2. Game Design Document
Fantasy Brawl
Checkthedog
10/03/2019
GDD v1.0
Fantasy Brawl is a Battle Royale game, with some MOBA elements. We want to create a game with a frenetic gameplay, which lasts for about 5 minutes. The players will be able to control one champion each, which they will get choose from before starting the match. Each champion will have their own unique abilities (Basic attack and Super/Definitive attack).
The objective of the player is to be the last one standing, to do that the player will have to search and kill the other players which will be spread around the map.
The game takes place in Ivalice, a kingdom founded on an island. It's geography features mountains, deserts and forests. It is mainly populated by humans but there are also intelligent races such as mindflyers which also live in the kingdom. Magic is predominant in the land, although there are ruins and artefacts that tell us that in the past populace had relied on machinery, such as airships and robots.
Ivalice is a kingdom of four territories; Fovoham, Gallione, Limberry and Lionel. Eventhough all the territories share the same royal bloodlines, there have been battles between them in order to become more powerful.
At the beginning, Ivalice was a kingdom ruled by a excellent king who had four kids. The four territories were ruled by him and everything went well. Many years later, the king got sick and before his last breath he decided to divide the kingdom into 4 different territories: Fovoham, Gallione, Limberry and Lionel, and gave them to his children.
Once the king died, the children became the rulers of the territories (each one had one) and that meant a new era for Ivalice.
At the beginning the four lands were united, and the rulers had a really good relationship, which helped to have harmony between the people of Ivalice. Te problem came when the mother nature didn't want to help. 20 years after the death of the king, the weather became awful, there were storms which blew away the forests, long and cold winters which killed the harvest, hot summers which caused fires all over the kingdom and even a volcano erupted killing lots of people who lived nearby.
People started to suffer because they didn't have food to eat and that made them angry, the four kings were forced to try to find a better way of feed their people and the only way of doing that was to try to get more resources. So the kings decided to try to make agreements between them to solve the problem, but as they all were in the same situation, they didn't make any better. Tensions started to get high and people started to get angry. They thought that the kingdom was better when it had been ruled by only one king instead of four.
The kings tried to stop the situation but the misery of the population was really high and some time later a revolution started in order to take down the kings, people demanded only one king and once the kings got captured by the civil, they decided that the best way to decide who would be the best ruler would be to make them fight to death, and the winner would be the new king of Ivalice. So that's what they did they left the kings in an arena to let them fight.
These are the elements/concepts that are the base of our game:
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Fast paced: Since it's an action game with short matches, the game should create an environment which promotes a fast and intense gameplay.
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Replayable: The player should feel invited to replay the game after ending the match.
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User friendly: Our goal is to create a game which everyone is capable of playing and enjoying.
This flow chart shows how we expect a normal match to pass, based on the actions the player can take during the match.
As the players start the match, the first thing they will have to do is to choose a champion. While you choose your champion you will also be able to try it out on a training zone with the other player. Once everyone has chosen their champion, the match will begin and the four players will spawn spread all over the map.
The map will start at its maximum size but as we want to encourage players to fight each other, the playing area will get smaller gradualy. If a player goes out of the playable area (represented as an storm), the player will recieve damage until it's death or until it gets back into the playable area again.
As the players get into the battle their main objectives are to find power ups and to find the other players, to do that they will have to explore the rest of the map.
When 2 players find each other they will have to fight until one dies or escape until you find another player. Fighting consists of using normal attacks and Special or Ultimate abilities which will need to charge up. Players can help to charge the special abilities by dealing damage to the other champions or by collecting a special ability power up which will be somewhere over the map. Other power ups that can be found spread over the map are the shield power up, which will give the player and extra amount of life and rage power up, which increments the damage dealt by the champion for a few seconds.
Once all the players except 1 have died, the round will have ended and the player who has survived will be the winner of the round. After that the next round will start and the process will be repeated until 5 rounds have ended. After the fifth round, the player or players with more rounds won will become the winners of the match.
1. Short term objective. Kill an opponent.
2. Mid term objective. Win a round.
3. Long term objective. Win the match.
In order to complete this objectives the player will have to be smart and quick. The power ups are made to encourage players to return to the fight as quick as possible instead of running.
In every round, the last player to remain alive will become the winner of the round. At the end of the round the winner of the round will be rewarded with 3 stars while the last to die will get 1 star. In addition, for every killing blow a player gets he will get an extra star. Once the fifth, which is the last round, has ended the player with more star wins.
The gameplay is based on a Moba game with some Battle Royale features.
