Concept

Core Mechanic

Changing momentum of the character. Single propulsion device, no formal weapon, in a weightless environment where the physics of conservation of momentum is most prevalent. Realistic space movement physics (tuned based on .

Character

Building from the concept of being limited to a single device, the character art should heavily emphasize said device. As such, perhaps the character IS the device and little more. A ship, that is simply a large propulsion device and perhaps a fuel reservoir is a good candidate. This has the advantage, from a player experience perspective, that upgrades to the device are upgrades to the entire character, not just one piece. Think Mario, the flower didn’t give him flaming hands that allowed him to shoot fireballs, it turned him into Fire Mario.

Game World

The world and story should be one that gives the player an emotional connection to the character. This may be more difficult to do in the case of the character being a robotic ship, but a last of its kind narrative, implying uniqueness, in the face of an unreasonably hostile force can do it. Think Chappie, but possibly with post-apocalyptic themes like a reverse Terminator.

Theme

Survival against unreasonable and overwhelming odds. Can be accomplished in a space based puzzler as well as a frantic side scrolling shooter type game. Very flexible.

Possible Mechanics

• Propulsion Upgrades

  • Plasma Accelerator: Fire balls of plasma, can damage targets as well as propel

  • Graviton Accelerator: Fire gravitons giving targets gravitational properties

  • Secondary Fire

    • Gravity Bomb: Create a miniature black hole, can be used to slingshot self or make sharp turns, or trap/destroy enemies and obstacles.

    • Wormhole Generator: Create a wormhole between two points by firing entangled gravity bombs. When they collapse into black holes, they will form a traversable wormhole between them.

• Ship Health

• Ship Armor

• Collision Damage: Proportional to relative velocity, zero damage below velocity threshold

• Enemy/Obstacle Collision Damage

  • Ram to destroy (upgraded armor would be useful here)

  • Use gravity to cause collisions that damage/destroy

• Obstacles

  • Black Holes

  • Worm Holes

  • Asteroids

  • Space Station walls and defenses

  • Aggressive entities (turrets and such)

  • Enemy ships

  • Comets

  • Laser Fields

  • Mines