Game Design Overview - XenoHunter Logan
Overview:
Human colonies are protected from a wide range of aliens known collectively as Xenos by a battery of repulser field generators. These generators are pretty large so they can only protect city sized outposts and colonies and not individuals. The colonies employ XenoHunters to maintain the generators as well as try to maintain the Xeno population if they are starting to mass nearby a colony.
The story starts with Logan and Briggs checking in with Sethos and then going to pick up Zanara at the star port. Zanara is being hired on to assist the newly successful XenoHunting Guild on Caldaria. They have taken over management of the Repulser Generators and have recently been successful in clearing several low level Xeno warrens. Sethos had been struggling to keep the guild up after several members left or were severely wounded after an unsuccessful raid on a warren 3 years ago. Sethos feels a heavy regret for what happened, and the incident also wounded him severely so he went ahead with a B.E.A.M. conversion of the wounded arm.
Since then Sethos recruited Briggs and Logan, two friends with aspirations of becoming famous and successful XenoHunters. The two of them were key in getting the guild back up and successful.
The game tutorial is represented by Logan and Briggs running Zanara through some tests and tutorials and giving her the tour of the Guild HQ. The overall feel of the game is this isn't our universe, there is no mention of Earth, the shops, inns, and other factions work more like a fantasy setting with guilds, and loose organizations instead of corporations. There is a Federation of Planets and they do have a peacekeeping force known as the Federal Core.
The Federal Core keeps a tight reign on the weapons that XenoHunters can deploy in defense of colonies, issuing licenses based on performance that the XenoHunter currently displays using their existing weaponry. This is to prevent some criminal activity that seems to have been increasing in the past few decades. Reports of renegade colonies and pirate fleets have been increasing so the Core has been looking for ways to gain control of the situation, and licenses have been somewhat effective.
After Logan and Briggs runs Zanara through the tutorial they go visit the Core Office on Caldaria to get Zanara her starting rifle license so she can legally become a full fledged member of the XenoHunter Guild. Once this is completed they are contacted by Sethos and are advised that a new contract had appeared to make some repairs to the Beta Repulser Field Generator and go to the site together. There have been reports that the field is fluctuating and some Xeno activity had been detected in the area so all 4 of them go, Logan, Briggs, Sethos and Zanara. Sethos has the ability as a B.E.A.M. to scan for Xenos in the immediate area (the player must select a skill and use it to set a switch to display the on map encounters, otherwise they are invisible. Also need to see if there are settings to disable the yanfly chase player event on map indicators like the balloon and noise.)
There are a few weak Xeno encounters and the team locates and makes repairs to the Field Generator, and then go back to HQ, this is the simple area to ease the player into playing all 4 characters.
The HQ has a few missions waiting for them on the mission console and the player is sent on a few easy missions close to and inside of the main Caldaria Colony. After the first tier of missions are completed and the player has a chance to customize some skills, gear, attributes and armor, the party is given a mission to set up the Repulser Generators on a new expansion of the colony and are supposed to work with Mrissa, a TechnoSage in charge of creating and setting up the generators, who then joins the party. This will be the first time the player has to start picking who goes on missions. A few missions after this there is a discovery of an ancient alien ruin near the colony expansion and the team is tasked with going in to investigate, Mrissa is a required member of this party, and Sethos volunteers to stay behind and monitor the HQ, this leaves the team without a way to identify nearby enemies, but then Mrissa configures a drone to do the same thing automatically but has to sacrifice a utility to do so, so the player decides which utility function is disabled to acquire the scanner.
The party goes to the ruins and after some fights and some puzzles, they get to an ancient piece of technology that powers up and Mrissa is able to take data from it before it shuts down permanently. They take this info back to HQ and it turns out it is a warning that talks about an ancient war between the Imperium and the Enslavers. The warning is about the possible return of the Enslavers after the war had ended several eons ago. They warn that it would take 3 eons for the Enslavers to recover after they were nearly wiped out and forced to flee the galaxy.
The party takes this info to the Core Office and aren't taken too seriously as they have very real and immediate threats to deal with in the form of a massed pirate fleet in the sector that threatens to blockade the star port of Caldaria. The party offers assistance to Core in exchange for a license to investigate other ruins for more clues about the mysterious Imperium and the Enslavers. Logan also starts to have strange episodes of flashes of what he thinks are memories and voices in a language he doesn't understand, and raises questions to Sethos and Briggs about his past, since he already knows he was adopted. He also decides to go ask his adoptive parents about details but they don't have much to go on, just that he came from the Caldaria Orphanage. He goes there to get more information as well but can't find anything and the party is ready to go assist Core and make for space in Setho's old Spaceship, hastily retrofitted to assist the Core in the space battle. (I don't know how I will handle the space battle, maybe the focus would be to have the party board a pirate ship and turn it against the fleet, or maybe a mini game where I have a totally different battle system or puzzle events that has the player balancing engines, weapons, and shields in order to defeat enemy ships.)
