Party of Sin: Designing the Guns news

Hey all,

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This post is another installment of the design pieces from the Party of Sin dev team. We have decided to talk about the process we went through when designing the guns in Party of Sin. It was actually trickier than you guys would think. The reason why this process was actually difficult to do was because “Shooters” have been and are still getting so much flak for just being “shooters”. This is an issue entirely on its own and, if I feel like, which I probably will in the near future, I will post a nice rant about it. In the meantime, this is the process we went through when designing the guns.

The Short- Short List of Weapons

During the first stages of the game, Party of Sin only gave the players control of three weapons: the standard crossbow (all players start with), shotgun and grenade launchers. We thought this was awesome. A nice diversity of guns in the game, simple, easy to use and obvious. However, things change. It turned out three guns didn’t quite cut it. Why not give the player more options, more choices and more diversity. Liz Hollerman first wanted to give the player the ability to pick up and throw grenades but that would require adding another button the player would have to press and thus bringing the total up to six (way to much). This then gave Vince the idea to start coming up with ideas for guns, and more guns. Kind of like that scene in the Matrix when Neo gets a program written to have as many guns as possible.

Standard shotgun... wind shotgun will be featured shortly.

El grenadino launcher.

The crossbow turning an angel to feathers.

*All screenshots are courtesy of Hell1, the first level in Party of Sin, which acts a tutorial for the players.

The first batch of guns that Vince came up with were the following. (The number in front of the game indicates the amount of shots)

The New Weapons

New potential guns:
- 200 Machine gun (very high speed, low damage)
- 100 Flame thrower (high speed, average damage, short range)
- 20 Rifle (slow speed, high damage)
- 5 Rocket Launcher (very slow speed, very high area damage)
- 12 Revolver (average speed, high damage)

World unique guns:
- 50 Hell Fire Crossbow (high damage or damage over time)
- 20 Earth Wind Shotgun (knockback)
- 10 Heaven Laser Rifle (piercing, laser pointer)
- 5 Heaven Seeking Grenade/Rocket Launcher (seeking)

Another cool idea, which ties into the design philosophy of having memorable moments in each level/world was implementing world-specific weapons. By having only certain guns available in specific worlds allows for one more memorable moment, for the player, in that world. It is important to note that a game cannot be made around the uniqueness of individual guns or on counting to make the game fun. What it can do is add unique content to the game and change certain dynamics. For example, if the player goes out of his way to find the machine gun, he will have a different experience then if he went into a fight with just his crossbow. The additions are somewhat minimal but critical none the less.

Just got distracted with a heated conversation about Fallout: New Vegas. Anyway, to continue along the thought of having world specific weapons, it was also important for us because it would allow the player to control world-specific elements like wind in Earth and tar in Purgatory. This is sort of a sweet revenge for a player as they can now blow enemies in hole with the wind shotgun or sink them with the tar gun.

1. Crossbow
Fires arrows in quick succession.
Has some aiming error.

Ammo: Infinite
Firing speed: Fast
Bullet speed: Fast

2. Shotgun
Fires multiple instant bullets.
Has a lot of aiming error.
Damage is scaled by the distance, closer targets get more damage.
Ammo: 20
Firing speed: Medium
Bullet speed: Instant

3. Grenade Launcher
Fires a gravitated ball that bounces off walls. Explodes when it hits an enemy or after a certain time.
Ammo: 6
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Average, Gravitated

4. Machine Gun
Fires low damage bullets in quick succession.
Has some aiming error.
Ammo: 120
Firing speed: Very Fast
Bullet speed: Fast

5. Rifle
Fires high damage bullets that knock down enemies.
Ammo: 12
Firing speed: Medium
Bullet speed: Instant

6. Rocket Launcher
Fires rockets that explode on contact.
Can charge up weapon to shoot more rockets, additional rockets have erratic behavior.
Ammo: 5
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Medium, Accelerating

7. Flame Thrower
Fires flames that expand as they go out and deal damage every few frames.
Medium range.
Aim moves slower when in use.
Ammo: 200
Firing speed: Extremely fast
Bullet speed: Medium, Decelerating

8. Railgun
Fires a laser that pierces through everything and deals very high damage.
Has laser sight to help with aiming.
Ammo: 6
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Instant

9. Needler
Fires crystals that stick themselves to the first thing they touch.
Low damage is dealt on impact.
Crystals cause a small explosion after a short amount of time.
Ammo: 12
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Fast

10. MIRV
Fires a spinning disk that explodes and releases a bunch of small warheads.
Warheads are enemy seeking and explode on contact.
Player controlled disk explosion (on button release).
Ammo: 5
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Medium, Accelerating

11. Electric gun
Small charge up time.
Sends bolts of lightning that electrocute targets on contact.
Targets are electrocuted for an amount of time.
Electrocuted targets forward the bolt to nearby targets.
Bolt bounces 5 times dealing less damage each time it jumps.
Ammo: 12
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Extremely Fast

12. Fire Crossbow (Unique to Hell)
Fires 3 fiery arrows at a time in a spread gun fashion.
Has some aiming error.
Ammo: 50
Firing speed: Fast
Bullet speed: Fast

13. Tar Gun (Unique to Purgatory)
Fires a gravitated scorching tar blob that attaches to targets on contact.
Deals damage over time.
Targets are immobilized.
Ammo: 20
Firing speed: Medium
Bullet speed: Medium, Gravitated

14. Shockwave Gun (Unique to Earth)
Fires shockwaves that knockback targets.
Damage is scaled by the distance, closer targets get more damage.
Ammo: 20
Firing speed: Slow
Bullet speed: Instant

15. Holy Beam (Unique to Heaven)
Charges up and locks aim for a short time, a glow appears on the ground where the gun is aiming.
A holy light beam strikes down on that location for massive vertical damage.
Ammo: 5
Firing speed: Very Slow
Bullet speed: Charge Up, Instant

Gun models from the terrific Dan Williams.

This is where we currently are with regards to guns. We will moving to a more video oriented platform by profiling weapons in 30 second video clips instead of just writing about them. If you haven’t done so already, sign up to our forums to join in on the development.

All feedback is welcome.

Alex