Kings of the Arena, is a 2D, top down hero shooter. You can choose from a variety of characters and battle out in multiplayer against others.
Developed: August 2017 - November 2017 (development halted)
My Role: Solo Development
Type: Solo Project
Design Decisions and Process
The overall experience I intended for, was competitiveness. If you're more skilled than someone else, then you should win. The desired "easy to learn, hard to master" concept was intended. Learning the abilities and projectile types is fairly easy, as there aren't that many. Mastering the game though, involves knowing how to combine those abilities, both your own as well as other teammates'.
Each character is designed in a way to excel at a certain playstyle.
- Archer: Tank, heavy damage, high health.
- Mage: Defence, shield ability, stun ability.
- Cleric: Support, can heal allies, suck health from enemies.
- Druid: Support/damage, can create AOE effect of increased attack speed, heavy damage ability.
- Assassin: Offensive, low health, high damage abilities.
Since the game is designed with competition and skill in mind, choosing the right combination of characters for a team is vital to success. A more skilled team will hopefully be able to play one of each of the characters, using their desired roles effectively with each other to create a team dynamic that works well.
These sort of "easy to learn, hard to master" competitive games are very common. Overwatch has characters, each with specific roles in mind, allowing for very strategic, team based games. Even a game like CS:GO, with no built in roles, players design their teams around each others specific playstyles. There's the entry fragger, support and others. Choosing who does what, where they go and how they interact with the team is what defines a bad team from a great team.
