The game is credited to Lars Hopman. This proposal is a copy from him.
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'Block and a Hard Place' is a turned base competitive multi-player game based around the mechanic of pushing blocks and using this mechanic to take out your opponents team, much like checkers.
The game is played on a gridded board of around 6 squares by 6 squares. Each team has 3 pieces which they can place on any square on the row closest to them. Then each team plays a turn and then waits for there opponent to finish and has there next turn until one side is eliminated. A turn will consist of up to 3 actions in which a player can use these actions to move one of their pieces or push a block. The player can eliminate piece from the board by crushing an opponents piece between either two blocks or a block and the edge of the game board. Last team standing wins.
Mechanics
Block Pushing
This mechanic came from the idea of taking a single element from some of my favourite 3D video games and expanding on this mechanic in some way. Block pushing is a major part of many puzzles in adventure games and as I played around with the idea 'Block and a Hard Place' is what I came up with. Blocks will only be able to be pushed in one of four directions(up, down, left and right) and only by a piece that is standing on a square on the opposite side of the block.
Currently I plan on there being different types of blocks and grid squares that can interact with each other in some strategic way. Some examples I have come up with are:
Ice – as a square any block that is pushed onto it will keep sliding in the direction it entered the square unless something stops it from doing so. As a block it continues sliding in the direction it was pushed until it encounters another block or the wall.
Lava – as a square only, burns flammable blocks and eliminates a piece that moves in to it. If some how cooled, such as by an ice block passing over it, it turns to stone, and in this case the ice block would melt.
Stone – as a square nothing special, as a block needs to be pushed by a specific piece in order to move.
Wood - the standard block, nothing special just moves one square when pushed. Flammable
Other blocks may be designed but for the first iteration of the game I would probably leave out special blocks until we have a game that works and the introduce the special blocks after. This would probably mean the blocks would have to be coded with the knowledge that eventually new attributes will be added.
Turn-Based
The reason for making the game a turn-based is that I believe that is would be interesting and more fun if you were able to play this game with others. Because the game is turn-based it allows for implementation of multi-player on a single system with out networking, which would reduce the time need by the coders to implement the game and allow for more time to test the game a find a good balance so that there is no unfair advantage to either side at the start of the game.
Making it multi-player also means that the game can be played without having to implement an artificial intelligence in order for the game to be playable at all. From my previous experience, from making an AI last year, they can be tricky to get right and annoying to debug. One major problem for making an AI for this game would be making it smart enough that there isn't just one way you play the game and every time it beats the AI. This would cause the game to become boring and no one would play it any more. Unless there is a large amount of time left to develop a single player mode with an AI it is unlikely to happen.
The Game
Pieces
Each team will be allowed place three pieces on the board at the start of a match. Currently I plan that there are different types of pieces that have different 'abilities,' much like the movement rules of different chess pieces. Examples of abilities could be, being able to move an extra square for a movement action, push a block further than normal or being able to move over a block into an empty square. I have thought about the possibility of having more than three types of piece available to play with and the player choosing the types before play, as I believe this could lead to more interesting game play.
I have also thought of having the teams be vastly different in look, such as a human team and a monstrous team, but this will only happen if there is time. Otherwise the teams will be visual the same except sport different coloured banners/armour.
Visuals
The visual style I have in mind for the game is bright, colourful and with a simple cartoonish style to the game, sort of like 'Fat Princess'. The reason for this is to allow for more time to hopefully be spent on the animation, which, like cartoons will play with exaggerated proportions to show the actions of the pieces on the board clearly. I feel like the animation will be important in making the game fun, especially when a piece is eliminated.
Gameplay
I aim for the game to take a total of 5-10 min. I believe this time frame allows for the game to be played by two people while on the way home from work on the bus or train without worrying about not finishing. This is important because I plan for this to be designed for the iPad as I think it would work well.
Turns will also be kept short as this will stop the other player from getting bored while the player takes their turn. Then again this may be hard to dictate as people may take a long time to make their decision, but I will not as a timer to ensure this as that puts to much stress on the player. This may be an optional feature, but never compulsory.
