The original mechanics are all in the game, and all it is really missing are more polished assets/interfaces; but given the 1 week time frame I had to work on it, I figured it's more important to have all the original mechanics so that it can be played properly.
For the GDW game, I will talk about some of the game balancing:
Fairness: 'Endless' is asymmetrical since players control a different character. Although they have different abilities, we are working to balance out the numbers so that everybody has a fair shot at staying alive for a decent amount of time. For example, the medic may have higher health since it has a very weak attack, while an engineer may have lower health since he is able to produce turrets that can be used to attack and distract enemies in game.
Challenge: I think our game has some good challenges for players of all experience levels. Since the gameplay generally remains the same throughout, challenge is incorporated through faster spawning of enemies as well as stronger enemies.
Meaningful Choices: 'Endless' is a good game for implementing some good meaningful choices. In the game, the gold or money is shared between ALL team members. This means that the team has to effectively figure out who's weapons to upgrade and when to upgrade them. The team could try to max out attack upgrades for the sniper, but the other members would suffer as enemies get stronger and they are unable to hold out for themselves.
Skill vs. Chance: When enemies die in the game, they will drop a certain amount of gold (determined at random). To balance out the issue where the team kills a boss and gets 0 gold, each set of enemies will have a pre-defined max drop and min drop so that the team will still be able to get upgrades even if they are unlucky and get the minimum drop every time.
Heads vs. Hands: The game will require both, and the players must be quick in order to win. Initially, the players will have more time to figure out a strategy, but as the game progresses, they will have to think and act fast. For example, if a group member were to die in the middle of a wave what should the team do? Their chances of survival have just gone down so they need to think of a way to continue surviving.
Competition vs. Co-operation: There is a fair mix of both in the game. Since the gold is shared, the team must co-operate and decide who's weapons are important upgrades. Also, the game is designed so that as a single player you are almost destined to lose very quickly, and in order to get a higher score everybody must work together. There is also some competition amongst the team as they will want to be the last man standing.
Short vs. Long: We are currently working on balancing this out, as we feel that it is possible the game may be too long. If the players get too much time they will be able to formulate many meaningful strategies and keep the game going forever. We are trying to come up with different ways for the AI to behave so that once the team formulates a strategy, it will change to a new strategy and keep players thinking.
Rewards: Of course our game has rewards! Monsters will drop gold that is important for upgrading weapons. Points are also given so that they can be posted on a high score board. And of course there are rewards for working as a team (the medic will be able to heal injured players so that everybody can play longer)
Punishment: The game will punish players through the use of shorter playtime and terminated play. Basically if the player makes stupid choices they will die faster, and that results in the team being unable to play for a long period of time, thus ending the game early.
Freedom vs. Controlled Experience: The game is mostly a controlled experience. The only freedom the players have is to run around wherever they please (on the map). Other than that players are only trying to survive for as long as possible and there aren't any side distractions to keep them away from their main goal.
Simple vs. Complex: We are aiming to avoid innate complexity. We want the game to be elegant in that it is easy to pick up the controls and it is fun to play.
Detail vs. Imagination: The game takes place on top of a skyscraper on planet Earth. We aren't trying to create a brand new world. Besides that there aren't that many details and we leave the imagination of the player to do all the heavy lifting.
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