Art Direction

• 2D Sprite Art
• Vector Based Art
• Easy to re-size and work with, but may not be the final choice in terms of sprite style 
• Cleaner/less pixel looking 

• 16-Bit / 8-Bit
•  There is a certain charm about this kind of sprite art that is very nice and works well with various games that we believe can work really well for our game idea.
• It's very nostalgic for certain people and so this visual appeal attracts that kind of crowd.

Theme & Story Overview

• Theme
• Space Age
• Aliens with technology  (possibly mixed with humans)

• Story
• Setting
• You are a defense contractor
• A hero for hire 
• People pay you to protect them
• Security guard for a high volume of people/groups of people/beings

• Solo - mercenary or work for company
• Multiplayer mode - team/group for hire

Even More Game Design Contd.

• Views (How to view the world)
• No Top-Down view
• Maybe an angled top world view?
• Or a side scroller
• if side scroller, we may limit ourselves in gameplay 

• Players
• We want to make this a multiplayer computer game
• One person on the keyboard, and up to 3 players on Xbox remotes
• This allows interaction between players, but a very comfortable experience for the individuals as they have full control of their character when handed a remote.

Even More Game Design Info!

• Resource Management
• Health (HP)
• Magic (MP)
• to keep characters from being overpowered in terms of magic, we discussed several ways to limit magic.
• An excellent example of this is how Riot Games implemented "cool down periods" in their ever so popular game League of Legends.  League itself is a real time game, but magic is restricted by these "cool down periods" where you can't use powerful magic after you've used it in game within a certain time range after it has been used.  The more magic you use during game, the longer the "cool down periods" become.  This is a great way to keep a nice balance in a game.
• Money
• to buy more resources/items
• restricted to wallet size, etc.
• you reach a certain limit and you can no longer carry any more.    (We decided to include this because we realized that there are several games that mange this quite well such as The Legend of Zelda where you are allowed to carry only up to 500 Rupees at a time, which makes it more realistic and balanced, because you are always striving to fill up that amount when you make a big expenditure.  A really bad example of money management would be Assassin's Creed 3 where Connor, the protagonist, collects lots of money and continues to do so throughout the game. He apparently is supposed to carry that amount on him in theory, but I myself when playing have collected so much money that I can easily acquire anything I want in the game.  In that sense, I know I don't have to worry about the financial end of the game, but at the same time it becomes almost too easy to upgrade and be very overpowered.)

Game Design Contd.

• Tower Defense Game
• Where you are defending yourself / protecting yourself (or a group of people) from something
• Not entirely defense. Attack is still included when enemies infiltrate an area.
• Ex.  Dungeon Defenders 
• Set up traps and defense, then attack enemies when they try to take over
  

Game Design

• Real Time Action Game
• Pick up & Play very much like the following games:
• Castle Crashers
   
  
  
• Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time 
  

Introduction!

So, this is the first official post for my blog.
Here I will be collecting resources and eventually demonstrating the process of my work from game design thoughts for a potential video game I will be creating with my boyfriend(Justin H. Nguyen), to character concepts, environment concepts, digital work in progress and ultimately final designs.

A little introduction about Justin!

He is a Junior CS student at The University of Texas at Austin.
Before this last semester ended, we discussed about the possibility of creating a small scale video game.  He has an interest in practicing his programming skills in terms of gaming and as an art student, I have an interest in focusing more on concept art.
So what better way to spend our summer, than enjoying each others company making a game.

Stay tuned!

:)