The document contains ideas for various game concepts, including side-scrolling, platformer, combat, and multiplayer games. It discusses ideas like players hunting each other in a hide and seek style game or battling animated characters from TV and movies. The document also summarizes research on similar games like Cuphead, Shovel Knight, Megaman, and The Binding of Isaac to inform design decisions around art style, boss battles, difficulty, and randomization. Finally, it outlines plans to use freely available audio assets for sound effects and music to suit an action-oriented game.

1. Game Ideas

2. • Side scrolling
• Platformer (cup head)
• Combat
• Which platform?
• Vs other players? Multiplayer, combat game. Jetpacks? Comedy
catchphrase?
• Pinball sort of game?
• You are monster consuming people? Werewolf? You start off running from
creature then end up infected and have to infect others?
• Maybe one player starts as the monster and the others have hunt it down.
Hide and seek sort of game.

3. Monster,hide and seek, multiplayer
• What if one player has unlimited sight and the other players can see
the only part of the map. This would be hunters and the hunted. The
partially sighted have powers, freeze the hunter. Survive the time limit
and the hunted(humans) win.

4. Multiplayer vs game
• 4 players
• Vs free for all
• Side on side scroll
•

6. Jousting
• Side scroll
• Two players attack each other with joust
• Two rocket ships?

7. Game
I like the idea of a series of bosses rather than actual side
scrolling levels. Creative bosses that are completely
different to one another.
What if you fight off a number of movie and TV characters.
You could have bosses of Rick Sanchez, Bojack Horseman,
Bob’s Burgers, Archer. John Rain
Maybe just animated characters?
Could have knockoff characters?
Each has very different abilities. Teleportation, throwing
different projectiles, has very different weaknesses.
You’re a person dealing with mental issues each manifests
itself as a different enemy. Each has to be overcome. This is
not revealed?
Different art style on each level
You’re an avid TV and movie watcher who has fallen asleep
watching TV and you are now playing in the dreams and you
will have to use your knowledge of the shows in order to
defeat the bosses.

8. Animated

9. Game
• Battle through the ages: amebae, dino, caveman, roman extra
• Stuck in a child's imagination, fighting off things from a kids
imagination.

10. Hat=weakness

12. Product research
• My game is a side scrolling action game and I will therefore be
researching: Cuphead, Shovel Knight, Megaman, The Binding of Isaac:
Rebirth.

13. Cuphead
• This is a 2-d side scrolling run and gun.
• It has the art style of old animated films, such as Disney and has a very 30s style to it.
• Bosses are the central spectacle here – ultra-paced, wonderfully designed, concentrated encounters
that punctuate its run-time (Sam White. (2017). Cuphead review: come for the 1930s visuals, stay for the hard-earned thrills. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/09/cuphead-review-
game-visuals-thrills-1930s-animation. Last accessed 20th Jan 2018.)
• From what I have seen of this game I love the idea of varied bosses that take many tries to work out
how to defeat. I do however think I will go for a different art style to fit better my game.
• With no health bar for enemies and no sense of visual feedback, though, there’s no way to no how far
you are from victory in any given fight. This seems like a misstep that serves the beautiful art style but
can, at times, feel needlessly obtuse from a gameplay perspective. (Sam White. (2017). Cuphead review: come for the 1930s
visuals, stay for the hard-earned thrills. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/09/cuphead-review-game-visuals-thrills-1930s-animation.
Last accessed 20th Jan 2018.)
• I think in my game I will not have a health bar but rather visual clues that the boss is becoming weaker, I
feel like this gives a good indication of how well a player is doing without unnecessarily filling the screen
with graphics. This will help create a more immersive and cinematic game.

14. Shovel Knight
• I really enjoy the art style of shovel knight and feel as though it is
one that I can hopefully emulate.
• I also like the idea of stats kept neatly at the top of the screen so
they do not clutter the screen.
• The gaming industry is attached to an invisible pendulum. In recent
years, that pendulum has noticeably swung towards an
appreciation of the old school, with pixel art, gruelling difficulty, and
seemingly ancient ideas made new again. Colin Moriarty. (2014). Shovel Knight Review. Available:
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/06/26/shovel-knight-review. Last accessed 21st Jan 2018
• I hope to use a resurgence in these ideas to help create my game. It
shows the idea of pixel art can work in modern gaming.
• What I like again about this game is the way every game has a
specific design and theme. Leading to a variety of gameplay and
making sure the game aesthetics never get old.

15. Megaman
• This was one of the first game franchises to have every
level have a different theme and a boss to fit this theme.
It also put a lot of emphasis on its boss battles, many of
them taking more than one try to defeat.
• This originally story spins the yarn that Dr Light created
six master robots for industrial purposes: Cutman,
Gutsman, Elecman, Iceman, Fireman and
Bombman. Darren Calvert. (2007). Review: Mega Man (NES). Available: http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/vc/mega_man_nes. Last
accessed 21st Jan 2018.
• As you can see by the master robot names they have
very specific and simple themes, not only for
themselves but the level that they are in.

16. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
• What I like about this game is not only its
difficulty but the way in which each different
time you play it, it is randomly generated and so
infinitely replay able even when you continue to
fail.
• brutal bullet-hell difficulty isn’t a punishment,
but an opportunity to see something totally
new.DAN STAPLETON. (2014). THE BINDING OF ISAAC: REBIRTH REVIEW.Available: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/11/26/the-binding-
of-isaac-rebirth-review. Last accessed 22nd Jul 2018
• This is the kind of feeling that I want to create in
my game. I want it to feel difficult but only so
that it is rewarding when you win. I am also
going to use some randomisation so that each
retry is slightly different.

17. Audio Planning
• I will be using audio assets that I can download off of sound cloud.
• This will be for my sound effects, this will include firing a gun, getting
hit and any other sound effects that the game requires. It will be
much easier to asses what is needed once I have a video to match the
audio with.
• The other audio I will need to use is music for my soundtrack. I have
not yet decided if I will use one track per level or if I will just use one
track for the entire game demo. Either way I need to wait until I have
finished the video for my game to asses what piece of music will suit
it best. But I am looking for a fast paced song that will suit the action
in my game.