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[Pineapple]

I'm making a platformer game name Descended. It's monochromatic - black and magenta. It's a simple 20x14 tile grid onscreen with a 320x240 resolution. The bottom 16 pixels are reserved for text and dialog placement.

The game has no enemies, the focus is on atmosphere, exploration, and complex problem-solving. The game is saved automatically when you hit a checkpoint.

The game has two primary mechanics that make this possible. First, the player is able to pick up powerups that give them an ability. The player can have only one powerup at a time, picking up a different one than is currently held will override the old ability. When the player perishes from an obstacle, they have a certain number of retries. They'll start at the last checkpoint reached. If they have any retries left, they have the option of keeping the powerup they had when they died. The player gains retries by getting powerups. Every time a new one is obtained, the player gains one retry, but the player can have a maximum of 20 at a time.

The other ability is not gained until about midway through the game. It allows you to teleport to the last place you used it. You go to an obstacle that requires use of a certain powerup, but immediately after it is another, different, type of obstacle. So you teleport back before the first obstacle, find the powerup needed, and teleport back. You get past that obstacle and find you need yet another powerup to bypass the next obstacle. You teleport back and get the powerup you need. You hit the next checkpoint. Whever you hit any checkpoint, that checkpoint becomes the location of both your teleportation spots.
It sounds odd in explanation, but it works great in my head.

The game will feature your character, named Lady. You begin the game with the words on the bottom of the screen reading, "Use the left and right arrows to move." You do just a bit of exploration and "Press up to jump" replaces the previous text. Dialog along these lines will follow. "Welcome to the Labyrinth." .. "My name is Djista -- this is a mixture of the words Djinn and Dystopia -- and I'll be your guide." .. "What's your name?" .. "I'll call you Lady. It's easy to remember." .. "Were you a bad person? Only bad people come here." .. "But they're gone now."
As you can see, Djista isn't exactly friendly, but her dialog will be the only contact you have with anything. You eventually discover that she's only guiding you deeper into the labyrinth, and has nothing in mind aside from an untimely demise. You stumble upon the teleporter-thing after some time. The sooner you reject Djista's guidance, the sooner you'll find it. Then you'll use it to get back to where you started the game at, and navigate a path that was previously inaccessible. At this point all of Djista's speech will be little more than blind rage and babbling. Then you'll finally make it out of labyrinth and onto the surface of whereever it is you've been. You'll destroy Djista in something like a boss fight, but then you'll discover that there's no way out from here (or anyplace). The next time you die you will not be able to respawn normally. Instead you'll become a ghostlike figure, and this is where the third portion of the game starts.

As a ghost, you will not die and you will be able to fly freely. You won't be able to nab powerups any longer. This flying will make paths that previously appeared purely cosmetic or were simply out of reach regardless of the powerups you used to become navigable. In them you'll fight a handful of bosses (though as a ghost you will be invincible against them) and when the last is defeated, the Labyrinth will collapse and you'll finally be actually free.


Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? The game engine is currently approaching completion.

[baconman]

Sounds very cool; although some increasingly-obvious signs regarding the deceptiveness should be given with progress - after all, you WANT the players to discover that... just not too quickly. Otherwise, they'll just be wandering in frustration. Also, you run the risk of an unintentional "death" spoiling the second half of the game. I suggest you make that dynamic already available; and have the "guidance" attempt to redeliver you back to the living (IE: last checkpoint); and for that to require a collectible artifact, not unlike Power Rings with Super Sonic.

So you, "in the living" collect something that allows you so many seconds "in the dead." Once you die, you're free to explore about in ghost form, although you're guided back to the checkpoints (some type of shrines?), namely the one you last went to; however, you can be revived at any of them (including otherwise inaccessible ones), provided you reach them before your time runs out. However, you must return to the living before you can be allowed to collect any more of those powerups.

There should also be some obstacle-avoidance element to this part, too; and a series of unrequired steps "forward in the wrong direction" that makes this easier to achieve; and rank players primarily by the time they take to complete the game. So the quickest route is also the most challenging, but still possible, with some margin of error available.

Also, different boss encounters should revolve around different elements of gameplay - one should be focused on particular use of different items, and proper swapping between them; another have an "impossible to avoid" attack that requires you go back and forth between living and ghost mode to sequencially defeat the menace, and so forth.

[Pineapple]

It was kind of my intention to give the impression that the player is a murderer. You couldn't even get out that way, yet you mercilessly killed Djista. I wanted there to be a complete realization here when they die and permanently become a ghost. And the enemies you fight when a ghost would not be intended to be difficult, but rather more cinematic.

As for time, I was intending to do just that.

[SirNiko]

What happens when the player runs out of retries? Do they get kicked back to a save point (less frequent than checkpoints) or do they have to start over? I feel like the concept could work without that.

The rest seems okay so far. It might be worth working up some game details.

-SirNiko

[Pineapple]

Not having a retry just means that they would have to backtrack a bit to obtain the needed powerup. (Retries are just for keeping your powerup you had before you died, when you hit the checkpoint. Perhaps there'd be a hard mode with no retries, the normal mode, and an easy one with infinite.)

It serves mostly to give a player a brief break from a particularly frustrating obstacle, since it would be irregular not to have recovered most of your retries between each significant obstacle. I hate it when I'm playing something requiring a large amount of precision and I have no other thing to do and no other route to take. This, along with a nonlinear path, would correct the unpleasantry.