Game Concept

Game Concept DevLog

Working Title:

Triple Slime

Concept Statement:

Wake up in a strange world surrounded by slimes that believe you have come to save them from the evil dragon that is set on destroying their world. With the assistance of the slimes, you set out on an adventure, defeating foes and recruiting new allies in this match-3 puzzle game, all in order to defeat the terrifying dragon and restore peace to the land.

Genre/Category:

Triple Slime is a match 3 puzzle game that has a short story build into it. The Progression through the story is locked behind completing levels within a specified timeframe or move limit.

In a match 3 game, a player is required to form lines of triplets or greater, of the same tiles from a randomly generated board of multiple different types of tiles. This is done by swapping positions of a tile with the tile next to it. Occasionally there are conditions placed in a round where they player must earn a certain amount of point within a certain time limit or within a certain number of moves. In the former, players must identify possible triplets they can form one after another in quick succession so that they can accumulate the required score before time runs out. The latter requires players to study the board a little more and identify possible moves where they can earn the most points (by getting multiple triplets in 1 move or by creating a quadruplet or a quintuplet instead of a triplet).

This category of game required a certain amount of strategizing and concentration in order to clear each round the fastest or with the least number of moves.       

Concept Creation Process/Area:

Triple Slime is a straightforward match-3 puzzle game with a little bit of additive design and a story that plays out between completing level. It draws inspiration from a few different areas.

I wanted Triple Slime to have the same kind of feel as Candy Crush Saga in that it uses bright contrasting colours for each of the tiles on the game board, it plays short happy sounds when a player makes a move and that it isn’t a never-ending match-3 game.  You have set task to clear the level while meeting the level condition rather than seeing how high of a score you can get before running out of possible matches.

However, different from Candy Crush Sage, the aim of each level is not to accumulate a certain score, but to deal a certain amount of damage in order to defeat your enemies or foes while meeting the conditions provided.

I wanted the player to interact with the slimes that they have recruited, so to assist you along the way, powerup slimes have been added that the user can choose to use in order to help them clear a level. For example, there will be a powerup that when used freezes the timer for X – seconds or adds Z - moves, a powerup that doubles all your points for the next Y – moves.

For the character design, I drew inspiration from the members of my Final Fantasy XIV raid group and the fact that slimes are simple to draw. Each of the slimes will have their own unique characteristics that have been adopted from each member of my raid group. For example, in the Triple Slime we have a slime that is lifting kettlebells. The inspiration for this one comes from one of the members who is always late to raid night because they are always at the gym. Another one is a slime that tried to cook pasta, but it turned into soup, because that happened to someone in my raid group.  

The story is basically an “isekai”, where the main character is transported to another world where they wake up and must now live. In this case they are assumed to be the hero in the story, and they set out to save the world from the evil forces set on destroying it.

Target Audience:

Triple Slime is targeted towards the single-player casual gamer who doesn’t have lots of time to grind out levels, but instead would like to play something on and off for a few minutes at a time.

Being a Match-3 puzzle game, Triple Slime is designed to be a single-player game. Normally one person works on solving the puzzle. Meaning this game would not appeal to those who desire a strong social aspect from the game like in a MMO (massive multiplayer online) game. Although there isn’t any inbuild social aspect of the game, players can compete with their friend to see who can get to the highest level or solve a puzzle the fastest.

As match-3 games have conditions on most levels restricting the amount of time or moves someone has, this means each round of the game can be played in a couple of minutes. This makes is perfect for casual gamers who would like something to play in between their day-to-day activities. For example, catching public transport or eating lunch.

Players also require a little thinking in order to clear each level so it’s perfect for someone who wants to focus on doing something and get a little sense of achievement after completing each level.

Competitive Analysis:

Match-3 games have been around for a long time. In the mid 1990’s, a Russian programmer created a game called “Shariki” which involved swapping adjacent balls of colour with each other to match 3 of the same colour in a row (The N3TWORK 2017). It didn’t really take off until the early 2000’s when Popcap released the game we know today as Bejewelled (The N3TWORK 2017).  Since then, developers have created their own versions of match-3 games such as, Puzzle and Dragons, Pokemon Shuffle and Candy Crush Saga. Candy Crush Saga was released as a browser-based game in 2012. Following its popularity, it was converted into mobile phone apps for both android and apple devices. In 2014, it had a player base of around 93million people and had made $493million in the last quarter of 2013 (Dredge, S 2014).

