Core Mechanics

Because of the top-down perspective, players have free directional movement within the bounds of the room (horizontal and vertical), like that of Cult of The Lamb and Don’t Starve.

• Primary attack
• Secondary heavy attack
• Dash

Mobility

The dash provides momentary intangibility and mobility – allows the player to phase through projectiles and enemies, and can deal damage when combined with some attacks (dependent on equipment).

Difficulty

Rather than provide difficulty modes such as Easy, Normal and Hard as traditional in the roguelike genre, Lament will have one difficulty mode that will subtly increase as the player progresses.

This is because most roguelites use dungeon crawler features – where after a player completes an area, the new unlocked area poses harder challenges. One of the most important aspects of Lament is that it is non-linear, meaning players can access any realm they would like, at any time. This is important because it reflects the psychological non-linear journey of healing from grief and is not something I want to change.

Although the game could work with difficulty modes it would require a lot of balancing to make sure that the game is enjoyable for players at all levels of ability and suits their play style.

Difficulty Summary:

The idea is that the global difficulty of the game will increase after a player completes a realm, not only will this allow players to strategise which order of realms they would like to complete but it also ensures that the game stays balanced with the player upgrades that are rewarded alongside their progression.

Because there are four grief bosses, difficulty increases globally three times.

Standard enemy health will scale globally to better match the optional weapon damage buff.

Combat System

This game features hack and slash combat with three different play styles available granted by player’s chosen equipment (Axe, Sword, Bow).

• Bow– Not as quick, but provide a unique and ranged damage output.
• Sword – Overall, well-rounded option
• Axe – Slower to swing, but feature significantly higher damage as a result.

The player starts with the sword but can swap to any other equipment at any time.

Attack

Equipment	Attack Speed	Damage	Heavy Attack Damage
Axe	1.75	7	12
Sword	1	5	10
Bow	1.5	5	8 (chains to nearby enemies)

Player Health

Instead of the traditional health bar, Lament will use symbols and begin with a three heart (or “lives”) health system, allowing players to be hit at least twice before they are considered dead.

Players will be able to gain more hearts as part of their progression through upgrades. Additional hearts are permanent and function in the same way as the hearts given to the player at the start of the game, similar the way lives work and are portrayed in Hollow Knight.

These hearts will be always displayed on the screen on the top left, see the UI mock-ups in Art for more information.

After being hit the player is granted 1.5 seconds of invincibility time.

Player Death

If the player dies, they are sent back to the Hub area (Limbo), where their health is restored to full.

Progress within the realm where they had died in will not be saved and they must restart. There are no checkpoints, even if the player has reached the final boss stage. However, players do not lose any items/resources.

Resources

Resources refer to the usable items accesible by the player.
These are:

• Terra Shards
• Terra Souls
• Equipment (Axe, Bow, Sword)
• Unique Grief item

Terra Shards are dropped on defeat, approximately 1-5 per enemy.
By the end of clearing a room a player can get anywhere between 25 to 150 Terra Shards.
Grief Bosses also drop 50 Terra Shards upon clearing a realm. In completing a realm in all of its entirety, a player can leave with up to 200 Terra Shards in one run.
A Terra Soul can only be obtained after successfully confronting a Grief Boss.

Boss Fight

Grief stages (Boss levels) will have a normal attack behaviour and then a secondary attack that will start once they reach half health. Boss attacks will become faster as their health depletes, making it more challenging for the player.

Attacks should be delated enough for players to learn kiting patterns, making it easier each time they come to fight the Grief. It is important the fight is challenging enough to be fun, the goal is to avoid players giving up because of frustration with the difficulty.

Attacks will also not do more than a heart of damage to the player as there is an assumption that the player has not started the fight with full health.

Boss	Primary Attack	Secondary Attack	Loot Drops
Denial	Summon up to 5 basic melee enemies to ally Denial in the fight.	Large chains shoot from under the ground in random areas of the scene.	+1 Terra Soul + 40 Terra Shards
Anger	Stands idle in the middle of the scene and shoots streams of fireballs following the player.	Burst of anger causes edges of the screen to become red with fire closing in giving a vignette appearance – player needs to make their way to the middle of the scene to avoid taking damage. Reference: Brine King Boss fight – waves closing in on player https://youtu.be/q01CkcnBdNw?si=mhcuv1Sp9MLhAzvI&t=44	+1 Terra Soul + 40 Terra Shards
Bargaining	Approaches player and swings scythe.	If far enough from the player – will charges quickly at the them, dashing across the screen	+1 Terra Soul + 40 Terra Shards
Depression	Chases after the player, when in close proximity will swing its arms towards them.	Slam the ground with its hands sending a stream of ground damage toward the player.	+1 Terra Soul + 40 Terra Shards

Enemy Behaviour

Every region will have two standard enemy types.

• Close range melee enemy with higher health – they will continuously chase the player until confronted
• Ranged enemy with lower health  – slower and prefer to keep distance from the player, continuosly shooting damage from afar

Each enemy type has a base amount of health that scales with difficulty as each realm has been overcome by the player.

Enemies have +0 health, then +2, then +4, and +6 in the final realm.

Enemy	Base amount (first realm) Health	(second realm) Health	(third realm) Health	(final realm) Health
Melee	10	12	14	16
Ranged	5	7	9	11
Boss	250	350	450	550

These numbers were calculated by thinking about how many hits the player would have to land multiplied by their damage, according to each damage upgrade (between around 50-60 hits need to be landed). This however doesn’t consider if the player has chosen the damage upgrade or not.

Clearing Realms

Once a player has defeated all rooms within a realm, reached the Grief and confronted it successfully – that realm will be ‘shut down’ and inaccessible for the rest of the game – as if it has been checked off. This should be clear to the player in Limbo by having an obstruction at the door of said realm.

After completing a realm, the player should be prompted to speak to the Tree of Sorrow, where there will be dialogue between the player and the NPC about the Grief that has been confronted. This acts as a reflection of the battle and journey, reminiscent of the importance of talking through grief and the resilience needed to push forward.

Meta Game System

The upgrade system follows the meta game loop and coincides with the story progression.

The upgrade system functions through the Tree of Sorrow NPC and a skill tree that the player can interact with throughout the game. This is how the player improves or unlocks abilities. The meta game system is better detailed in the Levels section of the GDD.