Game Concept

Overview  

Working Title

Big Sword

Concept Statement

You play as a little guy with a big great sword, fighting through swarms of enemies in a top-down environment, the more enemies you kill the bigger your sword becomes.

Genre

Beat ‘em up, top-down.

Creation process/influences

The initial idea for big sword came while reading the Japanese comic series Berserk, in which the main character wields a massive sword in order to defeat enemies. I find the idea of that cool and while thinking about how to make that interesting I came up with the sword growing bigger as you defeat enemies, almost as if you are stealing their power. The idea for this mechanic was conceived early and all further development on the game idea was based around this hook.

The player character, sprouthead is just a simple character with a little sprout on his head, I wanted something small and simple to not detract attention from the sword. Sprouthead is based on the Junimos from the farming game Stardew Valley, cute little magical apples that walk around, as shown in the concept art section.

I bounced around a lot of ideas for gameplay but settled on a top-down game in the style of a minigame from Stardew Valley, Journey of the Prairie King. This minigame emulates an arcade twin stick shooter, and is notorious for being difficult, due to the endless swarms of enemies and its unforgiving nature, as you die in one hit. I thought that the sword mechanic I had came up with would work well within this context as you can run around beating enemies up, growing stronger as you do so which lets the game comfortably make the enemies harder. I also thought this idea would not be too hard to implement giving me more time to flesh out the big sword mechanic.

Audience & Competitive analysis

The audience for this game will be those that enjoy more difficult games. It will be easy to understand and get into at first but getting past the initial levels will take some time. It is geared towards a more hardcore player, not in the sense that you need to spend hours playing it, but it is not something to be mastered quickly.

Those that are fans of old arcade games which are unforgiving but fun to get good at will be fans of Big Sword.

Game Treatment & Concept Art  

You are a small blob known as sprouthead, wielding a massive great sword used to fend off swarms of enemies. You are surrounded by enemies that grow stronger by the second but thankfully with each one killed you grow a bit stronger and your sword a tad bigger, giving you greater reach and bigger hits. However, beware as any hit taken from an enemy will shrink the size of your sword significantly! This game rewards skill as you dodge and weave in between enemies taking them out with big swings!

Key features:

• Multiple levels
• Different enemies with varying strength
• Smash things with big sword
• Difficult gameplay

Concept Art: 

https://stardewcommunitywiki.com/mediawiki/images/1/17/JOPK_Level_1_2.png

The main gameplay aspect of the game is based on a minigame from Stardew Valley which is an arcade twin stick shooter game with simple levels but challenging gameplay. On each cardinal are spawning spots for enemies and they constantly come through those until the time runs out. Big sword will emulate this.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/65cfdc48e7e83a60113c28c0ff45f09f/tumblr_ntq373KCHy1s...

The idea for using a big sword as the hook came from the comic series Berserk, in which the main character wields an almost comedically big sword while beating stuff up. I find this idea badass and wanted an excuse to use it in a game.

https://i.redd.it/cosm6mk0jg941.jpg

The player character, sprouthead, is based on an NPC from Stardew Valley, the Junimo.

Some earlier sketches of the player character, dubbed sprouthead. This was before I’d fully decided on the gameplay, but was sure I wanted a big sword with a little guy.

Some ideas for how the game will look, and how it will feel with a comically big sword. In the middle is how the level layouts will be, and around the outside are different ideas for the sword, the player, and enemies.