Rogue Life Notes

(Joel Davidson | Home | Design Notes)


Platformer, tower defense, rogue like Goal: - Live till you’re 120 years old, surviving waves of life’s problems - Each wave accounts for some increment of years (increases increment as years get higher) - After each wave you can pick a perk. - Perks come in the form of cards with attributes. - You loose if one of your lanes are captured (this works like PvZ, ie lawnmower) Gameplay: - Multiple lanes in which enemies come from the left side of the screen to get to the right - Think PvZ - Player controls the human who’s life you’re playing through - Controls like a platformer (think Metroid) - Dying send your character back to your center lane - Some cards give you access to turrets you can place in preselected slots in front of your lanes - Some sort of stats - Vitality (attack speed, movement speed) - Money (damage) - Harmony (damage resistance, turret attack speed) Stage: - It’d be nice to have all the stages always in view. That way you can keep your eye on all lanes at once and there never needs to be any sort of alter indicator. Art: - Art should be low res, but drawn (not pixel art) - Frames of animation should be kept low (2 or three max) - Exact style TBD - Some considerations: - Physical or Digital - Abstract, Cartoony, or folk-artee - Music: - TBD, but it might be cool to follow a sort of dance of death aesthetic, create some acoustic drones or low guitars for during the rounds and then some light acoustic instrumentation for the interim periods. - This sort of “dance of death” would probably mean leaning more into the folk stylings, probably with more emphasis on evil (ie give enemies devil horns) and leaning more into medieval stereotypes. Story / Cards: - Cards should have similar vibes to cards from the game of life - Cards will be tied to particular time spans - 1, 2-3, 4, 5-10, 10-15, 15-25, 25-35, 35-45, 45-60, - Cards could have a color that’s somehow significant - ie red is daring or suggestive, yellow passive, green happy, blue serene. - You get a card at the beginning that determines the sign you’re born under - This gives you your starting weapon - Cards could suggest life choices Weapons: - Cross between Isaac and vampire survivors - Cards will stack life vampire survivors - Weapons are fired more like Isaac UI: - Count for turrets - Meter for weapons fire rate Menus: - Main menu - access to settings - access to stats - Pause menu - access to settings - access to restart - In game menus: - Card menu: See player stats and current cards - Turret menu: Menu for selecting a turret when you want to place one down - Card select menu: The menu that pops up when you want to select a new card