Concept game idea for university

I have a group project for my second year in university to build something. My team decided to go with a game and wanted some feedback from other developers and gamers as to what you think of our initial idea and any improvements you would make upon it.

The idea:
A 3D procedural platformer where the player would collect coins and move through the level as the platforms move around. The player would get slightly faster and faster as time goes by, and the game ends when the player hits an obstacle or falls off the map afterwhich a final score would be recorded. If the player wanted to play competitively, they would have the option or registering and saving their score on an online database. The coins that the player collects can be used to buy items in the store which the player could use in the game e.g. an item to slow down the game for x seconds.

Feedback:
We already have the right amount of programmers and artists in our team but we'd like feedback on the concept itself and any adjustments you as a player would like to see made to it. In terms of mechanics, themes, music or art style. Hope to hear from you guys soon!

 

The best idea in this kind of situation is to make a quick prototype in a couple of days, test it and see if it works. Then develop it iteratively.

 

Is that the entire assignment, build something as a group? There are no specifics - does it have to be a game, can it be a 3D model walking down a hall way, can the 'something' be an actual wooden chair? Does it have to be interactive at all?

What is the course this project is in, and what is your study? BA, BS, etc.

 

I think that as a first game project the scope is pretty reasonable.

I think in principle the concept is sound. If it's just as described, with the only change over time being that the player gets faster, I think it'll get boring pretty quickly. Games are repetitive activities by their nature, you make them interesting by adding some kind of variation to that repetition. I'd think about things you can do that will make the player interested to see whatever comes or happens next.

Player controls are also critical. It sounds like your central mechanic at the moment is that challenge increases because the player gets faster, and thus harder to control. There's risk here that players will find this frustrating - you're just making something arbitrarily harder. Can you think of a way to balance that with something that makes things more exciting or rewarding? For instance, maybe you get score for successful jumps, longer jumps award more score, and you need the extra speed to make bigger jumps? Or maybe a flood mechanic, and as you climb higher platforms get further apart but gravity also gets weaker?

 

Storyline and setting needed as these will make populating your world much easier, like a springboard for ideas.

Also they tend to put restraints on what you can and cannot do which can be a good thing in game design and development.

 

Maybe something to set the context, a-la Space Invaders ("aliens are invading and you must defend your planet"), but I wouldn't go any further than that.

 

Also do some research into how other developers have done procedural platformers. I'm sure there will be plenty of examples to look at and approaches to consider. Most importantly you want to find out about the sticking points and problems they had with this approach. e.g. Do some procedural algorithms start looking the same over larger scales so levels become repetitive.