ROBOSAURS
Overview:
Robosaurs is a roguelike about survival, opportunity, and choice. Within the game the player will have to manage a pack of cyborg dinosaurs as they desperately hunt, and are hunted, on their migration path to procreate. Players will assume control of the pack leader and have to decide the best course of action for their pack while managing how much individual kilowatts each member has, and prolonging the inevitable decline of their packs kilowatts stores. Due to the severe impact of how Jurassic Park influenced people’s view on dinosaurs the aesthetic of the Robosaurs would resemble that of Jurassic Park like dinosaurs meets cyberpunk. The game will follow the standard features of a roguelike for everything except combat which will be governed by basic RPG principles.
Goal:
The goal of Robosaurs is to take your pack to the Promised Lands and procreate with the females located there.
Difficulty:
Each play-through of Robosaurs should be challenging to the player as well as make the player feel like it is a desperate attempt to win. As such the success rate should be around 25% for the average player. In order to achieve this goal the game needs to have an AI that will always try to understand how the player is doing and never let them gain too much of an advantage. If the advantage starts to grow, the AI should increase the difficulty of enemies thrown at the player, as well as reduce how much nanobot rich meat is given at the end of battle.
Robosaurs:
Races:
All the robosaurs are carnivores regardless of what they look like. The initial robosaur pack the player starts out with will be based upon an Iguanodon. This will be the basic robosaur in the game. There will be no bonuses for starting out with this robosaur; however there are no disadvantages either. The pack leader will eventually run into random occurrences on his journey that will allow them unlock additional robosaur types to start out as. These different types will each have different strengths and weaknesses that will lend themselves to a specific play style. Such as having more members initially within the pack, dealing more damage, or being able to withstand more hits. Thus, allowing the leader to utilize different strategies that may not be able to without the new robosaur race.
Kilowatts:
Each robosaur must consume nanobot rich meat and maintain kilowatts to survive. The kilowatts will be used not only to determine how far individual robosaurs can travel; they will also be the source of life. Whenever a robosaur is hit, it will take shield damage; if the shields are destroyed the robosaur will start taking health damage. This damage can be repaired by spending kilowatts at the pack leader’s discretion. When a robosaur runs out of kilowatts they will die leaving behind only the augmentations they had equipped.
Hunting:
When robosaurs make a kill, they will gain kilowatts and bonus stat points from the nanobot rich meat they eat. Pack leaders will be able to save a portion of the meat to either trade with or to be eaten later; if saved the nanobots lose their potency and the meat no longer gives a stat boost when eaten.
Stat Boosts:
Robosaurs will be governed by four core stats: power, shield strength, endurance, and speed. When a robosaur eats the fresh nanobot rich meat of a kill the pack leader will be able to choose what stats to increase. Each of the core stats will also be given to distinct robosaurs that will embody what it means to have them such as a T-Rex will embody strength, and a raptor will embody speed. Other mixes will be prevalent throughout the game and the player will be able to look up what stats robosaurs predominately have after finding them for the first time.
Sacrifice:
When the pack starts to get desperate they may turn to the pack leader for a sacrifice. The pack leader must then decide if they should sacrifice anyone, and who it will be. This can happen when the majority of the pack is low on kilowatts. When the decision is made to sacrifice someone the whole pack will attack them. If the sacrifice is too strong, more damage might be done to the pack then if nothing was done at all.
Augmentations:
Robosaurs only have two different attacks to choose from. Ranged attacks, where part of their body transforms into a gun, or melee attacks, where part of their body transforms into a melee weapon. Even though these are just simple options to choose from, ranged or melee, the player will be able to outfit these two choices with different augmentations that will drastically change how these attacks work. I.e. weapons could pierce shields, heal robosaurs, cause burn damage to unshielded robosaurs, or damage enemy robosaurs.
Shields will also be augmentable in ways to heal, provide more defense, recharge shields, or damage attacking robosaurs. Regardless of the augmentation a full description would be given to the player before they try it out.
Outposts:
Occasionally the pack will wind up finding an outpost. At one of these the pack leader can trade meat for new augmentations, fresh nanobot rich meat to boost stat points. These venders will also purchase any spare augmentations or members from the pack leader as well.
UI:
The player will be given a map in which they will be able to choose the path they want to take. This map will give the pack leader some basic information upon what to expect at the next point along the map while not revealing any more. The map will also have a collapsible map button that will allow the player to view there pack members, what augmentations they have, and how many kilowatts each member has left.
