This is a quick update with the some new information on the game design for Terminus and the direction I’m planning on taking the initial phases of the project. As this is an iterative process, game design could be drastically different in the future!
The Theme / Story
After looking around for various ideas, I’ve settled on a sci-fi themed game where the character wakes up say out of cryogenic sleep or something like that to a major disaster happening on a space ship/space station/moon base or the like. The character will make their way through several levels that will have different challenges, in the form of enemies, maybe robots or aliens, and environmental hazards such as vacuum, fire, or other toxic situations.
Other people will populate the environment and be in trouble requiring assistance to survive. Maybe the goal will be to reach an escape pod. Maybe it’s to stop an evil AI. As the mechanics and theme are explored those details will be flushed out.
Milestones
In order to guide the project, the first few milestones have been laid out to build towards a generally playable game to validate the prototype.
Milestone 0: Basic Foundations
Milestone 1: Simple Game
Milestone 2: Better Maps and Details
Milestone 3: Better AI
Milestone 4: Story Events
More milestones to be defined as the project continues. Also, some milestones might have their scope expand, but I’d like to keep each milestone to be accomplishable in just 2-4 weeks.