Intro
Magigunner is a local co-op experience where players play as magic users who channel their spells through staffs which transform into guns and glyphs which can turn into explosive and supportive objects. Players will create their character and learn new spells as they run through instanced zones killing waves of enemies, saving villages, and completing quests for the kingdom.
Magigunner will be our attempt at making both:
- A local co-op experience that can be enjoyed by both casual and hardcore gamers.
- A de-leveled game that pushes players to increase their skill through level and enemy design.
Genre Stats
Theme: Fantasy + Modern War
Setting: Fantasy Forest/Village
Genre: Third Person Shooter Roleplaying Game
Targeted Platform: PC/Xbox
Pillars of Game Design
Combat
At its core, Magigunner is a Third Person Shooter. We want to make sure that the RPG elements are in the game, but at the end of the day, we want to make a fun third person shooter that keeps players constantly in motion. Combat will be focused less on technical elements of combat and more on getting lost in the chaos of combat as players run through each map shooting enemies with their spells.
Reward
We want players to constantly feel rewarded as they experience Magigunner. Along with achievements such as clearing a mission in a set amount of time, we also want to give players constant feedback on their progression through the game. This not only means quests, achievements, and the like but also giving players feedback after killing particular nasty boss-type monsters.
Customization
As proven in recently released games customization drives player engagement and helps players become more attached to their character. We want to provide players with a wide range of customizable elements so that players can show their unique personalities to the rest of the Magigunner community.
PvE Co-op
With Magigunner we want to drive the social aspect of games. Not only do we want to increase activity and communication within the living room through local co-op. We also want to build an online community of Magigunners that will help guide us in design and create a space for everyone to enjoy the game and relax.
Strong Personality
Finally, we want to show off some of the team’s personality through this project. We want to do more than provide players with entertaining cutscenes. We want to give players characters that they can become attached to and progress with through gameplay.
Influences
Deep Rock Galactic
We would like to have combat similar to the core combat feel in Deep Rock Galactic. In this game, players are constantly besieged by spiders as they push further into caverns to mine ore. The feeling of moving around a level and running past what feels like 100s of spiders makes the game feel intense and entertaining.
Wildstar
Another example of combat we would like to see in Magigunner is Wildstar. Players in Wildstar shoot off abilities that create a damage field where enemies are allowed to be damaged. Each spell has a cap of enemies that it can hit but for the most part, spells can hit 3-5 enemies.
Warframe
The best example of enemy AI we could find was Warframe. Enemies in Warframe follow the classic paradigm of grunts, specialists, elites, and bosses (we’ll go over this paradigm in a separate article). An example of enemy AI would be robots that shoot at the player and walk forward combined with drones that provide the base bots shield. By combining simplistic AI with unique mechanics we hope to create a system of enemies that will challenge players and provide them with hours of content.