Now that we settled on a single player, we need to determine some of the basic game mechanics and system, so let’s go through some of the decisions for Mafia City.
¶ Game Mechanics
¶ Game Rules
Players can run freely over the map and can only shoot once stationery. Enemies would only activate and shoot when the player approaches from a certain distance.
¶ Player Actions
Player movement / controls were kept it simple as there’s no really no need to reinvent the wheel.
The biggest consideration was the choice to limit shooting only when the player is stationary.
Inspired by games such as Archero, I always thought this was an interesting mechanic and lent itself to more strategy rather than a run and gun type arcade blaster.
This naturally slows the gameplay down somewhat and makes the shooting decision slightly more intentional.There’s a certain risk and reward element here that can often bring some tension having to commit to going in for a kill especially when you’re low on health.
To minimize development scope, the roguelike system would work great by the nature of resetting each round every time you play, and therefore we would need an upgrade system and all weapons would be collected via chests.
This adds an element of luck and would encourage exploration. Remember, at this point we just had one big map and there was a decent amount of area cover. However, regardless of how the game flow would alter over time, this mechanic would work regardless.
¶ Environmental Lore
Natural world type physics applies. Enemies will approach and shoot once you’re in range and will follow you until out of range. Players can hold a maximum of 4 weapons at any one time and weapons hold a finite amount of predetermined bullets.
Players have only 1 life but can replenish health via telephone booths on the map along with a chance to receive med kits from chests.
¶ Rewards and Penalties
Players receive random coins from chests and enemies will drop coins on defeat ranging from 1-5. Mini bosses in the game will drop between 5-10.
The player will also receive a random number of coins for completing a stage or level by way of choosing 1 of 3 chests available at the bank.
After killing enemies players receive XP points that are recorded in the global leaderboard.
Players would also be rewarded with a medal for completing the area and this is displayed at the station hub.
The player will be killed after health is depleted.
¶ Enemies / Baddies
Enemies will die after their health is depleted. There are several ranges for health to help with variety. Mini Bosses have a greater starting health.
¶ Turn-Based or Real-Time Systems
This would be a real-time arcade style game.
¶ Objectives and Challenges
Shoot the enemies to collect money and XP. Money can be spent in the store to expand weapon classes and purchase new skins.
Short, mid and long term goals would be expanded as time went on with the introduction of the station map featuring unlocking the awesome battle arena sections that shogun built.
Shogun will breakdown how all this works and how he approached the logic in later videos and I’ll be explaining why your games always need boss levels.
¶ Game Goals
Complete the areas to unlock new locations on the station map. Money collected or earned can be used to unlock all the playable characters and expand weapon classes.
Now on a basic level this was enough and should provide enough content and an enjoyable, fun and sometimes exciting simple core loop.
As you’ll see the game has changed a fair bit since but in terms of the main mechanics, much has stayed the same.
¶ Summing Up
I hope this goes to illustrate that by deciding on your core mechanics and staying true to them can really help as, if or when you decide to introduce new systems or even like us, make a radical change in the game flow.
The additional end of level bonus section retained the core mechanics to ensure the player understood immediately what to do and rewards them generously for completing their short term goal.
¶ Related Topics
Watch Us Build Series Game Design Foundation How to Get Game Ideas Dopamine In Games Game Scope & Feature Creep Game Scope Example What is a Core Loop in Games Playtest and Pivot Core Loop Example