3 Week Prototype - Introduction

I'm going to spend the next 3 weeks improving on a series of prototypes I made half a year a go.
The original inspiration was the first section of the 'Space Mama' boss fight from Rayman 1 where you have to jump and duck to avoid laser beams whilst trying to get close enough to the enemy to get a punch in.




BASIC RULES:
- The player can only move vertically, NOT side to side, ONLY jump and crouch
- The player has 2 different jump heights based on whether they are crouching when they hit the jump button
- The player can crouch whilst in the air
- The player can hold down the jump button to hover at their max jump height briefly
- The player can shoot bullets from the top half of their body (when they crouch the top half shrinks into the bottom half as if crouching when on the ground. Their feet don't tuck upwards)


The games I built look like this:

Regular Mode:
- Dodge random height bullets
- Shoot all the red targets
- Get points for each target hit
- Speed increases every 4 targets hit

Harder Mode: (best version)
- Bullets bounce Back if they miss a target (and can hit the player)

Hardest Mode:
- Bullets always bounce back (but still score if they hit a target)

Dodge Mode:
- You can't shoot
- Enemy bullets bounce back off the wall to your left (they are orange)
- Your score increases every second you stay alive




2 Player Mode:
- Both players can shoot at eachother
- Either player can have no more than 2 more bullets on screen at 1 time
(2 per player)
(This prevents players from creating unavoidable patterns of bullets)
- Looks fancy and has a day/night cycle




WHAT I INTEND TO DO:

- Prototype the game as an ACTION PLATFORMER with different levels and an overworld
- Add horizontal movement (I will talk more about that in a bit)
- Add a sword that you can use to reflect bullets
- I have designed a system for how bullets move up in rank/momentum/power

I believe that the core gameplay for this game (currently atleast) is solid. For such a simple looking system it provides a lot of depth in strategy and relies on player skill for its basic movement.

The long term and short term goals are clear and from playtesting I've done, people tend to pick up the controls fairly quickly.

No mechanic is unnecessary or unused, the player makes full use of everything in their move-set, often combining abilities for different outcomes

CONCERNS I HAVE FOR THE UPDATE:

- The controls might become too complicated if the player has to focus on moving horizontally too
     - The player has to be able to crouch, jump, shoot AND move horizontally potentially all at once

- I intend to add a dash mechanic (I will talk about this in another post) which has synergy with the sword HOWEVER this will require more testing as any tests I've already done lead me to believe that it does not work well with small platforms

- I don't know how the game will hold up with multiple platform heights
- I don't know how well the game will suit a longer play time (currently it's a play for as long as possible (normally < 1 minute) > Die > play again kind of game and that works well so changing that is risky

But that's the point of prototyping

I strongly urge you to DOWNLOAD and play the Jetpack Cowboy Collection HERE
and the fancy 2 player version HERE