RyanHuggins
|
|
« on: November 24, 2011, 05:53:41 PM » |
|
Alright, so I recently posted my project here at the TIGForums and I have a design idea that I would very much like some feedback on. It's a very simple, maybe not incredibly innovative system, but I would appreciate your thoughts.
First of all, my game is based on the idea that my main character, Lily, is in the early stages of a degenerative disease. In the spirit of this, the character begins at her highest level, and as the game progresses, she can gain experience from enemies and such, but as she receives a more and more substantial amount of damage, she loses experience from her overall experience pool and will inevitably level down. The game will never blatantly state that Lily CAN level down, but when it occurs for the first time, the game will let you know pretty explicitly (with an explanation for why and everything). The idea of not blatantly telling the player some things about the game until they occur was an idea to add to the mystery surrounding the disease itself.
In relation to exploration and combat, the character Lily has a stress meter that increases in stressful situations and when she takes damage/falls from a distance. I added this to encourage player patience and to caution against some dangerous, but potentially rewarding, jumps and enemy engagements. Once the stress bar reaches a point higher than 65% of it's maximum tolerance, Lily's shield disappears, leaving her open to physical wounds without the usual buffer. Once it passes 90%, Lily will take continuous direct damage to her health (similar to being poisoned). The stress bar reduces itself slowly at all times that it isn't increasing due to another event. Additionally, the higher your stress levels are, the more damage you take from enemy encounters.
In relation to exploration and pacing, I'm planning to incorporate a system where the player can interact with objects in the environment and find items solely for the purpose of figuring out where to go next or to uncover background information about the world itself. The objects will A)Open a window where you can read about the object/hear Lily's thoughts about its purpose or B)Be added to Lily's inventory, where she can examine the objects later when their purposes have become apparent to Lily (for example, she doesn't know what something means when you get the object, but later on, it dawns on her exactly what it can mean).
I was hoping to use this item system to avoid discerning information through cutscenes only and to help the player to figure things out by themselves. It would cut down on the time required to make cutscenes as well as make the game more challenging, in a hopefully engaging sort of manner.
|