Some Thoughts From Black Rock!

What I Liked Most

I like the idea of sailing in a computer game, that seems pretty original to me. I think there are a couple of sailing simulators out there, and some naval strategy games, but I've not seen any sailing racing games. I'm also a fan of competitive multi-player games so this game idea appeals to me for that reason.

Also it's great that you have a strong mythical story line. Using the powers of the Gods gives you a believable excuse to add outrageous effects and powers to help the gameplay.

Water effects can look pretty cool too, so if you get time to add that tech then the game could look great.

What I Liked Least

There are probably good reasons that there aren't many sailing racing games. Here are some of the factors that you might need to overcome:

• Sailing boats don't move very fast so how do you keep excitement levels up?
• Open world racing without a well defined course isn't always so interesting - you need to keep the player involved at all times.
• It can be difficult to know which player is winning at any given time when each player takes different routes

As long as you think about these factors though, I'm sure that you can make the game fun.

Also from the design it wasn't clear exactly how the offensive abilities would work, particularly from a distance. How will you direct your attacks? How will you know that you've hit the other player? Can the other player do anything about your attacks?

Personally I think that a game like this should be fun at all times, even when being attacked. The one offensive ability that sounded that it might not be so fun was that of being blinded by Zeus.

Also I was worried that the special ability of flight might be difficult to pull off technically and might also unbalance the fairness of the game.

Ideas For Improvement

I don't know how you're planning on making the sailing boats feel like sailing boats. Could you consider unique control methods that make the sailing a core part of the gameplay? Maybe you control the vessel indirectly using the sails and rudder rather than a simple forward/left/right system. (Actually this may be a terrible idea! Or maybe it isn't. I wouldn't know until I'd prototyped it!)

If you did this then the wind direction would become a vital part of the gameplay. Maybe controlling the wind through the Gods would become crucial? and the wind could be used more generally in attacks?

Another radical gameplay idea to add a more fast paced tactical element is that players could command more than one boat at a time (maybe one of each of your boat types). They'd have to switch between boats and set each boat's course individually. Then each players' boats would have to work together to collect items, or attack the other players' boats, and win the race.

A thought about the Zeus blindness attack: Maybe instead of being blinded you lose the ability to look at your map?

Thoughts on the Scope of the Design

I think that you've got the right balance in your planning and have put the riskier elements later in the project. I'd explicitly schedule more time for iterative game design and tweaking, particularly in your Functional Minimum stage.

Thoughts about Where You Should Focus Work

Quite early on I'd focus on the method of controlling the boats. Does moving the boat feel fun? Is there enough going on to keep the player interested. (In car racing games we make sure that the player is always needing to thinking about the next corner etc.)

I'd also consider how your maps can be easily edited and generated during the Functional Minimum stage. Having a good system for tweaking maps and all the other components of your gameplay will be crucial.

Ideas for a Physical Prototype

Maybe you could prototype with a turn based board game? You'd have pick-ups on the board which you can use for offensive and special abilities. Players could move a fixed number of squares at a time depending on the boat they've chosen, and maybe modified by the wind direction. (Maybe there'd be lots of pick-ups which allow players to change the global wind direction?)