Progress Report

I'm not a good game designer.  

That said, here are the major organising principles I'm using to design and make Chimera 2.

Feel

This is about how I want the player to feel while they're playing the game. In the original, there was a constant tension, the tension of  not knowing when you were going to die and hear that scream. There was a strangeness. I want to keep that, but perhaps reduce some of the unnecessary weirdness just a tad. 

Mechanics

Which mechanics will I use?

In previous failed attempts to remake Chimera, as opposed to attempt a sequel, I tried a mechanics soup, basically everything I could throw at it in an attempt to make a game complex enough for the modern generation.

Now I realise the futility of such a "throw enough crap at the wall" approach.

I want to focus on very few mechanics, so that the game actually knows what it is and sits in its own skin and owns it.

Progression

The original was "Solve puzzles to get through a maze and arm four warheads while keeping enough energy and coolant on board, then get to the exit room"

This game is going to have more layers. That means something along the lines of "You think the game is X, but actually it's Y, oh wait, it's actually Z...now I get it, it really is X, but I see X differently now"

This is just a feeling I have about the game's progression right now, and I have nothing concrete, just some ideas that I've rejected. I'm working on this, but for now I'm going to let the progression evolve and grow like a book without an outline.

Spirit

The "spirit" are the principles and ideas that serve as my North Star whenever I have to make a decision. These are currently nebulous, but include:

• Paranoia
• Discovery
• Tension
• Simplicity

As for where I'm at now, I'm working on  subsystems that include energy, coolant and shielding, and then displaying them, and allowing them to be affected by the environment and your behavoiur. I should have a new build soon.