Phases
The Path:
All Robosaur races are on their own path to their own Promised Lands. However, that doesn’t mean these paths don’t cross and cross often. Upon traveling to a new map point random events will trigger. Pack leaders will have to assess the situation and choose what action to take.
Events:
Throughout your journey your robosaur pack will encounter many different situations in which the robosaur pack leader must decide wither it is better to attack, set up traps for robosaurs stalking your pack, how to react to environmental effects, and more. Each of these random encounters, as well as others, will have multiple choices for the player to choose from. Any path you eventually choose will always lead you closer to your goal, of procreation, which will always be marked on your map. However, each path requires a certain amount of kilowatts to travel and if any of your robosaurs does not have enough, they will parish along the way.
Battle:
When you do decide for your pack to attack other robosaurs, or you are surprised by an attack, the game will go into a battle phase where the pack leader will command his group in classic RPG style. Initially the pack leader will pick who each pack member attacks and with what weapon. After this has been chosen the pack leader will initialize combat and the actions will play out from both teams. As a classic RPG the order in which attacks are executed as well as everything else will be based upon stats. If the enemy decides to surrender they will give the pack leader some options to choose from. These options can be anything from taking some spare nanobot rich meat, an augmentation, or to giving you one of their members as tribute. As leader you do not have to accept their surrender, and can always continue killing them if you wish. On the other hand, if you are losing you will have to sacrifice one of your members to hold them off while your pack escapes, sometimes he may prevail and catch back up, other times he may flee and leave your pack down a member while still forced to fight.
Reward:
After the battle has been won the pack leader will be told of how much fresh nanobot rich meat is available to eat and what spoils of battle have been found. These can be anything from intact augmentations to extra meat. The pack leader then decides how much of the enemy to eat and save, then where to go next.
Winning
Once the player gets to the final point they will have to fight the guardians of the promised lands. This guardian pack will be the same type of robosaur the player picked in the beginning of the game. However, they will have full augmentation on the pack, and have a 70% boost applied to their stats.
Beating the Guardians
Once the player beats the guardians they will have a record of their winning robosaur pack and any other packs that they beat it with in the future.
Robosaurs is a roguelike about survival, opportunity, and choice. Within the game the player will have to manage a pack of cyborg dinosaurs as they desperately hunt, and are hunted, on their migration path to procreate. Players will assume control of the pack leader and have to decide the best course of action for their pack while managing how much individual kilowatts each member has, and prolonging the inevitable decline of their packs kilowatts stores. Due to the severe impact of how Jurassic Park influenced people’s view on dinosaurs the aesthetic of the Robosaurs would resemble that of Jurassic Park like dinosaurs meets cyberpunk. The game will follow the standard features of a roguelike for everything except combat which will be governed by basic RPG principles.
Goal:
The goal of Robosaurs is to take your pack to the Promised Lands and procreate with the females located there.
Difficulty:
Each play-through of Robosaurs should be challenging to the player as well as make the player feel like it is a desperate attempt to win. As such the success rate should be around 25% for the average player. In order to achieve this goal the game needs to have an AI that will always try to understand how the player is doing and never let them gain too much of an advantage. If the advantage starts to grow, the AI should increase the difficulty of enemies thrown at the player, as well as reduce how much nanobot rich meat is given at the end of battle.
Robosaurs:
Races:
All the robosaurs are carnivores regardless of what they look like. The initial robosaur pack the player starts out with will be based upon an Iguanodon. This will be the basic robosaur in the game. There will be no bonuses for starting out with this robosaur; however there are no disadvantages either. The pack leader will eventually run into random occurrences on his journey that will allow them unlock additional robosaur types to start out as. These different types will each have different strengths and weaknesses that will lend themselves to a specific play style. Such as having more members initially within the pack, dealing more damage, or being able to withstand more hits. Thus, allowing the leader to utilize different strategies that may not be able to without the new robosaur race.
Kilowatts:
Each robosaur must consume nanobot rich meat and maintain kilowatts to survive. The kilowatts will be used not only to determine how far individual robosaurs can travel; they will also be the source of life. Whenever a robosaur is hit, it will take shield damage; if the shields are destroyed the robosaur will start taking health damage. This damage can be repaired by spending kilowatts at the pack leader’s discretion. When a robosaur runs out of kilowatts they will die leaving behind only the augmentations they had equipped.
