The Art of War I: Weapons and their role

Disclaimer:

Most of the projects that I will be doing are for a game that I am developing on my own code named Project Ninjio. In short, the game is a story action driven role playing game (common referred to as an action RPG). It features 2 uniquely styled areas, one in which the cities are built to flow along with nature, and the other where the cites are hyper futuristic. The game is set in a futuristic China, where after a large war, the country is split into the two settings described above. The game is built in the Unity 3D game engine.

The Art of War I: Weapons and their role

Introduction

Most, if not all, of the main characters in Ninjio will have their own unique weapons that they use in combat. These weapons will be uniquely tailored to the character's personality and skills. For example, one of the character is of a short, almost dwarf like, stature with a knack for fixing things. Therefore that character's weapon may be a small, yet powerful, wrench-like weapon to suite the character's physical size and the character's mechanical know-how. Since Ninjio is set in a futuristic China, I would like to bring as many elements of the Chinese culture into the game as possible. One such element of China's culture that I find fascinating is how they view and use their weapons.

Chinese culture and how weapons are used and viewed

A good example of a Western game that favors the whole
"I'm a big guy with a gun, now eat it" sort of mentality

There is a dramatic difference between Asian cultures and western (USA and European countries etc) culture in terms of weapons and their role in war. In most Asian cultures, a weapon like the sword or even a gun is considered an extension to the body during war, where the sword or the gun is an extension of the artistic art form that war is. This means that in Asia, you would see less of the movie-esk "Imma gonna run at you with my sword raised above my head and shout like a madman" scene and more of the "Imma ninja, I am going to sneak around and stealthy kill you when you least expect it" sort of moments. Since this is something that is buried deep into Asian culture, video games that are made in Japan, where most major video game companies are headquartered, and any other Asian country tend to follow this mantra of using weapons to extend the body's capabilities. I hope to emulate this part of Asian culture in Ninjio but how?

But how?

I ask this because as an interactive experience, video games and the designers behind them have very little control over how the game is being played. The few things that designers can implement to increase their control can either be obtrusive, like a big invisible wall that the player cannot get through, or they can be subtle, like having only a certain number of bullets before you have to seek more ammunition (thus making the player have to pull out of a fight). Of the two ways of gaining control over the player's game play, I would like to make the 2nd option, making the boundaries very natural, be more prominent than the other option. 

Now rounding back to the original question, I would like Ninjio's combat to be as awesome and epic as I can while still sticking to the Chinese culture of using weapons as an extension of the body. In my opinion, I can do four things to insure that this can happen. 

One is that I can offer the player lots of movement mechanics to ensure that sneaking up behind an enemy is as fun as possible. I have already programmed the movement into the Ninjio, and boy is it smooth. I have it programmed so that there is no delay between you input an action and when it is carried out by the game. This greatly helps players move around the scene, get to where they want to go faster, and it overall makes playing the game feel very responsive and smooth. 

Another mechanic that I have implemented already in the game is a teleportation ability that the player can use after a short cool down. This allows players to pick a place to go to and use a teleport bolt that brings them to that place instantaneously. I may need to think about having this ability unlock around halfway through the game because it is seriously fun to use and may be a bit overpowered compared to the normal movement that the player has.

One thing that I can keep in mind while creating the levels for Ninjio is to make them as open-ended as possible. This means that enemies will be placed in a manner that allows the players to come up with different ways of getting around them or even killing them. One example of this may be a situation where there is a guard in the very center of a circular plaza surrounded by a high wall on one side and a fountain in the middle. They player, in this case, could get up on that high wall to achieve some high ground or they could just go to the center of the plaza and start fighting. In the second option, the player could then use the fountain or the walls as cover from the opposing fire coming from the guard.

A durability chart for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Another mechanic that I could implement would be similar to something found in Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in which weapons break after some use. This could force players to not use their main weapon all the time and maybe force them to sneak around enemies like the ninja that they are. One of my concerns with something like this is that I would then have to program some sort of inventory system so that players can swap out weapons when they break, which is surprisingly difficult to get right. Another concern that I have with this system is that when I play Breath of the Wild I tend to have lots of "Oh crap" situations where my good weapon breaks halfway through a boss fight, but maybe that's just me being a bad player. Overall, I don't think that this mechanic would fit Ninjio's action packed game play.

These are just some of my ideas on how to enforce a lesser use of weapons inside of Ninjio, but I am sure that as the game progresses I can come up with some more ideas. Out of all four ideas, the only one that I am going to scrap in its entirely is the the weapon breaking system that I described and reputed above.

This week's work log:

Monday November 27th: No school, enjoy crashing those Amazon servers!

Tuesday November 28th: Worked on the eyes for Bing Nu

Wednesday November 29th: Worked a bit on the model for -... .- ... - .. --- -.

Thursday November 30th: Textured  ... -. ...-.. --- -.

Friday December 1st: Did final touches on .- --- .. - ... -. ...-

. .--     -.. . . -.     .-     -. --- .. - ... .- -...