Design Theme

About

This document aims to act as a driving motivation and theme for mod development. It is a living document so will update often as DarkGuardsman works through the design concepts. Most of this is being recalled from memory as it is needed.

Main theme

ICBM-Classic is designed to be an arcade like PvP experience for smaller servers. This means content is setup to be less realistic, more exaggerated, and geared towards faster gameplay.

Content will still try to fit into minecraft's eco system and take on some realistic aspects. As these can encourage strong gameplay concepts and provide for a better experience.

An example of this is making the results of an explosive realistic. While at the same time exaggerating the size of the blast based on the size of the missile. Then gearing the recipes so that the player can get this blast early in the game. In other words, realistic results in an unrealistic package creating an exaggerated mechanic that is quick to access.

Other examples in the future might be to change the recipe chain. Moving from crafting grid to in world crafting of missile bodies. Then having the player install the warhead similar to how ICBM 2 worked. This would shift the gameplay to be more realistic. While also creating a more detailed experience for the player to enjoy. Such that the player can see the missile visually being created.

Secondary Themes

Even though the main theme will be PvP BBM's themes should also be considered. The main one being creativity of the player over all other aspects. Such that the player is encouraged to explore, think, and try new ideas to gain creative results. What we want to avoid is a linear gameplay with one path to follow and one set of results. As this creates stagnation and will result in the player finding minimal enjoyment in the content.

Driving themes:

• Simple recipes
• • Basic progression with minimal complexity
• • Low resource usage for basic types (few items)
• • Medium resource usage for advance types (handfull of items)
• • Exception: special types like redmatter and antimatter (require other mods with gating)
• Fast setup of launchers
• • Launchers should be easy to build
• • Launchers should be easy to use
• Timely gameplay
• • No long missile travel times. Think call of duty (call -> short delay -> impact)
• Cold war era visuals based on 80s cartoons
• • Simple visuals
• • Bright simple colors
• • cold war era technology
• Modularity (lego building)
• • Simple reusable components
• • • explosion logic -> actions
• • • flight path -> flight logic -> actions
• • • launcher logic -> actions
• • Separation of concerns
• • • Launcher -> missile holder
• • • Controller -> firing solutions
• • • missile -> movement -> action(trigger, impact)
• Customization
• • Configs
• • missile in game customization and modifications
• • flight path programmability
• • explosive in game customizations and modifications

Considerations in design:

• Simplicity vs complexity
• • Goal: mechanics that are accessible by the majority of users. While allowing more advanced individuals opportunities to be creative.
• • Must contain mechanics with high accessibility and low cognitive complexity
• • • UIs must contain only minimal critical information
• • • UIs should provide less critical information on sub-menus within 3 clicks (block -> sub-menu -> action/info)
• • • UIs must be usable without text, but still provide strong tooltips
• • • UIs must leveraging commonly understood distinct icons with good accessibility
• • • UIs must not use coloring as a key indicator, but may optionally provide it for quick reference
• • Must provide in-game access and understanding of mechanics
• • • Items/Blocks/Content must provide informative tooltips
• • • UIs must provide information on usage
• • • Mechanics should not be explained in books or 3rd party UI guide tools
• • • Mechanics should be intuitive; but provide optional grunt level instructional information (joke for graugger)
• • Should provide diversity and flexibility of gameplay
• • • Mechanics should be shared between content
• • • • All blocks should support radio system
• • • • All entities should support radar system
• • • • All blocks should interconnect
• • • Mechanics should combine (Ex: radar + launcher = SAM, parachute + missile = cargo drops, parachute + ex = delayed impact)
• • • Mechanics should follow similar rules (Ex: range has one meaning and is the same on all content)
• • Should allow combining simple mechanics into more advanced mechanics
• • Should reward players for creativity and combination of mechanics
• Tiering
• • Must never act as a gate
• • Must never contain artificial slowdowns or difficulty
• • Should work as difficulty hint ++complex and/or ++resources
• • May be visually represented, but is not recommended in game
• No duplication
• • Must provide unique content
• • • Example 1: MC1.6.4 Sonic vs Hypersonic; both being same blast with different sizes
• • • Example 2: MC1.12-v6.x.x Cluster vs shrapnel & fragmentation; Cluster can be customized to produce the same effect. Likely a sign they need combined into a more generic blast type with customization options.
• • Must provide distinct mechanics; two fire themed blasts would result in one being pointless or underused