylus on a DS. I believe the best
  and most effective way to do this would be to use
  the Drag and Drop method.

6

• Game Goals Continued
• The drag and drop method will be used to put
  certain items around the level that the player
  can use to complete the certain tasks in which
  they have to do to get to the next stage.
• I would like to find some nice playful music for
  the background music. I was thinking the Zelda
  the Wind Wakers starting off tune as its playful
  and random.
• I would like to put enemies on the demo. Enemies
  like Mario would have in their games.

7

• Story.
• Super Dave is a super hero, but he hasnt
  always been. He wasnt born with advanced super
  human abilities. Before he became a crime
  fighter, he was a young scientist with brilliant
  inventions inspired by his idol Dr Kiwisaki. He
  was loved by many for the good he gave to the
  community. However, he also had enemies. Manderk
  was his greatest of all rivals. He was also a
  scientist but was always in the shadow of Dave.
  This angered the second rate scientist so much
  that he finally came up with a plan to bring down
  Dave.
• One fateful night Manderk kidnapped Dave
  and preformed an experiment that took our poor
  heroes knowledge away from him. He took the parts
  of Daves brain that held all of his knowledge on
  everything he even knew. With machines Manderk
  added Daves brain to his own which made him
  twice as smart as any human alive to this date,
  although as a side effect this sent Manderk
  insane. Not long after this Manderk threw Dave
  out into the trash where he would be left to die.

8

• Ahh your awake Says a strange voice.
• Dave sits up clutching the side of your face
• Glad to see you are still alive, I was very
  unsure if the procedures in your facial
  reconstruction had worked. Any way, how do you
  feel? Can you open your eyes?
• Opens eyes. As he opens his eyes he sees his
  idol standing in front of him, Dr Kiwisaki.
• Good, you can see. I wish I could celebrate
  the fact that you are alive and well, but we have
  problems. The evil Manderk has been attacking our
  city and no one is powerful enough to take him
  out, apart from you. Whilst performing the
  surgery on you I noticed some things about your
  wave patterns which were different to normal
  people Dave, you, have telekinetic powers! Dr K
  explains. As he explained he also noticed that
  Dave had now become somewhat slow, and couldnt
  keep his attention for more than 10 seconds, this
  could become a problem
• Can you control our hero and help him take out
  his rival before it is too late?

9

• Project Concept.
• My game idea is a 2D platformer. The player shall
  face challenges like getting to the end of the
  level performing certain tasks along the way
  which shall unlock you the next level which will
  move you along the story the game has.
• Victory condition is simple. Defeat the bad guys
  on each level whilst finding routes to get the
  hero to the next level. At the end of each level
  the player will have to defeat a mini boss.
• The players role is the hero. He would be your
  average super hero if he could stop causing
  half the chaos himself towards the city which he
  has to save. You will have abilities such as
  jump, fly, and various mind powers such as
  telekinesis and mind control.
• You play through an avatar of your character,
  which runs through set levels. An advanced Mario
  as it was
• The player shall view the game as a 2D side
  scrolling camera style.

10

• The game will be a one player based game.
• The genre of the game will most likely fall
  under side scrolling beat em up cartoon style
  comedy game
• .
• The target audience I am looking for is people
  who have not got the time for huge story based
  games, who have a sense of humour and like side
  scrolling beat em ups with a twist.
• Everyone should be able to enjoy this game as
  the story will not be too heavy, and it will be
  simple to play, unless they put it on a harder
  difficulty setting.
• The game shall be developed for the Nintendo DS.
  I feel like it the best idea to put it on this
  hand held console because I would like to use the
  touch screen for various mini things in the game.
  The style also looks like it belongs on this
  console. I shall also be creating the PC version.

11

• The Stylus
• After a lot of thought I have come to the idea
  that I shall be using the Nintendo DSs stylus
  stick to help the player move various obstacles
  either in the way, or out the way to make
  platforms so they can progress through the level.
  I like this idea. It gives the player a little
  more creativity in how they get to move around
  the level. Obviously I will only be allowing
  certain objects to be moved around, within a set
  radius.
• Example
• A typical example is to pick up a bin and put
  it in the way of a hole so the player can get
  across. However there would be a time limit on
  how long you can hold a platform for, or it will
  stay there for only 3 to 4 seconds. This is to
  create more of a challenge for the player.

12

• Moves, Items, and Capsules.
• For this game the player gets a few standard
  moves like being able to pick up and throw small
  items from the floor, the standard punches for
  close combat fights and push enemies back with
  his telekinesis.
• Items will be Keys in the form of items which
  you may need to collect to complete a level. It
  may not take the form of a key, it could even be
  an old lady like a Save the old lady mission
  you could get as a bonus stage. There shall be
  health replenishments for your character when he
  is low on health. Capsules will replenish your
  sanity meter. All these types of items will be
  found in the levels on the map.
• Costume Capsules
• Costume Capsules are special character
  upgrades you can get throughout the game. There
  is Normal Form, Mage Form and Flying Form.
• Normal Form
• This is the typical form the player starts with
  at the beginning of every level. Being in this
  form allows the player to do the typical moves.
• Mage Form
• This form gives you a bigger sanity bar giving
  you longer times to hold up objects, or grab
  enemies and throw them. You can also do the
  Normal Forms skills also. Being in this form
  means you are a lot weaker and normal hits will
  hurt you twice as much.
• Flying Form
• Gives the player the ability to fly. Speed is
  doubled but you get less sanity bar.

13

• The Health Bar
• As Super Dave gets hit, or when he uses his
  powers too much, the health and sanity meter
  go down.

This is what the health and sanity bar looks
like. The red is for health, the blue is for
sanity. If you get hurt your health will go down,
if you use your powers too much your sanity will
go down. As this happens the facial expression on
Daves face also changes as well as the colour in
the background of the face.
14

• Layout of the DS.

On the top screen the health bar, item list and
mission box will be positioned around.
The D pad will be used to walk around like usual.
B would be to jump, Y would be your psychic
abilities, A will be used to fight close combat
and X will be used to adjust the camera. While
holding down button X you press left and right on
the D pad to move the camera left and right.
The bottom screen will be for the game itself
where you get to take control of the stylus and
throw things around.
15

• User Testing and Feedback
• For the user testing I gave a copy of the demo
  I created to a few of the people on my course to
  get a more professional feedback. I also gave
  copies to the people I live with and to some
  friends who live close by.
• All feedback I received was very positive,
  usually when I told them the idea and story of
  the game people would chuckle and say that they
  would play / buy the game because it sounded
  comedy. This is nice because it was the feeling I
  was after from my customers.
• As for the user testing itself most people said
  that the game felt nice to play and didnt really
  have anything bad to say about it other than the
  fact that it was quite a small playable level.
  One big upset was that there was no music on the
  demo and people did realise this. However no one
  was really that bothered about it.

16

• Self Appraisal
• I have enjoyed this project. It was really
  nice to finally get my hands on actually making
  my first playable demo. I feel that the demo to
  me doesnt really feel finished as I couldnt
  figure out how to get the sound to work properly
  so I ended up pulling it out of the project. With
  that being said I do like my ideas that I have
  used in this project and I feel that I learned a
  fair amount in flash for this project. I have not
  used flash for games before so its been a really
  nice and interesting experience to be able to
  work with the program in a different way than I
  have in the past. I have learned how to animate a
  character and have control over what e can do, I
  have leaned the basics in gravity in flash and
  basic level design. I have leaned how to use the
  Drag and Drop method differently than how I would
  have thought about using it before.