Hunting:
When robosaurs make a kill, they will gain kilowatts and bonus stat points from the nanobot rich meat they eat. Pack leaders will be able to save a portion of the meat to either trade with or to be eaten later; if saved the nanobots lose their potency and the meat no longer gives a stat boost when eaten.
Stat Boosts:
Robosaurs will be governed by four core stats: power, shield strength, endurance, and speed. When a robosaur eats the fresh nanobot rich meat of a kill the pack leader will be able to choose what stats to increase. Each of the core stats will also be given to distinct robosaurs that will embody what it means to have them such as a T-Rex will embody strength, and a raptor will embody speed. Other mixes will be prevalent throughout the game and the player will be able to look up what stats robosaurs predominately have after finding them for the first time.
Sacrifice:
When the pack starts to get desperate they may turn to the pack leader for a sacrifice. The pack leader must then decide if they should sacrifice anyone, and who it will be. This can happen when the majority of the pack is low on kilowatts. When the decision is made to sacrifice someone the whole pack will attack them. If the sacrifice is too strong, more damage might be done to the pack then if nothing was done at all.
Augmentations:
Robosaurs only have two different attacks to choose from. Ranged attacks, where part of their body transforms into a gun, or melee attacks, where part of their body transforms into a melee weapon. Even though these are just simple options to choose from, ranged or melee, the player will be able to outfit these two choices with different augmentations that will drastically change how these attacks work. I.e. weapons could pierce shields, heal robosaurs, cause burn damage to unshielded robosaurs, or damage enemy robosaurs.
Shields will also be augmentable in ways to heal, provide more defense, recharge shields, or damage attacking robosaurs. Regardless of the augmentation a full description would be given to the player before they try it out.
Outposts:
Occasionally the pack will wind up finding an outpost. At one of these the pack leader can trade meat for new augmentations, fresh nanobot rich meat to boost stat points. These venders will also purchase any spare augmentations or members from the pack leader as well.
UI:
The player will be given a map in which they will be able to choose the path they want to take. This map will give the pack leader some basic information upon what to expect at the next point along the map while not revealing any more. The map will also have a collapsible map button that will allow the player to view there pack members, what augmentations they have, and how many kilowatts each member has left.
Phases
The Path:
All Robosaur races are on their own path to their own Promised Lands. However, that doesn’t mean these paths don’t cross and cross often. Upon traveling to a new map point random events will trigger. Pack leaders will have to assess the situation and choose what action to take.
Events:
Throughout your journey your robosaur pack will encounter many different situations in which the robosaur pack leader must decide wither it is better to attack, set up traps for robosaurs stalking your pack, how to react to environmental effects, and more. Each of these random encounters, as well as others, will have multiple choices for the player to choose from. Any path you eventually choose will always lead you closer to your goal, of procreation, which will always be marked on your map. However, each path requires a certain amount of kilowatts to travel and if any of your robosaurs does not have enough, they will parish along the way.
Battle:
When you do decide for your pack to attack other robosaurs, or you are surprised by an attack, the game will go into a battle phase where the pack leader will command his group in classic RPG style. Initially the pack leader will pick who each pack member attacks and with what weapon. After this has been chosen the pack leader will initialize combat and the actions will play out from both teams. As a classic RPG the order in which attacks are executed as well as everything else will be based upon stats. If the enemy decides to surrender they will give the pack leader some options to choose from. These options can be anything from taking some spare nanobot rich meat, an augmentation, or to giving you one of their members as tribute. As leader you do not have to accept their surrender, and can always continue killing them if you wish. On the other hand, if you are losing you will have to sacrifice one of your members to hold them off while your pack escapes, sometimes he may prevail and catch back up, other times he may flee and leave your pack down a member while still forced to fight.
Reward:
After the battle has been won the pack leader will be told of how much fresh nanobot rich meat is available to eat and what spoils of battle have been found. These can be anything from intact augmentations to extra meat. The pack leader then decides how much of the enemy to eat and save, then where to go next.
Winning
Once the player gets to the final point they will have to fight the guardians of the promised lands. This guardian pack will be the same type of robosaur the player picked in the beginning of the game. However, they will have full augmentation on the pack, and have a 70% boost applied to their stats.
Beating the Guardians
Once the player beats the guardians they will have a record of their winning robosaur pack and any other packs that they beat it with in the future.
