OAHM Wiki

Gamefeel Notes

4 min read

Theme (WIP)

Theme-first design

  • Pick 3 words to define a theme (Cultist: Yearning, Apocalypse, Experimentation). Everything you add to the game has to focus the player on one of the words. Take out things that distract the player from the themes.
Link to original

  1. suspense, deliberation, havoc
  2. improv, danger, outsmarting
  3. being harried by a massive force, miraculous plan success and escape, temporary respite in a cave overlooking the city while you hope the next heist will be the last job you need to work to get away from it all forever, maybe you could even leave now but if you did they might find you

Aesthetic Touchstones

sample 1sample 2

Genre: sokoban + wariolike + zachlike (“action sokoban”)

Want puzzling, but not divorced from urgency. Planning careful heists executed perfectly. Dodging security, hiding from cops, outwitting, sneaking creatively past obstacles in unexpected ways.

  • sokoban: tile-based puzzles with interlocking mechanics and pushable blocks
  • wariolike:
    • major aspect: running back out through a level, on a timer, after you’ve gone all the way in at your own pace
    • minor aspect: warioware-like: lots of quick microgames needing to be completed on a timer
  • zachlike: create gadgets using basic components that can add up to perform complex actions, like programming

Other Genre Inspirations

  • wariolike
  • wariowarelike
  • metroidbrainia in a ruined kingdom
  • Point + Click adventure
  • Action/Stealth/Heist Infiltration (Monaco, Door Kickers, Gunpoint)
  • ChuChu Rocket!
  • Turnbased Grid Shooter Strategy (Xcom, Mechanicus)
  • Action Sokoban-like

Core Gameplay Loop

  • core loop: build devices, break in, get the treasure, and escape
    • the basic idea at time of writing (9/1/25) is that you have a homebase where you can dig through boxes of junk to create traps, tools, or other items using the zachlike mechanics. for example, to trip a foe you might need to create a tool that ingests 1 Banana and produces 1 Banana Peel. you’d combine a Grabber, composed of Glove and Stick, with an Opener, composed of Crowbar and Lever, to create a Banana Peeler. during a heist, with a Peeler equipped you can produce Peels after a certain amount of time depending on how efficient your device is (→ how many ticks it takes to output a peel), and it can take up more or less inventory space depending on how large the footprint of the components are (you can carry more gadgets if they’re all designed with the parts packed in tight).
    • importantly though, in a true zachlike, there’s no “point” to any of the puzzles - they’re all just arbitrary arrangements of different colored dots. our challenge would be to come up with a taxonomy of materials that had utility at some or all stages of the tree, similar to a Factorio/Satisfactory build tree.
    • we’d also want the components to be stackable, so that you can build onto a previous component to get something more advanced, and outputs continue to be useful for later gadgets, rather than one-off items which have just a single use.
    • ex: peeled bananas (i.e. the byproduct of peeling bananas to obtain peels, which would otherwise be discarded) can be fed to a caged monkey. deploy the monkey to let loose an agent of chaos who will tangle with intruders
  • GAMEPLAY CONTRAST: GET IN (calm) // GET OUT (PANIK). sokobanlike on the way in. Then, trip a timer and you have to wariolike your way out. (still sokoban but there’s just a time limit.)
  • One general goal: the precise, calculated action of N: the Way of the Ninja (see N++ Notes). However, ideally it’s not as lethal. But maybe the lethality doesn’t matter.
    • Can we even have precise action in a grid based game?
    • funny idea: what if it was grid based on the way in, but release the grid snapping and do free movement on the way out?
  • should feel like a heist in a tabletop rpg adventure.
  • Do we want to do itemization? I think wearing different outfits would be cool. However, random drops are swingy. Should items be scripted based on progress?
  • Level modifiers.
    • The Dark level. The Goopy level. The level full of Creatures.
    • slime speakeasy
    • skyscraper build in progress
    • haunted art nouveau mousemansion

Things NOT to do

  • In Necrodancer, once you get Bard (the character who doesn’t need to move on the beat) the game just becomes kind of boring dungeonslop especially once you memorize the enemy moves. The strategy is just “give enemies space and roll well on item tables”. They make this more interesting by adding gimmick characters, eg unlimited bombs, deal no damage, etc. But we are not going to do that.
  • How will we make a generator that is good enough to use for an indefinite number of levels? If we can, let’s do it; but it could be really tough.

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