Working Title

Ninja Wizards

Concept Statement

Ninjas and Wizards. Combine them together and you get a fast-paced, action-fighting experience where you combine and weave spells in a mystical dance of deadly grace.

Genre

Stealth Action-Fighting 2D Platformer:

This game is fast-paced requiring moment-to-moment thinking. Players will have full control over their actions with the main goal of defeating waves of enemies that will seek to take them down.

Players will be placed in a 2D environment where environmental hazards will change the layout of the environment they fight in.

As this game revolves around the theme of Ninjas, this game will involve some stealth mechanics. This game however will treat stealth more as an optional way to play rather than a core mechanic. Dishonoured is similar to how this game will approach stealth in that players can be fine and will not be punished for not using stealth, but will see advantages that it can provide.

Concept Creation Process

I initially had the idea of making a magic 2D platformer that was inspired as a combination of Ori and the Blind Forest's platform escape moments and Kaedehara Kazuha from Genshin Impact where his background revolves around him being a fugitive of a Japanese inspired nation where he was on the run until the protagonist's intervention (Genshin Impact, 2021). The plan was to create a platformer where you’d be moving at stakes like how Ori climbs the Ginso Tree (4K no HUD Gameplay, 2018). However, when I played Wizard of Legend, I immediately fell in love with the magic combat and wanted to integrate it into my game. The fluidity, fun and feeling from Wizard of Legend made me crave more games of its magic.

Audience and Competitive Analysis

This game is targeted towards players who crave the ability to fight with magic with next to no restrictions. Many games that involve magic attract a lot of players who love magic systems but are disappointed by the lack of variety and potential. Hogwarts Legacy, a magic focused game that while being incredibly faithful to the Harry Potter series, felt lacking in the spells to where some players describe the combat as “guns with wands”. Many magic gaming fans have praised games such as Wizard of Legend due to its extensive spell list and seemly limitless experimentation in combining spells together to form powerful attacks that make you feel the weight behind them.

The spells in this game will be based on elemental magic (fire, water, and lightning). Each element will represent a different style of play to suit different preferences of fighting. Players who love to be mechanically challenged will have an enjoyable experience with unique mechanics that some will require precise timing such as parrying attacks to add risk and reward.

As this game has the theme of ninjas, stealth will play some part. Stealth mechanics are infamous for unnecessarily slowing games down, so I will offer players the ability to slow the game down at their own control. If player wishes to brute their way forward or just think on the fly, stealth will not hinder their goals.

Players who enjoy 2D platformers such as Hollow Knight and Ori will also have a blast. Movement, spatial awareness and control are important parts to this game if you wish to survive. Many abilities and spells will displace enemies as well as put the player into momentum. One element I plan on making themed around movement.

Game Treatment and Concept Art

Setting

You are a fugitive on the run using your skills in the arts of stealth and magic to survive. While other people are your main enemies, do not let your guard down to the creatures whose territories you must trample through.

Player Controls

As this is a 2D game, A and D will be the left and right movement. W and SPACE will share the jump key. S will be reserved for a special "disguise/cloak" ability. LEFT CLICK will be a basic attack with a katana and RIGHT CLICK will be a block (probably a shield). SHIFT will be an elemental dash ability, and there will a 3-4 elemental abilities (buttons TBC). Q will be reserved for the "ultimate/special" ability that the player has to charge up.

Will see if I can make this controller compatible. Depending on how abilities I have, the "ultimate/special" ability will either be RIGHT STICK PRESS or Y (for xbox) | TRIANGLE (for PS) | X (for switch).

Art Style

This games art style will lean into the retro 8bit/pixel style for simplicity. The plan is to create something similar to Octopath Traveler (Fig.1 and Fig.2), although because of lack of bodily expression in these sprites, I may lean into more pixel styles that show greater movement. Wizard of Legend's sprites did a great job at allowing expression when using magic (Fig.3).

Fig.1 – Octopath Traveler sprite styled characters (Marcelowheels, 2019)

Fig.2 – Octopath Traveler character sprites from both of the two games (OpionisticBooster, 2023)

Fig.3 – Wizard of Legend default player outfit (Wizard of Legend Wiki, 2023)

When it comes to world design, I plan to create a "blocky", pixelated kind of style. I may also use tilemaps to help smooth out and shorten the time of creating the world's layout. Celeste has a style that is reminiscent of what I plan to create (Fig.4). As a bonus from Fig.4, I may include some simple text like how Celeste has done it to help design the "tutorial" level to help explain the game mechanics (whether I create the tutorial level or not is whether I have enough time).

Fig.4 - Celeste world art style (Biggs, 2018)

Classes/Elements

I do not plan to create all 3 classes initially. It is a goal I would to like achieve, but to keep a realistic time schedule, I will have 1 class complete. I believe the lightning class will be the one that gets created first because its theme and abilities are in theory more easy to develop and in my opinion will be more satisfying to play.

Potentially, I may just allow the player to use all 3 elements at the same time and not separate them into classes. If I do go down this route, it will keep each element's theme.

Fire:

Fire’s theme will revolve around damage over time (DOT) and area of effect (AOE) spreading. Fire spells are the most beginner friendly in that they will help players finish off enemies, as well as rewarding hitting mobile enemies that are hard to hit, as fire inflicted enemies will spread its effects to opponents… as well as the player.

Water:

Water will be themed around crowd control (CC) and AOE. Water is defensive class designed to bring enemies together before unleashing devastating attacks. Players using the water class want to keep their distance as their spells have large AOE to where they may accidentally pull themselves into a barrage of enemies they meant to CC.

Lightning:

Lightning is the class of mobility and speed. It is a high risk, high reward playstyle that rewards perfect execution of combining spells together. The lightning class has a small amount of DOT which can stun enemies to help with the fact that it needs to always be up close. But if lightning players use their spells without thought, they will find themselves trapped in an undesirable position with no backdoor escape.

Bullet Time

Bullet time is an effective mechanic that shows players the weight and importance in an input they’ve made. Slowing time down alerts players to a satisfying parry they made or a precise timing dodge that will lead into a flurry rush in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (WTF! Gaming, 2023). In Wizard of Legend, there is a small window of time where the game briefly pauses to let you feel the power of your signature arcana charged up (Li, 2018).

References

4K no HUD Gameplay 2018, Ori and the Blind Forest - Ginso Tree escape (4K 60FPS), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV96djbLi3M

Biggs. T 2018, Celeste review: 2018 has its first masterpiece video game, https://www.smh.com.au/technology/celeste-review-2018-has-its-first-masterpiece-...

Genshin Impact 2021, Character Teaser - "Kaedehara Kazuha: Moonlit Breeze", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST5v7-C3iDk

Marcelowheels 2019, I made an octopath sprite everyday for Inktober, here are the results, https://www.reddit.com/r/octopathtraveler/comments/dqlc4s/i_made_an_octopath_sprite_everyday_for_inktober/

Li. A 2018, All Signature Arcana Charged Moves-Wizard of Legend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5mLI92WMBI&t=34s

OpionisticBooster 2023, I find it quite interesting how the travelers "motivation" is so different from their counterpart in the OT1 (except for the thieves lol), https://www.reddit.com/r/octopathtraveler/comments/15oca2k/i_find_it_quite_interesting_how_the_travelers/

Wizard of Legend Wiki 2023 (last updated), Outfits, https://wizardoflegend.fandom.com/wiki/Outfits

WTF! Gaming 2023, I Wish I Knew Earlier How to Parry/Flurry Rush in Zelda Breath of The Wild, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Xi0nb0yHI