Core Gameplay, or Goals

While we are doing our game, it seems sometimes Core Gameplay and Goals are one and the same. Think of this:

• You’re now controlling a character.
• This character has 3 bullets.
• Your opponent is controlling a same character.
• There will be power ups splashed everywhere on the field where you can gain a small advantage when you picked it up.
• You need to finish off your opponent via one shot, before your opponent does the same to you.

Basically, aim, shoot and collect. The game play requires the player to aim and collect, and the gameplay goal is basically kill your opponent before they kill you.

In our game, the goal is clear, there is only one goal, though there are more than one ways to achieve said goal, that’s related to the core gameplay mechanics:

• Find your opponent and fire at them, if you hit them, you complete your goal.
• Making your opponent’s life harder by collecting additional ammos (so your opponent can’t collect them and you got extra chances) and/or collect shields so your opponent need to score an extra hit to complete the goal.
• Dodge everywhere and wait for a timeout, making the opponent fail their goal instead.

When a simplistic goal is made, it’s very easy to tie our mechanics to the goal, and design the gameplay around it.

Goal: KO your enemy by scoring a hit translates to a simpler interface to aim at the enemy and powerups to help score the hit, or keep the enemy from hitting.

Goal: Don’t let yourself KOed by your enemy leads to a series of acrobatic mechanics such like running on walls and leap of faith jumps.

Different players may choose the different side of the same goal and then play the game accordingly, everyone could have fun.

Designing the gameplay around the goal turns out to be easier than expected thanks to the single, clear goals of our game.