Strategy Game GDD
Nature's Resist
Genre:
Strategy, RTS
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Subgenre:
Fantasy, Multiplayer, Singleplayer
PC only
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High level description
Real-time strategy game with deep lore and 3 different races (Augurs, Scrappers and Nah’ait) to pick from that all play differently. Your goal is to defeat your enemies with an army built based on what "path" you choose with your race.
Meta gameplay
Multiplayer ranks, customize your armies looks and buildings architecture.
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Special VFX on abilities for different ranks you obtain.
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Monetization
One-time payment for the game. Skins, and different sound designs for sale inside the game. No content that impact the gameplay should be put behind a paywall.
Target audience
Casual gameplay suitable for ages 15-28, more devoted/hardcore audience can be more specific to people willing to put time and effort into the multiplayer aspect where you try to rank up the leaderboards.
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Type of camera
Isometric.
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Inspiration
Age of empires, Starcraft, Rise of Nations.
Core Loop
1v1 with equal footing from the start. Every race starts with a base and four workers.
You build your army from scratch with the help of your workers. They gather minerals and resources to give you the freedom to build an army strong enough to conquer your enemy. Winning is achieved by eliminating all of your opponents' buildings, or by them conceding.
The gameplay can be played casually in different game modes. But the main gameplay will always be in a 1v1 competitive atmosphere.
Gameplay
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The core gameplay at the start of each game is structured in a way where you will always be at the same position economically and army-wise. This is independent of what race you pick. You start with 6-8 dedicated units used to harvest Luridium and minerals. You will have to choose how you will use your minerals and Luridium, by either expanding your infrastructure for a more long-term gameplan or start building an army to finish your opponent quicker.
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Supplies
To keep the game in a balanced state, we implement a very fundamental and traditional way of keeping army count and army growth in check. Supplies! Supplies are a stat used to keep a count of how many units you can have at a certain time. You gain supplies by building a basic structure. Augurs have huts, Scrappers have sheds, Nah'aits have caves.
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Having to keep building these will stop the game from progressing too fast. It will make the player have to make constant decisions of when to stop building for supplies and start to focus on an army. Having a supply limit will also stop players from just making huge armies and instead of having to choose a composition of units that work well together or counter your opponent instead.
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This is what makes techpaths important!
Techpaths
Augurs
Elemental techpath
Choose to use Luridium to power up different elementals to use as your main army.
Fire elementals could be utilized against large enemy groups. Think “ Firenova, Rain of fire, Lava wave “
Water elementals could be used against slower armies as water elementals could use rapid speeds to outmaneuver your opponent and harass them to bits. Think “ Water relocate, Steam spray, Watersprint “
This idea of an elemental techpath is very open ended for future expansions because there could always be new elementals with new specializations added.
Animalistic techpath
The Augurs could also choose a different path going into a more animalistic army. Using Luridium to power up and grow certain animals.
This would be used as a more bread and butter build for a more head on fight to be used for players that are better at managing their bases and mineral gathering skills to just pump out an army that is an all round good composition.
Scrappers
Heavy mech
Take on a path to build heavy mechanical vehicles to play a more stronghold build. These vehicles move ( Either ground or flying ) slowly and utilize defensive abilities such as harvests and positioned turrets. Think : “Anti elemental shells, fire or electric turrets“
Speed mech
Focus on speed. Have a more aggressive take on the field and use small mechanical units. It could be fast burrowing insect looking mechanical units that surprises your opponent. Or use fast paced machines that use scouting drones to see what your opponent is doing to outmaneuver them easily.
Ethereal scrappers
When making units you can use the resources to train the scrappers themselves as units, albeit weak in the beginning, you could opt to use your Luridium to upgrade them to become overcharged. When infused with Luridium themselves, they gain different powers based on how much you choose to infuse.
You can choose to infuse sword fighting scrappers to make them fast, deadly fighters that can go invisible for a short period of time.
Or infusing a rifle using scrapper to make a marksman or sniper with deadly accuracy.
They can also use the powers to gain defensive abilities.
Infusing the Luridium into them, forces elements into their attacks, making spells usable.
Think: “ Fireblade, Lavashot, Iceshield “
When ethereal scrappers are used, they are low in numbers, but strong enough to take out large chunks of enemies if used correctly.
Nah’ait
Nah’ait strain
Small organisms are planted in the ground by the Nah’ait, birthing small creatures to fight for them. These vary between fast light units ( Locusts ), to bigger shield looking units ( Crawlers ). They can be upgraded through Luridium usage, granting these units different paths to new evolutions, thus making these units a staple in your approach to making a strong army.
Goliaths
The goliaths are huge in size, and can carry smaller units on its back, making terrain a no issue for you and your army.
Clickers
When locusts are over infused with Luridium, they lose all senses except hearing. When placed in a zone, they burrow, and make a clicking sound, hence the name. When they hear nearby enemies, they explode.
