Risk of Rain

Risk of Rain is an action platformer/adventure game with randomized elements.While we don’t want to spoil the story, we can let a few things through! The game is set in the distant future, where space transportation is common. Space trains carry passengers and goods all across space. A particular space train, however, had some very special cargo. Through a series of unfortunate events, this space train gets shot out of orbit and crash lands on a mysterious planet.. with one survivor.

The big feature of our game is the randomized elements. The position you spawn on the map, which map you spawn on, the location of chests, enemy spawns, item spawns and more are all randomly chosen by the AI Director! We also have a massive amount of content in our game: we have 100 unique items planned, all with interesting effects. No +HP or +DAMAGE, but chance to spawn missiles and stop time. You have the option of choosing between 10 characters, all with their own different moveset.

Another thing that’s important in our game is that as time increases, so does difficulty. Represented in a bar on the HUD, every minute increases the enemies’ power and spawn count, developing a great sense of urgency.

Through the Item Log you can see what kind of cargo the space train was carrying, along with a variety of information of the items you’ll be using in your journey. screenshot120The Monster Log is similar to Olimar’s Log in Pikmin or a Pokedex; after collecting logs from monsters, you can read all about their behavior, health, damage, and more, along with an accompanying picture.

The game is run by a hidden Director, who has a ‘deck of cards’ of monsters he can spawn. The Director will randomly draw a card, and then spawn as many of those monsters as it has points available to it. If the Director has sufficient points, he can spawn a boss onto the field! Not only that, but the Director can upgrade his spawns to elites with enough points, giving them random abilities such as faster speed, electric elements, or permanently leaving a fire trail. Elite bosses all have their own custom abilities unique to each boss.Drones, like chests, are randomly distributed throughout the map. The unique thing about drones, however, is that they have their own healthbar and can be lost, unlike items. They float around you and are, in my opinion, quite adorable! At the moment we have a basic drone, who floats and shoots nearby enemies, a healing drone, an assault drone, a missile drone, and a laser drone. These all have their own unique models, sounds, and behaviors!

There are two different kinds of items; passive items and use items. Passive items, which are split up into 3 categories of power, are always active.

Some examples of passive items are the ‘Fireshield’, ‘Infusion’, and ‘Brilliant Behemoth’. The Fireshield causes your player to detonate when receiving heavy damage, hurting nearby enemies and knocking them away. Infusion causes your maximum health to grow for every enemy killed, and the Behemoth causes every single one of your attacks to explode! All passive items stack, so if you had all 3 of those items, getting hit would result in an explosion, which then explodes further, then gives you health.

Use items are a different kind of item; you can only hold one at a time, and it goes on cooldown when used. Some examples of use items are the ‘Missile Box’, which sends out 16 missiles to hunt down enemies, and the ‘Jar of Souls’, which duplicates all enemies on the screen as a ghost to fight on your side.

Most games have very non-intuitive controls and game rules. You shouldn’t have to read through the wikipedia to learn all the hidden rules of a game! The game in its current iteration is very easy to understand; you shouldn’t have to fight against the game design. We intend on making the game playable by anyone, but only master-able by a few. Intuitive does NOT mean casual or easy! Most of our fanbase will attest that the game is quite hard.

Last updated on 15 November 2013