Posted August 04, 2022 by Shahid Kamal Ahmad
#design
I'm not a good game designer.
That said, here are the major organising principles I'm using to design and make Chimera 2.
This is about how I want the player to feel while they're playing the game. In the original, there was a constant tension, the tension of not knowing when you were going to die and hear that scream. There was a strangeness. I want to keep that, but perhaps reduce some of the unnecessary weirdness just a tad.
Which mechanics will I use?
In previous failed attempts to remake Chimera, as opposed to attempt a sequel, I tried a mechanics soup, basically everything I could throw at it in an attempt to make a game complex enough for the modern generation.
Now I realise the futility of such a "throw enough crap at the wall" approach.
I want to focus on very few mechanics, so that the game actually knows what it is and sits in its own skin and owns it.
The original was "Solve puzzles to get through a maze and arm four warheads while keeping enough energy and coolant on board, then get to the exit room"
This game is going to have more layers. That means something along the lines of "You think the game is X, but actually it's Y, oh wait, it's actually Z...now I get it, it really is X, but I see X differently now"
This is just a feeling I have about the game's progression right now, and I have nothing concrete, just some ideas that I've rejected. I'm working on this, but for now I'm going to let the progression evolve and grow like a book without an outline.
The "spirit" are the principles and ideas that serve as my North Star whenever I have to make a decision. These are currently nebulous, but include:
As for where I'm at now, I'm working on subsystems that include energy, coolant and shielding, and then displaying them, and allowing them to be affected by the environment and your behavoiur. I should have a new build soon.