I bumped into Finn in the hall the other day and he asked me for a game idea. I had been kicking around a thought for about a week (during the boring moment of driving to/from class) of an Android/iPhone game for the casual gamer. Creating a simple mobile game before graduating has been a goal of mine since the beginning.
Nothing too complicated just quick fun, but with the social dynamic of online multiplayer.
So, "what do people like", was the first question I asked myself and my immediate thoughts gravitated to zombies, as I like zombies. Then I remembered reading an article about how zombie movies are more prevalent during Republican presidencies & vampire movies are more prevalent during Democratic presidencies. Something about how that plays on peoples' current fears at the time. Well you can't have vampires & zombies without inviting werewolves to the party, and boom. Vampires vs Werewolves vs Zombies. Currently I see this as a top-down action game with 3 players each one takes a species, each species has its advantages & disadvantages and then it's kill or be killed.
Good start, but it needed more. Add in humans as a goal, and now you have 3 species vying for the limited "resources", humans. At random times throughout the game humans will emerge from their homes or cars or whatever in an attempt to escape the carnage and players ultimate goal is to acquire the most resources to progress to the next level. Players can choose to consume the humans to boost their current units or choose to convert them to add to their army.
The end of the level is reached when only one player is left standing or all the humans on the level have been consumed or converted.
- Zombies - slow but attack en masse with overwhelming numbers.
- Werewolves - Quicker but rely more on brute force & sheer ferocity to defeat enemies.
- Vampires - Fast, solitary killers that use stealth & cunning to achieve their goals.
Finn wanted me to put this to 'paper' so I did and he took a look at it and gave it to some guy named Paul who apparently didn't like it ... meh ... now I'm on to find some art assets that can convey the ideas a little better and some sample maps.