As the time of writing this Devlog, there are over 400 Match 3 games available on Steam (Steam 2021). There is certainly a player base out there for Match 3 games. But the problem will come with trying to set one apart from all the others available.

Game Treatment and Concept Art:

Story:

After a busy day’s work doing menial tasks in your usual 9 to 5 dead end job, you fall asleep like any other night. In the morning you wake up disorientated and confused as you can feel the gentle breeze and the warming sun on your skin. You look around and discover that you are indeed outside, and that you are surrounded by these colourful round blobs that are all jiggling hesitantly around you. One of these blobs bounce up to you and to your surprise, you can understand what they say!

They are wondering who you are? And if you came to save them?

These blobs inform you that they aren’t blobs, but they are actually slimes. A race of creatures native to the world you are now in. To your shock, you discover that you have travelled to a different world and these residents believe that you have come to save them from the evil dragon that is ravaging the land and set on bringing an end to all life here as they know it.

You decide it’s no use sitting around wondering what happened, instead you decide to go on an adventure with the slimes to help defeat the evil dragon and unravel the secrets behind of your sudden arrival in this world.

Gameplay/Mechanics:

In this Match-3 game, you will use your mouse as the main controller in order to move the tiles on the game board around to form lines of 3 or more tiles of the same design. By doing so you deal damage to your opponent with the aim of the game to get your opponents health bar down to 0 as fast as possible and in the least amount of moves.

As the player progresses through the game, more slimes will be added to play with on the board as well as the addition of bad slimes that have a negative effect when matched. This will increase the difficulty of each level the further into the game the player is.

Features:

This game will feature a short story that will play out as the player gets further into the game. The story will progress in between the match-3 games and will add an interesting setting to the game.

In addition to the basic match-3 gameplay, as the player progresses through the game, they will come across more slimes which they can recruit to help them with their battle against the dragon’s forces. Each slime that the player comes across will have a special ability that can help the play complete more difficult levels. For example, one slime will offer double points for the next few moves, another will pause time for a short while and another will stop bad tiles from being matched by putting a protective bubble around them.

The game will also feature a helper AI slime which the user can click on if they get stuck and cannot find a move. The AI slime will highlight a possible move that the player can make, if there is not any more moves available then it will shuffle the tiles on the board to create a new gameboard.

Art style:

The art in the game aims to be all original creations made specifically for the use in this game.  It will be created by myself and it aims to have a colourful cartoony feel to it albeit badly drawn.  Starting off with the background, its designed to be separated into 2 different regions; the left where the bright, colourful slimes live, and the left where the dragon and his minions live (Figure 1). For the moment there will just be one background and all levels will have the same background. This may change in the future.

The gameboard where the gameplay takes place will be a simple grid with a light blue background surrounded by wooden planks for the boarder of the play area (Figure 2). This will be placed over the top of the scenic background when the player needs to fight against an opponent.

For the slimes, as well as being the players companions, they will also represent the tiles on the gameboard that the player will use to make matches. Each slime will have a different colour and a unique accessory to separate them from all the others (Figure 3).

As for what the main character will look like, it has not been decided yet whether the character will keep their human appearance or if they have been altered into another form when then arrived in this world. e.g., into a slime (Figure 4). This is the same for the big bad dragon. The only thing certain about the dragons design is that it will be a dragon (Figure 4).

 Figure 1. A quick sketch of what the background in the game will look like.

Figure 2. An example of what the gameboard will look like.

Figure 3. Character design of the match tiles.

Figure 4. Concept for the main character and the dragon.

References:

• The N3TWORK 2017, Medium San Francisco, California USA, viewed 19 April 2021, <https: medium.com="" @john_23522="" a-brief-history-of-match-three-games-578350edfb4c="">. </https:>
• Dredge, S 2014, The Guardian London, United Kingdom, viewed 19 April 2021, <https: www.theguardian.com="" technology="" 2014="" mar="" 26="" candy-crush-saga-king-why-popular="">. </https:>
• Steam 2021, Valve Bellvue, Washington USA, viewed 19 April 2021, <https: store.steampowered.com="" search="" ?tags="1665&category1=998&category3=2">.</https:>