Single-Screen Platform Game In Which Defeated Enemies Ricochet Around The Screen (SSPGIWDERATS)
A public domain game design you can use however you like.
The game:
A single-screen platform game in which the player clears enemies from the stage by striking them with weapons, while the enemies try to strike the player with weapons or natural attacks.
Players and enemies:
Both the player and enemies may be able to survive multiple hits. Once they have taken all the hits they can bear, enemies are KO’d and knocked away across the screen, bouncing off the walls for a certain number of ricochets, after which they fly off the side of the screen entirely, utterly defeated. If their flight around the screen intersects with another enemy, that enemy takes damage, potentially getting KO’d and flying across the screen themselves.
Being closer to the enemy when KOing them could send them flying at increased velocity.
Stages:
Once all enemies on the stage are defeated, the game advances to a new stage, with a new arrangements of platforms–with connecting ladders, etc–and enemies.
Once the player takes all the hits they can bear, they are KO’d, and have to restart the stage–or maybe just have to sit through a few seconds delay while they respawn in the corner or something. When they advance to a new stage, their health is fully restored.
Stages may be fixed, or procedurally generated. As the stage number increases, the power and/or number of enemies increases. Larger and/or more powerful enemies could require more hits to KO, and could inflict more damage on other enemies as they ricochet around the screen.
Controls:
The player controls their character with four-direction input and potentially two action buttons: Attack and Jump.
Jump is only really necessary if there will be enemies firing projectiles horizontally at the character, or flying enemies the player cannot reach from a standing position.
Attack isn’t strictly necessary as a button; the player’s attacks could simply auto-fire, or auto-hit when the player character bumps into an enemy.
Optional powerups:
Stages may have powerups, such as potions that temporarily confer additional abilities to players–or even to enemies?–such as speeding them up, allowing them to levitate, or increasing their strength, allowing their hits to inflict more damage, or their KO’d opponents to ricochet more times around the screen.
There could also be temporary powered-up weapons for players: the default (sword?) weapon may launch KO’d enemies upward at a 45 degree angle, for instance, but the player could find a spear whose thrust launches KO’d enemies horizontally, or a hammer that smashes them into the ground, bouncing them vertically; missile weapons could inflict no bounce on KO’d enemies, to counterbalance their superior range.
For balance reasons, it might be best to limit the duration of such weapons; on the other hand, if the game had co-op, different players could for instance be given the choice of different characters with different abilities and weapons.
A personal note:
Avoiding the use of flashing FX and screen-shake would be appreciated, as such things can give me migraines. : ) (Also I don’t play games with guns but that’s just kind of a personal choice.)
Oops?:
No outright duplication existing games–as of this design’s 6/23/2025 publication date–is intended; if you’re aware of one, please let me know! (Games with one or two elements in common is probably okay.)
