In class 4/7:
Weakness: Since this is a sandbox game, I want to have a broad weakness. The villian will have a “destructive” magic that the main character has to overcome to defeat the villian.
Desire: The main character desires an abundance of wealth to create their village.
Opponent: An evil magic user who has a rival nation that grows at a similar pace to your own.
Plan: Build and populate a village to team up against the villian!
Self Revelation: You’ll learn how to become a leader and developer in the process!
Battle: The final battle where you team up with your npc villagers to take down the main baddie!
New Equilibrium: Have the other teams villagers join mine (or have their colony be friendly) and be all happy in the end!
Game details (cont.):
This game will have seamless (and optional) multiplayer for individuals interested in having their friends join. I believe that having characters transferable between servers is a good ideas so friends can grind individually and still have their cool gear when they join their buddies. I think it will be nice for players to have the option to designate spaces for their friends to build on (if they want) so they don’t have to worry about griefing.
NO DLC!
Hours of Gameplay: There will probably be 10 hours of story time (missions), however, I think the average player will probably play 40-50 hours before putting it down. Dedicated players will probably hit 100s!
Victory Condition: Beat the baddie! But that really isn’t the end of the game, just the story.
Game Story: Before the first Iceage man thrived in a different way. Through the use of natural materials the people have been building their towns up, defending against enemies, and growing as a community. However, the evil wizard has destroyed humanity’s bastion! In the rubble they find you, the mayor. You must use your carpentry skills, communication, combat, and planning to create the greatest civilization that ever lived!
Inspiration:
1.) Valheim: Valheim has some wonderful building mechanics. It’s physics based but simple. I’ll link some videos and pics!
In terms of combat scale, not necessarily gameplay, look at Mount and Blade Warband:
For Exploration:
Think Minecraft… I guess. I think that’s where I’d like to individualize my game the most. I think having populated biomes with different monsters is interesting. Valheim does this nicely. The difficulty is biome based and you always start in the easiest biome with the second easiest within walking distance!
Maybe more like For The King except not based on table top? I like how you find more about the area when you finish tasks. It’s also randomly generated which is cool, however, it’s tile based.