Dodge Dasher - Day 11

Well today was a good brainstorming session. I was trying to do something called Game Design or at least what I think game design is. I almost had my mechanics working now I wanted to create a reason why would my player use these mechanics. So currently I have two mechanics,

• Dash

• Shoot

Now the primary mechanic is dashing and secondary is shooting. I want to build a game around dash as a main mechanic unlike shooting. The way I plan to do is have unlimited dashing and limited shooting. Dashing gives the player a chance to evade its enemies and shooting gives the player a chance to fight back. Sort of like shield and sword, where shield is the dash and sword is shooting. However since I want player to dash more just a simple dash isn't satisfying enough, probably shooting is more satisfying. So the next question is how can I make dashing satisfying.

The answer is DashPoints. Now Dash points can are scored by killing enemies. The more enemies you kill in a level the more dash points you get. Next question, why would a player want dash point any way? Well, the answer is to do a SmashDash. A SmashDash is that satisfying dash that the player would want to do to kill enemies. Its a longer and stronger dash wherein it destroys everyone along the way and then smash around a radius at the end. I have yet to figure out the controls for incorporating a SmashDash but currently I am trying to make sense out of the game and solving the why's. So, SmashDash is gonna be the punchline in the game.

Tomorrow I would implement health and ammo pickups and try to start prototyping SmashDash to see how it looks and feels and is it even worth it. I am thinking to make a game around 15 levels with 5 different types of enemies. Each level the goal of the player is to kill all enemies for now.

I think I am not really clear what would a level mean and why would a player want to clear a level. Like what is the theme and what's the ultimate goal. I am still piecing pieces together.