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[AlexRamallo]

I started working on this game two months ago, and progress has been surprisingly high with my one-man team. It is a Chuzzle-inspired Pirate-themed puzzle game. The game mechanics are simple and overall pretty polished. However, I've reached a certain design "wall", and I'm not sure how I should proceed. I planned out all of the gameplay before I started working (which probably contributed to my high productivity), but now I want to implement a new mechanic which has thrown my whole design out of control.

What I'm referring to is my players' booty, or their in-game currency. I set it up so that the player can do "jobs" for booty. The jobs vary by difficulty and reward. For example, one job may require you to reach a certain score within the specified time to receive $1000 booty.

The PROBLEM is that I don't know what to do with this booty to make people want to collect it. All I can think of is having a leaderboard that shows the players with the most booty. Another obvious option is to let them buy things to customize their ship, pirate clothes, parrot pet, etc. Unfortunately, I can't do this because of time restraints.


Currently, the only thing that booty is good for is for buying powerups/hints.

[baconman]

1. You need some kinds of disposable assets in the game in order for the "booty" to have any value at all.

2. You can hold higher-reward missions hostage, requiring an investment of some booty in order to attempt - or continue upon failure.

3. If all else fails, you can make some kind of "brag to others" kind of feature for players to spend their booty on, and don't make them visible until they have enough for it. It'll give a competitive aspect to your game that wouldn't be so obvious-featured without it.

[CesarD8]

You can implement lives, as in mario bros, or badges with a certain number of booty. Some sort of achievement, it's a very simple thing but veeeery effective. Also you could change the texture of the ship or character add some more useless detail, it's not a lot of extra work but it could work.

[RareSloth]

1. You need some kinds of disposable assets in the game in order for the "booty" to have any value at all.

This is the most important. Without this, the currency has no value its just a meaningless number.

Upgrades, lives, special unlocks, skins, etc. - something for people to strive towards.

[rek]

If the idea of paying to unlock jobs that pay you back doesn't work for you (as it doesn't for me), have the booty translate to a reputation level. That will give you parallel achievement systems and put the player in position to choose between spending booty on instant rewards or saving it to unlock the next reputation level.

[rj]

make sure it don't quit

[oodavid]

Consumables will help them churn the booty

Customisations will help them become invested in the game - ie: they will take ownership of their character

Unlockables should be similar, this could be secret levels, collectors cards etc.

[AlexRamallo]

Thanks to everyone for their input. As I mentioned before, due to certain time constraints, my hand was forced and I had to release early for one platform. Fortunately, I now have more time to work on it and will be able to release a "fuller" version with more features eventually.

What I ended up doing in the end was to use the booty as a sort of player level. There is a leaderboard the lists players with the most booty, as well as some other leaderboards that track the number of jobs they've completed by difficulty (such as "Most Easy Jobs Completed").

As for spending the booty, the user is given the ability to purchase upgrades that allow them to buy hints (useful as a last resort when you're running out of time), or to buy a bomb which clears a large section of the game board for a not-insignificant price.

In future updates I hope to implement customization of the player's ship as well as add some more competitive play aspects other than leaderboards, such as being able to challenge a friend or something like that. I'll also spice up the core gameplay a little by adding and tweaking certain elements.

What I have right now isn't the best solution, but it does give the game a bit of strategy so it isn't just the same thing over and over. Also, I've already gotten a few sales and had a user beat my own high score. As game developers, that's probably one of the most satisfying parts of playing our own games

[baconman]

If the idea of paying to unlock jobs that pay you back doesn't work for you (as it doesn't for me), have the booty translate to a reputation level. That will give you parallel achievement systems and put the player in position to choose between spending booty on instant rewards or saving it to unlock the next reputation level.

This is NOT good design, because it encourages the hoarding of booty, rather than the application of it. I mean, imagine if Bejeweled Blitz were ranked, not by your score, but by how many coins you had - what would be the point of ever spending a single one of them on boosts, knowing you'd never see a return on your investment?

[rek]

If the idea of paying to unlock jobs that pay you back doesn't work for you (as it doesn't for me), have the booty translate to a reputation level. That will give you parallel achievement systems and put the player in position to choose between spending booty on instant rewards or saving it to unlock the next reputation level.

This is NOT good design, because it encourages the hoarding of booty, rather than the application of it. I mean, imagine if Bejeweled Blitz were ranked, not by your score, but by how many coins you had - what would be the point of ever spending a single one of them on boosts, knowing you'd never see a return on your investment?

It only encourages hoarding if Alex can't come up with anything to tempt the player into spending instead of saving. It would be bad design if the player could end up broke and unable to continue.