Nah’ait specialists
Much like the ethereal scrappers, the Nah’ait can absorb the Luridium into themselves and become specialists. This gives them the ability to control time and space. They unlock abilities such as timeslowing fields, blackhole and short range teleportation.
These specialists are more of a supporting unit, they still need help from the minions they can summon, but can change the momentum of a big fight very easily.
Story
The Three Races
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Augurs
The Augurs live on the main planet and have learned to control different elements of nature and have learned to live in harmony with the animals, elements, and the environment of this planet. They believe Luridium is only used when necessary and do use it to survive and save the condition of this planet.
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Scrappers
The Scrappers share this planet with the Augurs and have mastered the scientific parts of using Luridium, and are masters of tinkering. They use Luridium to find answers about their purpose, power up their inventions and are at constant war with the Augurs.
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Nah’ait
The third race has an alien-like humanoid form and uses psionic powers. They are few in numbers but are an outcast from a bigger army elsewhere in deep space. They live on different moons and planets close to the main planet where the story is based. Since they are strong and have space bending abilities, they want to take advantage of taking over this nearby planet, mainly because of the Luridium.
This group of aliens is the former generals from the race they were shunned from, and they believed in conquering everything else.
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The Usage of Luridium
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Luridium is a mineral growing from the core of the planet. It's the main reason the races are at war against each other. It grows very slowly and can be extracted, to enhance you or anything you infuse it to.
All three races in this story harvest Luridium and use it in combat to overpower the others. Tinkerers and Augurs extract Luridium by mining it, Aliens absorb it straight from the stones and can relocate its powers without physically breaking the crystals to empower what they need. All three races have their different ideologies of why using luridium is needed.
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The Planet
Post-apocalyptic, futuristic, galactic is the general feeling of the game.
For the planet where most of the maps will be designed, the setting will be a natural green and water-filled environment. It will be scattered with red/purple Minerals.
The landscape will be seen as untouched in most places where the tinkerers haven't been yet.
Where tinkerers have roamed will be an empty and harvested place. They leave debris and trash just to be done with their projects, then be on their way to the next place. The minerals will be totally gone and you can see big holes where they used to be.
In the moon where the aliens have taken their temporary home, is an underground cave ecosystem. The cave is filled with water and unknown lifeforms. Greenery is grown by the outer parts of the caves and as far into the cave where sunlight can reach.
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The War
The origin of the war began between the Augurs and the Scrappers. The idea of the Luridiums usage. The Augurs were enraged that the Luridium was being steadily depleted, while the Scrappers just couldn't accept being a weak person with no purpose in life. The Scrappers saw so much potential in becoming a strong force and being able to leave this planet to research space. Both races knew the extraordinary power of Luridium and fought over this for several decades.
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The Nah'aits arrive at this planet after the war has already been occurring for a long time. They are ready to claim the Luridium as theirs, to become stronger, and then be on their way.
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How will the Augurs and the Scrappers handle an intruding foe? This is their planet. Will they become temporary allies? Or will they watch things unfold and hope they destroy each other?
Our first experience in the story, gameplay-wise, will be at this crucial timeline, the arrival of the Nah'aits.
Sidenotes: I wanted to use very different designs and backstories for each race so it could easily be designed to meet flow and variability. I didn’t want the players to feel any sense of repetitiveness if they chose to play different races.
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Designer's notes
Problems that occurred while writing and designing.
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Gameplay-wise, I had an idea that the tinkerers would be the ones mining Luridium out and the Augurs would extract the Luridium at a slower rate so the minerals could grow faster than what they were used up for. This becomes a topic of Augurs vs tinkerers (and aliens) using the minerals in different ways and the main reason for war.
This became a problem in the balancing aspect within the gameplay.
If the Augurs could harvest forever, it would be difficult to balance it as the other races would be in a ticking clock fight.
Making the Augurs harvest slower (to not finish it and allow the minerals to grow again for then to be harvested slowly again) would balance this out, but they would be very exposed in an early game rush from the races. Even mid-game it would be difficult to play as the Augurs. So why not give the Augurs some help defending in the beginning?
Maybe giving them a big Elemental the first few fights? Or give them an advantage of X amount of minerals at the start of the game? Well, this would force a player to play defensively to drag out the match as long as possible for the other races to die out when the minerals are depleted.
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This is a problem that makes the meta go into a default defensive/aggressive play depending on what race you play, instead of how you want to play it.
I wanted the game to be a balanced game with different mechanics based on the units you choose, and not an economical fight forcing you to play aggressive/defensive because of Luridium being an infinite resource for one race.
That led to a design choice of every race using the Minerals at the same rate, to power different parts of their infrastructure and units, But for a different gain in the story.
Using tinkerers (build anything), nature-based race (help from animals, nature, elements), or aliens (evolutions, merging units, psionic powers) as something for a ground staple of building this design helps a lot in being able to balance the game. My main objective in building a three race, RTS game is balance, flow, and diversity. Feeling that you can win with whatever race you pick, as long as you have a good fundamental view on how the race works best in whatever position you’ve been put in, is an amazing feeling and something I would strive for.