The Goals & Anchor

Goals

Personal Goals

• To create a playable, finished fun short game I am genuinely proud of through challenging myself by going difficult routes to complete my vision to the best of my ability and prove to myself that I can do it in a tight timeframe and even solo.
• To merge my diverse interests in films & TV shows (80s cinema and modern retro), bush-crafting, Arcade video games and music.
• To tackle the challenge of a “short-timespan” production by focusing on a high polish core wave loop.

Professional Goals

• Highlight my multi-skills in my portfolio and put emphasise on the unique look and blend of genre’s of my game (retro horror and Tower Defense).
• Explore how straightforward mechanics (Tower Defense) can be elevated through unique aesthetics (Neo-Retro/Killer Frequency/ Stranger Things and Euphoria-inspired visuals).
• Demonstrate a mastery of systems-based design (RTS resource management and TD positioning).

The Anchor

Based on What Came Before

The Bloody Thing Lives! feels like a “walking version” of Plants vs. Zombies set in a Stranger Things town with its familiar genre of tower defence games with introducing a modern arcade style that pixel games fans could appreciate. It is familiar in its goal (protect a structure from hordes of enemies) but unexpected in its execution: instead of the point and click gameplay (seen in plants vs zombies), confusing traps (seen in Orcs Must Die series) and too many enemy types, you are a character in an isometric space, physically placing monsters to manage a hoard that looks like it stepped out of ‘The Purge’ all can be killed realistically fast and the different types of defences would be named after what they do, Melee defence close range proximity damage, Human Shield takes damage and Ranger shoots from a range. The resource being dead enemies, simple.

Unique gameplay addition

The player being on the other side of the gate, the player even though can place defences when the wave ends cannot never be near the enemies, protecting the town from the other side in the safe area abled to launch slimy boulders at their opponents. I wanted the player to be active and walking in the environment, instead of games like Bloons TD and Plants Vs Zombies series where the player is a floating mouse which adds onto a “fun” and interactive feeling with a unqiue way of both placing and actively protecting the town themselves the player can’t be damaged however has limited resources to help.

Defence structures can suddenly die off at random times throughout the game, each one got a different expiry time which is randomly generated when spawned, they can be hit by the enemies to a zero health which would lead them to explode and damage near-by enemies or eventually randomly expire and disappear. They are made from magical blood smile they can suddenly die and require more blood resource to re-create them again. Leads for the player to require quick thinking and smart decision making before and during each round to make the most out of each defence.

Unit Positioning and Obstacle Placing:

• Placing a Ranger behind the gate bars means they are safe from the enemy and can could be useful even from afar and are the only unit that can be placed during a wave, Melee and Human Shield defences need to be placed outside the gate while the Ranger can shoot safely while from behind. The Human Shield defence could also create interesting opportunities allowing for other defences to hide behind for protection while they can deal damage.

Visually different

My work would be extremely visually different from the rest of Tower Defence games I’ve seen and by incorporating a unique style seen outside of video-games themselves through my personal experiences and research I have conducted:

• Researching how early cameras worked, how to create a pinhole camera and image processing, film vs digital. (seen in: Retro media and Photography post)
• Researching 80s inspired Retro visuals: in both 80s and modern; Films, TV Shows and Music Videos (seen in: Retro media and Photography post)
• Personal experiences: Being a production assistant in an indie film and farming out in Spain. (seen in: Pixel Isometric Retro game post)
• Researching survival situations watching documentaries and Bibliographies about survival. (seen in: Surviving in extreme conditions post)