Movement
The game will have a very basic gameplay, where the player will be able to move his/her champion in real time all around the map. There will be 8 different movement directions, 4 diagonals, up, down, left and right. The map will have some none walkable zones where the champion will have to move around to get to other places.
Basic Attack
There will be a basic attack mechanic implemented for every champion. the champions will have the same fire rate, damage, range and hitbox for this attack. The mechanic will consist on pointing at the desired direction to shoot with the right joystick and pressing the right trigger to shoot. In order not to spam basic attacks, players will be able to charge basic attacks by holding down th trigger, and only when the trigger is released, the basic attack will be released.
Special Ability
Every Champion will have their own special ability which will have to charge up before being used. The charge can be speed up by dealing damage to other champions or by getting a charge power up. Once the charge is at 100% the player will be able to use the special ability which will be activated with the left trigger.
Ultimate Ability
Every Champion will also have their own special ability which will have to charge up twice the as the special ability so it is loaded in the same way. once it is fully loaded this ability can be activated with the left bumper.
Shield
Every champion will have a shield that will let him/her dodge the damage from the attacks. To enable the shield, the player will only have to mantain pressed the button until he/she dodges the attack.
All the triggers for the abilities mentioned above can be changed in exemption of the movement and the aim.
All around the map, there will spawn items which will grant a power up to the champion if this one picks it up. There will be 3 different types of power up:
| Power Up | Sprites | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rage |  |
This power up will grant the player will make the champion rage temporaly, so the damage of the basic attacks and the special abilities will increase by 2x. This power up will last for 15 seconds |
| Shield |  |
This power up will grant the player a shield which will be half the full life of a champion. Every player will be able to stuck up to 2 full shields |
| Charge Ability |  |
This power up will grant the player a 60% charge for the special ability |
The players will be able to choose one out of the four playable champions before starting the match, players will be able to choose the same champion than other players.
| Champion | Name | Background | Basic Attack | Special Ability | Ultimate Ability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Kram | King of Fovoham, From the race of the Mindflayers, very good at controlling people's minds | Spitting Ink | Inverts the controls of the players | Throws a pool of ink that slows enemy's movement speed |
 |
Luar | Queen of Gallione, although she looks harmless, she was trained to become an assasin when she was young | Throwing knifes/Daggers | Throws daggers in all directions around her | Becomes invisible for a short time |
 |
Usollip | King of Limberry, an old man who dedicated his life to spirtism, although he is realy old he is also realy agile | Throwing voodoo dolls | Enter on a state of parry in which he can bounce any shot recieved from his front | Dashes to the last voodoo doll thrown. While he is dashing he deals damage and when he arrives to the doll deals damage in area |
 |
Dracir | Queen of Lionel, considered the strongest queen in the world | Throwing axes | Throws axes in 3 directions (forming the shape of a cone) simultaneously | Returns all the axes that are still on the floor to her position |
The game map will have four different zones each with a unique gamestyle and theme to acomplish its main objective which is to create dynamic and variated fights between the players.
With this design we want to balance any kind of tactic by letting them choose which area they want to be in order to execute their strategy.
We want to make the players learn how to play the game as easy as possible, to do that we will also create mechanics as simple as possible so the players can get immersed in the game as quick as possible instead of making the players try to figure out how does the champion they are playing works.
On the other hand we also want to mantain a steep learning curve at the start of the game so a new player can catch up with other more veteran players easily, we want to make the player join the competition as quick as possible.
As we want to reward players for doing well in order to increase those actions, at the end of eacg the players will be able to see the stars each player has obtained throught the game so they will be able to compare their stats with the other players. The idea is that the players can compete with each other not only for the wins but also for other important stats because Battle Royale games do not always feel as rewarding in comparison as how good the player has played the match, for example some times a player can get a kill strike but at the end get killed by someone who just hided all the match until the end and waited for the opponent to be low on health. That's why in order to stimulate players and reward them to keep playing well although they didn't win the match, we will reward each player for an amount of stars equal the the number of champions he killed in every round. Moreover the last player to die will also be rewarded with 1 star.
This stats will be:
- Kills
- Damage dealt
- Rounds Won
- Power Ups collected
- Biggest Kill streak
The game will only be playable with controllers since it's a 4 players local multiplayer game and it would be very difficult to use only a keyboard and a mouse to set all the controls for the 4 players. Controls:
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| Left joystick | Moving the champion around the map |
| Right joystick | Aiming in the direction the player wants to shoot |
| Right trigger (RT) | Basic attack |
| Left trigger (LT) | Special ability |
| Left bumper (LB) | Ultimate ability |
| X button (ps4 controller)/ A button (xbox controller) | Shield |
| Start/Menu button | In-game menu |