Husk
Idealization
Finding the Idea
The parameters of the Project was to make a game that was replayable with mechanics that allows the player to find interactions within the game on their own. Roguelikes instantly came into mind to become the core Genre of the game, we then listed all the Roguelikes we played.
- Risk of Rain
- Roboquest
- Vampire Survivors
- Voidigo
- Mortal Sin
- Dead Cells
- Hades
We eventually found a game with an interesting concept called R.A.M (Random Aceess Mayhem), A game where you posess the enemies and make use of their abilities to play.
Expanding the Idea
With the Core concept in mind we start expanding the idea and listing down mechanics that need to be decided before making the prototype.
- Mechanics
- Enemies
- Progression
- Upgrades
In order to Differenciate our game from the original Inspiration we decided to make our game movement focused as it was the most fun path we could go at the time
Mechanics
- Body Switching
- Health
- Switch to heal
- When switching to another host, you inherit the host’s current health
- Energy (Switch bar)
- Max energy 200
- Each kill adds 25 energy
- Switching takes 100 the energy
- Switching when dead takes 150 of the energy
- Movement with enemy skills
Enemies
Because of the nature of our game having no player character, we need to make each enemy have clear uses and feel fun to possess.
- Dredge serves as our melee enemy that chases you down with an anchor in hand
- Blaster Hulk provides Ranged pressure
- Impact Golem is the wildcard that charges towards you with blinding speed
| Enemy Name | Basic Attack | Alternative Attack |
| Dredge | Swing Anchor (knockback) | Pull entities towards yourself |
| Blaster Hulk | Shoot a straight Projectile | Shoot an explosive projectile that knocks back entities |
| Impact Golem | Starts sprinting, create an impact wave when colliding with entities | Sprinting into projectiles increases Kinetic Charge
(slows you down the more damage you take) (Explodes if kinetic charge goes over the limit) Release stored kinetic energy to deal AOE damage around yourself (Charge is depleted and slow is removed) |
Progression
We will follow the traditional Roguelike system where there are no permanent upgrades, this system avoids the declining difficulty.
We are not using a Roguelite progression system, because unlike the Roguelike’s focus on mastering the core mechanics of a game, succeeding in a Roguelite is much more dependent on the number of upgrades you have creating an artificial barrier in the player’s mind that you can’t complete a run without upgrades. The other reason is also that designing micro upgrades is to tedious and time consuming for our deadline.
Upgrades
Condition - changes an effect to an action
Augment - adds an effect to an action
Variable - a change in variable
| Enemy Name | Augment | Effect |
| Universal | Final Gambit | You Explode upon Death/Switch |
| Universal | Boosters | Double Jump |
| Universal | Death’s Favour | Upon death, prevent lethal damage for 3 seconds and clear the room of enemies (boss no work) |
| Dredge | Industrial Winch | Reduced Hook Cooldown |
| Dredge | Gravitic Tow | Pull yourself towards enemies |
| Blaster Hulk | Master Crafted | Reduced Reload Time |
| Blaster Hulk | Ignition Protocol | Projectiles cause fire on impact |
| Blaster Hulk | Nitrous Charge | Double the damage and knockback of projectiles, but it now damages yourself |
| Impact Golem | Hydraulics | Increased jump height
Using alt Attack will cause you to slam onto the ground dealing damage to enemies around you |
| Impact Golem | Kinetic Plating | Impacting a wall will knock the yourself opposite of the camera facing (reverse wall jump) |