Roger Gonzalez - Game & Level Designer

Backyard Heroes

Game Design Structure

 

By Roger Gonzalez & Trevor Thiess

 

Theme/Purpose (This gets to the point of what the game is, the genre, who you’re playing as, the theme, and what you’re playing against. Short and sweet.)

• Backyard Heroes is an Action Tower Defense game about the power of children’s imaginations while playing in their backyard, battling against the evil forces of bullies.

   

   

  Battle (Introduces the player how they actually get to play and how a level works)

• At the beginning of each level and before the start of each wave, a character has a set amount of time to purchase towers and traps, and place them where they wish for them to go. After the character has readied for battle, the hordes of bullies can be called, and they themselves can battle against the hordes. If a character’s life reaches 0, then they are temporarily taken out of the game, taking away their ability to defend against the hordes of enemies and placing or upgrading new towers.

   

  - Objective Defense

   

  - Bot pathing/agro

   

  - Enemy power level changes

   

  - Tower Management/ Lane Management, Defense power level changes

   

  - Playstyles and Resource Utilization Depending on Class

   

   

   

  -Players:

  -  1 Player

   

   

  -Objectives:

  Win: The player wins the game when they defeat each enemy in the final wave

   

  Lose: The player fails if either

              -The base they are defending is destroyed by the enemies

              -The player themselves is defeated by the enemies

   

   

  -Procedures:

• < >< >< >

  Defensive Placements

   

   

   

  -Characters/Abilities: There are three characters a player can choose to play as, each offering their own special abilities and unique ways to play. The Brawler is great for close quarters combat, pummeling bullies into the ground. The Rogue is sneaky and fast, preferring to catch the bullies off guard to play their own mean tricks rather than direct confrontation. The ranger prefers to handle things from afar, playing with the hordes of bullies like he was playing with toys with his trick arrows.

   

• < >

  High Health

• Moderate damage

• Moderate Speed

• Close Quarters Combat

• Can break down special walls

   

• < >

  Moderate Health

• < >

  High speed

• Can climb up certain parts of the environment

             

   

• < >< >< >< >< >

  Health – The amount of damage a character can sustain before temporarily taken out of the game for a short time

• Damage –The amount of damage a character can inflict against a bully.

• Speed –How fast a character can move within the environment

   

   

  -Towers and Upgrades: The player has an assortment of toys that have been transformed into various towers and traps that they can use to defend themselves and their bases. These towers and traps must be used strategically against the hordes of bullies; otherwise they face the problem of not having the right tool for the job. No single tower or trap will be completely affective against any one type of bully, so it is important to mix these to affectively defend against the bullies.

   

  During these waves of bullies, the Character cannot defend their base on just their initial tower and traps; they must make them stronger in order to defend against more powerful foes. Each tower and trap will have various levels that can be unlocked for even greater potential, as well as smaller items that can be used for purchase. Tower, traps, and upgrades will vary in the cost amount, so it is best to know when to purchase something, and when to save some cash for emergencies (is this clear enough). However it is also important to know that some upgrades will have a timer before you can purchase them again.(primarily character upgrades so that spamming abuse wont happen.)

   

• Silly strong Tower

• Nurf gun Tower

• Hot Sauce tower

•  

              - Tower Statistics

                          - Damage

                          - Range

                          - AoE

                          - Rate of Fire

              - Tower Types

                          - Basic Damage

                          - DoT

                          - Crowd Control

                          - Heavy Damage

  - Towers placed on nodes

  - Towers cannot be attacked

              - Tower Upgrades

                          - Are dependent on character

   

   

  -Traps

  - Trap Types    

  - Blockade

                          - Proximity Crowd Control

              - Traps can be placed on floors

   

  -Level: The world of Backyard Heroes is the character’s backyard, reconstructed into amazing environments. The environments range from cardboard cities, vast treehouse, Lego Castles, and dune cities of the sand box.

   

  Each level will have several points that the Bullies can enter from. However, they will not come from all directions at once. They will come from a single indicated place, but over time they will start coming from other points of the map.

   

   

              - Tower Nodes

  - Multiple Lanes

              - Chokepoints

              - Rapid Transit

                          - Slides

                          - Zip Lines

                          - Slip n Slide

                          - Trampoline

                          - Ladder

   

  -Enemies:  The forces that the player must defend against are hordes of relentless bullies. There are several different types of bullies, each one posing their own unique threat against the player. The waves of bullies can contain a combination of any type of these bullies and as such player must constantly be on their toes because anything can be thrown at them at any time during these waves.

   

• Enemy Types

  • Grunts

  • Bruiser

    •  Higher Health and Damage

  • Ranged

    • Attacks player from a range

• < >

  Attacks player from a range

   

• Enemy Statistics (varies across each type)

  • < >< >< >

    Enemy Spawning

    • Spawn in Waves

    • Grace Period before waves begins

    • Call wave early

       

      -Pick-ups

                  - Health

                  - Defense

                  - Damage

                  - Mobility

       

      -Currency: A character cannot purchase towers, traps, and upgrades as often as they want, they must first have the currency to do so. Currency can be obtained from defeating enemies, as well as how well they protected the base. Once currency is obtained, they can be used to buy new towers and traps, upgrade existing towers, and purchase power ups.

       

                  - Purchase Upgrades/(Pickups?)

                  - Gained from defeating enemies

                  - Start with a set amount

       

      -Status Effects

                  - Slow enemy

                  - Damage over time

                  - Pushbacks/Knockdowns

                  - Stun enemy

                  - Affect enemy stats (defense, damage, etc.)

       

      -HUD

                  - Player Health

                  - Abilities (& cooldowns)

                  - Currency

                  - Wave Timer

                  - Minimap

       

      -Reward System

                  -Progression System

                  -Mission Rating

                  -Various Unlockables (Characters, Towers, Traps, etc.)