Game Design Chronicles

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Summary

Design summary for a Nintendo DS game developed by Jimmy Marcus Larsen as a fifth semester project at Aalborg University.

The game is not being worked on anymore.

Ninja Scream

01-10-2006

This project is dead, but the code lives on.

08-12-2005

Updated everything.

20-09-2005

Updated general features, the game world and game engine.

12-09-2005

Updated philosophy.

Philosophy

The primary goal of the game is to turn the player into a yelling ninja sensei. This is done by putting the player in charge of a small team of ninja students, and let him or her control them with voice commands.

Feature Set

General features

Context sensitive voice control of a small group of ninja students.

Unlimited amount of levels.

Fight or sneak your way through the levels.

Pandas to ride on.

Evil enemy pirates who shows no mercy.

The Game World

Levels

There will be several different types of levels, all randomly created. Scouting missions, recruiting missions and cleanse missions is all on the drawing board.

Characters

The main character is Sensei. An experienced ninja sensei who are always looking for new students to train, as they tend to die quickly.

Civilians are recruitable as ninja students, but Sensei should be careful of who he recruits as they are not all trustworthy. The pirates will also try to recruit them.

Enemies

Pirates will be placed randomly around the map at the start of the level. They will attack on sight or if you are being noisy. Meaning, they won't see you if you sneak up behind them. They are trying to recruit new students as well, so be sure to let them get the not so trustworthy ones.

Objects

Different obstacles will be placed around the map. These consists of, among other things, trees and traps.

Weapons

Shurikens (throwing stars) are the primary weapon of the ninjas. The pirates use swords and guns.

Game Engine

Backgrounds

Sprites

Each character and enemy sprite will utilize sprite rotation features, and be moved by a semi-realistic physics based system.

Camera

The camera will follow the player character only, and will do so in a close view from directly above him. Not too much of the map is revealed, which will enable surprise attacks and force the player to look at the radar on the top screen.

User Interface

There will be indicators of different kinds on the left and right side of the screen, and the top screen will consist of a large map of the level.

Intelligent behavior is planned, but first I need to get more intelligent myself.

Sound

You make the sounds. That can't be my job as well.

Speech Recognition

The next big thing is context sensitive speech recognition. Meaning you can say anything and the game will always react intelligently. Only limited by the features of the game engine.