Gel Castle: Design Document!


Defining characteristics:

Fundamentally, this game is about stacking amorphous, living blocks on top of each other in cute and crazy ways. The goal is to use a flexible soft-body physics engine in order to simulate the interaction of jello-like blocks that can be morphed, reinforced, squished, merged, split, lit on fire, etc.

In addition to those properties, the blocks have personality. If a block is getting squished, it will become very angry and frightened; if you hover your mouse over it, it will start to get ticklish. Some colors of blocks will interact in special ways, such as irresistibly attracting each other and merging, or strongly repelling each other! These properties should be fairly easy to implement, but this kind of cute interaction is a very strong way to immerse the player into the game.

Unlike games such as Super Stacker or World of Goo, these personalities are a key part of gameplay. Often, such aesthetic tones of games are only used to enhance the experience, but not define it. In Gel Castle, the blocks' personalities will strongly affect gameplay, and balancing the interactions between these personalities is a puzzle aspect in its own right.

Also, for some technical details: I'm planning on developing this game using Microsoft's XNA platform, which is basically a set of game libraries that can be used with the C# programming language. Unfortunately this makes the game Windows-only, but it also allows for quick development, efficient pre-compiled binaries, and tons of community support. I'll divulge more details later.

Proposal: First Checkpoint:

Basic stacking mechanic.  Weight above a certain level compresses smaller blocks.  Goal is height/rating.  No enemies or obstacles, focus on building with physics based obstacles (basically falling over)

Personality types:  Basic/easy-going (can fit anywhere), Repulsive (Can not be next to each other)

Game mechanics:

- One mode, perpetually rising castle

• One implementation could be a line that is slowly rising, and the castle of gel blocks must always stay above this line. The score/success would be measured in the final height of the castle.
• In order to account for an ever-decreasing space on the screen, the view of the gel castle would continuously zoom out, in order to give the player more space to work with.
• In order to have good performance, the number of blocks would have to be reduced as gameplay continues. One method is to merge large clusters of small blocks into a few larger blocks.
• To show the fact that the castle is always growing in size, there could be a picture in the background as an indicator of relative size. For example, the blocks are initially against a background of towering blades of grass, and eventually the castle would grow to surpass trees, mountains, and planets.
  
  

- Possible later mode, building to specifications

• Like SimTower, dignitaries from the Gel world will come to vist and rate your tower.  Meet certain specs and they will give you a higher rating
• Reach a certain rating level to unlock new types of blocks or configurations
  
  

- Blocks get older (Elderly)

• Putting young blocks near old ones can add structure or chaos - youth learns from the elderly or disobeys the rules
• Old blocks "die" and become stone/completely rigid
  
  

- Personalities

• Basic - get along with everyone
• Repulsive/Factions - get along great with some types and terribly with others (like fire hates water, etc.)
• Aggressive - easily takes over other blocks, grows in size
  
  

In summary

If you want to try your hand at C#/XNA, check out these sites:https://www.dreamspark.com/Default.aspx (for Visual Studio 2008 and XNA Game Studio 3.1), and http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/gettingstarted (for learning the basics).

Feel free to email me at any time about the project at dboehle@andrew.cmu.edu with any comments, questions, or concerns.