Rift Rave
Rift Rave is a multiplayer party game of my own design that combines elements of both a board game and a mini-game collection. My main design philosophy for this game is to create a cavalcade of quirky and memorable characters while emphasizing what made the genre of games fun for players in the first place. While looking for a Market for this sort of game I managed to stumble upon several forums and Reddit groups dedicated to reviving the N64 and GameCube style of Mario Party through a project known as the "Mario Party Revival project". This game also will capitalize on the increasing popularity of couch co-op party games such as Gang Beasts, Duck Game, and Speedrunners through its use of minigames, which would be rapid-fire games that would allow for variety keeping the players invested in the gameplay. The game is currently in its early prototype phases with the first playable prototype currently complete. DEMO LINK (Controller Required)
Rift Rave Prototype Trailer
Rift Rave Playable Alpha Trailer
Story
The world is overseen by four deities of immense power, known simply as the forces of the Universe and the oldest of these forces is Lzote Shognal the force of chaos and mayhem. Lzote is throwing a birthday party, but due to his fellow gods being far too busy maintaining the universe they could not make it. Not allowing himself to be depressed on his birthday, the mad god concocted a master plan, he would just find some new friends. Using this logic, he gathered up people from all over the universe to be his new friends. His new "guests" are now subjected to a board game of his own design where they are the game pieces and he is the game master.
Game Loop
The game loop for this particular game that I have designed will be very similar to other games of the genre with a few added twists to it. a single turn of gameplay will consist of each of the four players, human or AI taking their turn through rolling a dice and moving that number of spaces. As the player moves, they will encounter events on the board such as shops, the Loan Shark and Lzote himself. When a player lands on a game space that spaces effect will activate and then they will pass to the next player. Once every player has gone the four players will play a minigame and the winner(s) will receive a set amount of gold for their victory. Then the loop will repeat for a set number of turns.
What Sets It Apart
One of the hardest aspects to consider when looking at this type of game is what is going to ultimately set it apart from Mario Party and other games like it. I took a step back and looked at our main character, the host Lzote, and decided that the focus should be placed on him. So I have decided to incorporate boss battles into the game where in order to earn a favor you have to battle the Mad God in a one-on-one duel before you can actually claim his favor. Being a creature that loves games of all kinds, this fits in line well with Lzote's character as he will often want to join in on the action and makes it much more difficult to obtain favor from such a fickle deity. Another thing that will set it apart will be the inclusion of trivia, a common board game mechanic, that will be accessed on the board, allowing for a wider variety in spaces and allow the drab humorless assistant some time in the spotlight. Another thing that sets it apart is its unique space assortment such as the aforementioned trivia squares and the loan shark, a beast that bestows money unto the players only to take it back later and the Pit of a Single Trial a Single player game experience that can result in the player winning fabulous prizes much like a bonus round in game shows. Finally what will set it apart is its quirky cast of characters such as the lovable yet dimwitted Thorg, The Intergalactic wannabe Fun-G, and the ever cynical mad scientist Frankie
My Role
My primary role in this game is as the creative director and project lead. I am the one who is in charge of designing the game systems, characters, story, mini-games, and levels as well as leading the team by delegating tasks and making sure that everybody stays on track. I wrote up the initial GDD and some basic lore for the game to describe the characters and where they come from and how the gods in the universe work. This was done for the benefit of adding additional characters and board maps to the world in the future creating this quirky atmosphere that will permeate the entirety of the game. I also did some programming for the main game focusing primarily on UI such as the character select screen and the system that we use to determine the placement of the characters I also created and programmed the skeleton for what will later become the equipment shop. My third and final role was to take up modeling characters after my old 3D modeler had graduated. I modeled Frankie, a character that is set to make it into the game within the year.
What I learned
This was my first time being in a leadership position and while I can't accurately judge my own performance. I can detail some of the issues that I had personally faced as a first time lead. One of the major issues I faced was cutting features. As a first time designer and lead seeing that this game is my baby my pride and joy its hard sometimes cut some features that you love in theory that just would not be practical in a timely fashion. One major example of a feature I had to cut was the concept of a store because of a slew of problems getting it working and I felt that when compared to everything else we currently had and what still needed to be added this felt like the least important aspect of the game so I had to cut it. This ties heavily into scope which during the planning phase I had a difficult time assessing, I had such I hopes for my team and I that I forgot to account for, people not doing their work on time or at all, Illness, bugs, and lack of bodies that could perform the tasks needed such as animation. This resulted in us only reaching a pre-alpha stage having to hold off on animating certain characters and sticking primarily with Thorg. This got me to rethink my strategy when we decided to continue the game into the next year and I am prepared to cut features in order to reach an actual alpha demo because sometimes you have to readjust your scope mid-project in order to reach important deadlines because as it has been said a project only becomes late one day at a time.