After the party is successful in helping to get the pirate fleet to leave, they are given the license and head to the nearest known alien ruin. This ends the first chapter but the guild HQ will continue to be an imporant hub for upgrades and for going to the Core Office to pick up more licenses.
Classes:
Tracker - > Hunter -> XenoHunter (this is the main character's class) His skills facilitate ensuring critical hits for himself as well as a series of skills that increase the chance of obtaining upgrade/crafting material drops, starting at 75% and increasing the chance as the class and skills increase
Ravager -> Renegade -> Reaver (melee weapon specialist, two characters in the game are this class) Their skills involve physical bleed effects, bypassing enemy def, and chaining together multiple hit combos.
Rifleman -> Specialist -> Mercenary (2 characters can be this class) This class skills rely on a set up skill to steady weapons and then unleashing powerful single target attacks, they can also use MP to convert to TP to ensure they can continue to increase combat damage output for long fights.
Bionic.Enhanced.Arm.Morph. -> Expert.B.E.A.M -> Supreme.B.E.A.M (2 characters can be this class) This class uses their cannon arm to select elemental types during battle and to use various multiple target attacks to spread damage around. They use TP to replenish MP and their skills have limited uses before the cannon arm needs to be recharged, requiring TP do to so. (Basically they are hot swapping BEAM cannon power packs). Skills are upgraded in the beam cannon via weapon augments.
Tank -> Rampart -> Juggernaut (1 character can be this class) This character has multiple enemy def, agi, mdf, atk, mat debuffs and uses a powerful 2 hand maul to deal staggering single target attacks. Their skills are augmented and upgraded via armor upgrades, since the armor is mechanized and powered to produce the debuffs to enemies.
TechnoSage -> TechnoWizard -> TechnoMancer (2 characters can be this class) this class is the typical MP using class that produces party buffs, party healing, and utility abilities like removing and preventing status effects. Their skills and skill upgrades are directly linked to their drone weapons that they deploy in combat to produce the buffs, healing, utility and attacks. The drones can be upgraded as well to customize the skills that the drones can award to the character.
Weapon Types:
Mazer - A 1 handed laser blaster. Comes in several license tiers
Blaster - A mazer rifle. Comes in several tiers.
VibroSword - A sword with a powered vibrating mono-filament edge. Comes in tiers.
VibroAxe - An axe with a powered vibrating mono-filament edge. Comes in tiers.
B.E.A.M. - Part of the BEAM conversion, comes with different element nozzle types and in tiers
PowerMaul - A powered stored-kinetic maul. Comes in tiers.
Aphid Drone - A small round drone. Comes in tiers. Offense and utility drone.
Apex Drone - A small cube drone. Comes in tiers. Defense and healing drone.
Armor Types:
Light Stimsuit: Used by TechnoSage, Tracker, Rifleman, Ravager, light armor that does not restrict agility and provided the least amount of protection.
Light Bionic Suit: Used by Trackers, Rifleman, Ravagers, and BEAMs, a light powered suit that offers a balanced stance towards agility and protection.
Bionic Suit: Used by BEAM and Tanks, reduces agility in trade for increased defense.
Reinforced Bionic Suit: Used by Tanks, this offers the best defense but significantly reduces the agility and mobility of the user.
Accessories:
Biometric Relay - (pharm upgrade)
Biometric Scanner - (recovery upgrade)
AutoStim Patch - (weak heal over time)
SmartWeapon Link - (increase hit rate)
WeaponSage Link - (increase atk)
Suit AutoPatch - (increase def)
Supplimental Battery - (small MP increase)
Kinetic charger - (small MP HoT)
Bionic Neuron Patch - (increase agi)
Cybernetic Muscle Memory - (increase initial TP)
Suit Hardener (various flavors)
Characters:
Logan Silvermane
Briggs Barns
Sethos Arnstad
Zanara Trakkend
Mrissa Avers
Town:
Core HQ:
Jord Hightower - Core Leader
Brac Vandermoon - Core Marine Leader
Anna Mey - Core Receptionist
Ophelia Avalos - Combat Specialist (marine)
Zack Whitetower - Communications Specialist
Thadius Santos - License Officer
Supplimental Characters:
Edmond Pendragon
Martha Styers
Thrace Singhurst
Arin Resol
Agnes Stormsledge
Meleke Greenburg
Alan Greenburg
Darius Pinchcopper
Pirates:
Xandred Twistblade
Locations:
Caldaria Colony Main
XenoHunter Guild HQ
Colony Engineering Tunnels
Colony Repulser Field Generators
Core HQ
Weapon Shop
Armor Shop
Item Shop
Upgrade Shop
Accessory Shop
Communal Hall (bar/canteen)
Various Houses (make sure there is a point to them)
Space Port
Xeno Warren Rock
Xeno Warren Tech Tunnels
Xeno Warren BioMass
Xeno Warren Abanoned Lab
Xeno Warren Destroyed outpost
Ancient Alien Ruins
Inside Sethos' Ship
