Equipment System

The mutant's limbs are replaceable, allowing you to equip different arms and legs. Unlike other games where equipment are used in fighting enemies, in Excalistia you use them in puzzle-solving and platforming. For example, you could equip claws to climb walls, kangaroo legs that allow you to jump farther, wheels that increase your speed, USB cables to hack computers, flashlights for dark dungeons, or axe-arms that cut through trees. This will require a large amount of sprites, but I think it'd be worth it in the end.

Below is your default mutant sprite, followed by a mutant with customized equipment. In this example he's equipping a drill in one hand, a rope in another, and flippers. This allows him to drill through rocks to make a path or mine for gems, use the rope to climb, and swim using the flippers. The possibilities are endless!



The equipments in the sprite are something I made quickly for this post. Hopefully they won't look so silly in the final version. :P

Core Gameplay

Excalistia is a 2D game combining elements from several game genres. The player controls one of two characters, but not at the same time. The two characters work together to advance in the game. What sets this apart from most other games where you control different characters to solve puzzles is that in Excalistia, the two characters work independently; they don't meet eachother, and they go through contrasting environments. You have a conman who can only work in cities and humanly populated areas, while the mutant is limited to exploring dungeons across the wasteland.

Gameplay-wise, the mutant segments emphasize platforming, exploration, puzzle-solving and minimal interaction with others. The conman's segments on the other hand focus on role-playing, he has to use his charisma and wits to inquire, convince, threaten, and scam others. The game's premise is that the dying mutant is trying to find a cure to his condition, but since he can't freely enter human cities (he can't even speak), he needs inside assistant. That's where the conman comes in. The conman's task is to learn more about the mutant's disease, and to find a cure; while the mutant is tasked with finding ways to get the conman between cities (the wasteland is off-limits for humans), and to find certain items that will aid the conman. You can easily switch between the two characters most of the time.

I want the experience to be seamless. Just because the conman and the mutant operate in different modes, doesn't mean that it will feel that way. In fact, the conman can still do things like climbing or jumping, but it isn't very beneficial in the city environment. Likewise, the mutant can't talk, and there aren't many people to interact with in the wasteland. Both gameplay modes are actually the same mode, but it's just more natural and useful for the mutant to climb, jump, and fight bosses, and for the conman to talk to people.

Speaking of bosses, the game has no battles in the traditional sense. The conman sometimes gets into duels using a simplified battle system. Duels are story-oriented and aren't about stats. The mutant also gets into some boss battles, but each of them is actually a puzzle where you have to figure out how to beat the boss. The game is very minimal and has no stats. You can still get money and key items, but those are story-related and don't have a real impact on the actual gameplay mechanics. One exception is the body parts the mutant could equip as his limbs fall off (e.g. equip fins to be able to swim), but I'll talk about that in a future post.

There's more to the gameplay, but I hope you now have a good idea of the core system, everything else is built on top of the basic elements I discussed here. It's a game where you control two characters to solve puzzles, but here the puzzles aren't as simple as "one character operates a switch, while the other goes through a door", it works on a larger scale to provide what I hope to be a fresh and entertaining experience.