Game Concept

Sir Axelot » Devlog
3 years ago by Leo Headley (@HeadleyLeo)
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Working Title

Sir Axelot

Concept Statement

Embark on a fateful journey accompanied by only your red feather and trusty axe. Climb your way to the peak of the treacherous tower on top of a mountain in hopes of reaching the summit before someone, or something... reaches you first.

Overview

Category

Platformer: Similarly to games like Mario,  Deepest Sword and other great platformer games, the player takes control of  a character and uses one form of movement or another to navigate through a level. Sir Axelot takes a very similar approach hence fitting well into the platformer genre.

Concept Creation Process and Influences

  • Influences

Deepest Sword

The concept of Deepest Sword is basically a knight (controlled by you the player) travelling through a platformer styled map, using left and right movement as well as a sword he uses to swing and grab onto ledges. The knight defies physics to reach the dragon to then plunge his sword into, each time through the map changes and the knights sword grows to eventually stab the heart of the dragon. Although I have never played deepest sword, I have watched playthrough of the game and love the different type of movement the sword creates.

 

Jump King

Jump King is another platformer game in which a knight jumps his way up terrain and tower to reach his princess. Little mistakes are fateful and require lots of precision. I also really love this game and love the movement and how its achieved in order to make the game different.

 

  • Concept Creation Process

My original idea for Sir Axelot was for a knight to venture up a landscape/terrain/tower (similar to that of Jump King) in order to reach an end goal using movement similar to that in Getting Over It (I haven’t got over it…). This was my original idea because I love knights and the use of types of movement in these games, I also just really love those games . From here I decided movement in Deepest Sword was more suited to the game I was going for so I’m looking for movement much more like that than Getting Over It. However, I wanted to add my own spin on things rather than just mushing games together. So I had the idea to make climbing up the map slightly easier but add in the challenge of enemies. From here I have decided to include some enemies like spiders or a venom type creature that climb the terrain easily and the player must kill using his axe. This means not only does the player have to climb with their axe but allow for stopping in order to not fall as they try to kill the enemies in an attempt to reach a goal or prize of some sort. Although currently am not to sure what the prize for winning is. Maybe just a shinier axe 😊.

Audience and Competitive Analysis

  • Audience

The target audience for this game is hopefully going to being people who love platformer games like Jump King, Getting Over It, Deepest Sword etc. Although my game won’t be as hard as the first two it will hopefully be harder than Deepest Sword and is a game people can enjoy playing, but not too much. My aim is for the age group to be roughly mid-teens to middle age although I believe the player base would be from about 17-23 if I had to guess. Even if you played more FPS games or completely different styles I’m sure you would still very much enjoy playing this game in your free time as it is relatively low skill but may take some repetition rather than having pixel perfect game mechanics.

  • Competitive analysis

As I mentioned in the Concept Creation Process, I am heavily influenced by some games, yet I was seeking to add an element of differentiation. I didn’t just want another Jump King but with different movement so to add originality I opted for addition to the already common platformer style. Although it shares many similarities of many games, combining movement like Deepest Sword with the terrain like Jump King and then climbing enemies you must kill with your form of movement, I believe gives the game a whole new product compared to competitors. I have also decided (if I have time) to add a built-in timer to track speed runs if the player wishes to do so. This style/genre of game seems to be and is becoming quite popular and I hope this can be a good example of such a game.

Game Treatment and Concept Art

Treatment

You’re at the base of a tall castle, which is at the base of the sky, which is on top of a tall mountain, and you’re at the bottom of that mountain in your little house with your rusty axe. Damn… life sucks. But you know what wouldn’t suck. Having a shiny axe, that would be EPIC. That’s right, you know where the axe is. You must journey to the top of the tower to retrieve this axe. But beware, there are many bad guys out to get you up there so its best you take your axe up with you. You never know how it might help. Also, since you are not a cat you only have 9 lives, so don’t get hit by bad guys too much, but feel free to fall a long way, you have ankles of steel.

Mechanics

The main controls whilst playing this game the mouse, the mouse will direct the axe and allow you to swing it to hang and push off things and attack enemies. The other controls are ‘a’ and ‘d’ which will allow you to move left and right. Other than that, there is nothing else that contribute top the core movement of the player.

Key Features

  • Player swings axe using the mouse
  • Axe can be used to attack and kill enemies but also to swing on or off platforms
  • As the player progresses through the one long level, skills developed along the way will be tested with harder and harder obstacles
  • 9 hearts of life that if lost will send you back to the very bottom
  • Various sections of map the higher you climb
  • Different enemies are introduced at the different sections

Concept Art

My aim is to follow a similar pixel art styled game as to that of Jump King or Deepest Sword. I love the idea of coloured themes the higher you climb. I am also a fan of medieval helmets much like in those two games also so the player will have a very distinct helmet and red feather.


(Super sorry, these devlogs are really hard to format images)

So the first two images are what my original character designs (last gif, and hand drawn art) were based off. This is my inspiration for the character and I think I may redesign but this is a rough start to my ideas. The sword and axe are what I hope to use (the axe) as the weapon for the character that I drew myself as ideas. The other images are terrain/map samples from my two main influences which I hope to recreate to some degree. Anyway, this is my concept art and the inspirations for the future design and ambition.

Image References

Sir Axelot

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