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mysteriosum
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« Reply #1500 on: January 29, 2013, 09:53:42 AM »

I wrote on my weblog about this:

A single-resource RPG. 'Energy' replaces HP, MP, XP and GP. Lose Energy when you get hit, when you attack or use a special ability, spend Energy to 'buy' abilities, upgrades, weapons and consumables. You even have to use energy to speak, sometimes - like if you're trying to lie to or persuade someone, 'cause that shit is tiring.

In order for it to make sense as money, the setting is a future where we have invented energy-manipulation devices, which let us harness energy from our own bodies, or replace it with energy from batteries. It eliminates the need to eat, but people still eat because food's delicious.
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« Reply #1501 on: January 30, 2013, 09:17:19 AM »

Probably another RPG concept: Removal of general experience almost entirely to the point where it isn't important, but an optional buff on the character, but is critical to the weapon.

Using certain weapons in certain ways boosts your character's experience with that weapon and the method it was used. For example, using a sword to slash, chop, and stab would not only yield different results on differently armored enemies, but using slash/chop/stab would gain general experience in those fields and weapon experience. Using a weapon the character has lots of experience with will dish more damage than someone with lots of experience in slashing only.

Training in other weapons/moves would also reduce the experience these weapons/moves have, but much slower than gaining, requiring practice with many weapons and moves just to be the most experienced. The player can use some of this experience on his- and/or herself to boost some attribute by a single point. The experience cost is the exact same for each level. The amount of experience collected from battle will only depend on the amount of moves you pull off.
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« Reply #1502 on: January 30, 2013, 11:06:32 AM »

Probably another RPG concept: Removal of general experience almost entirely to the point where it isn't important, but an optional buff on the character, but is critical to the weapon.

Using certain weapons in certain ways boosts your character's experience with that weapon and the method it was used. For example, using a sword to slash, chop, and stab would not only yield different results on differently armored enemies, but using slash/chop/stab would gain general experience in those fields and weapon experience. Using a weapon the character has lots of experience with will dish more damage than someone with lots of experience in slashing only.

Training in other weapons/moves would also reduce the experience these weapons/moves have, but much slower than gaining, requiring practice with many weapons and moves just to be the most experienced. The player can use some of this experience on his- and/or herself to boost some attribute by a single point. The experience cost is the exact same for each level. The amount of experience collected from battle will only depend on the amount of moves you pull off.

Shifting the stat building somewhere else doesn't make it any more interesting. Also, since you're fighting all sorts of different enemy armor types, your best strategy is always to even out your stats so that you aren't facing an enemy that's unbeatable due to your best slash type being useless against it D:
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« Reply #1503 on: January 30, 2013, 08:39:22 PM »

Probably another RPG concept: Removal of general experience almost entirely to the point where it isn't important, but an optional buff on the character, but is critical to the weapon.

Using certain weapons in certain ways boosts your character's experience with that weapon and the method it was used. For example, using a sword to slash, chop, and stab would not only yield different results on differently armored enemies, but using slash/chop/stab would gain general experience in those fields and weapon experience. Using a weapon the character has lots of experience with will dish more damage than someone with lots of experience in slashing only.

Training in other weapons/moves would also reduce the experience these weapons/moves have, but much slower than gaining, requiring practice with many weapons and moves just to be the most experienced. The player can use some of this experience on his- and/or herself to boost some attribute by a single point. The experience cost is the exact same for each level. The amount of experience collected from battle will only depend on the amount of moves you pull off.

Shifting the stat building somewhere else doesn't make it any more interesting. Also, since you're fighting all sorts of different enemy armor types, your best strategy is always to even out your stats so that you aren't facing an enemy that's unbeatable due to your best slash type being useless against it D:

Well, then again, for the project this concept was for, there really isn't that much to differ in armor types besides armor (unarmored/wildlife) and armored (chainmail, leather/cloth, platebody, Kevlar). The difference between the types is a few more hitpoints of damage, which is a good deal with a formula where the player only starts with ten hitpoints and can finish the game with a hitpoint level of around sixty. Chainmail can be beat with stab, leather/cloth with slash, platebody with crush, and Kevlar, heat (special standard-issue sword handles this). The only tough part is what kind would the player be fighting more often? Wildlife wouldn't be one to really attack the player, so that scratches out mostly unarmored. The most common fights will be done against enemies with Kevlar, putting resistance swords (swords in which the edge of the blade is fitted with a very resistant electric resistor, heating it up greatly) in an advantage. If all else fails, you could still club them with a good bludgeoning weapon. You thought medieval knights wore all that heavy armor for nothing? I would think more died from concussions than actual flesh wounds.

Of course, there is the bullet attack type, which is critical against unarmored, as is almost every weaponed attack, but even better by an almost logarithmic amount and is almost a death blow against the plot-insignificant enemies and lowest of the experience givers. Anything worth that salt is going to be armored to the bone if they can help it.

The player mainly wears armor that is good enough against bullets before faulting.

tl;dr There isn't much significance between armor types besides a few more HP damage dealt. There exist slash, stab, chop, crush, bullet, heat, and sonic for attack types. There exist cloth, "hard cloth" (eg. leather), chain, plate, Kevlar, and energy armor types. Cloth falls from most attacks, "hard cloth" falls from stab, chain falls from stab, plate falls from crush, chain and weaker fall to bullet, Kevlar falls from heat, and energy is dang near invincible, but it's a butt to keep powered. The player will mostly encounter enemies clad in plate and Kevlar.
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« Reply #1504 on: February 01, 2013, 06:16:56 PM »

This may warrant a new topic, but heres a NeoGaf thread of things from old games that people want to see more of: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=510552. Has a ton of amazing ideas/mechanics.

It sort of surprises me, I'm not programmer but people seem to design games more when they're playing with code rather than "wouldn't it be cool if". Maybe there's a reason for that.
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« Reply #1505 on: February 02, 2013, 05:19:49 AM »

Setting: 1940's Noir + Steam Punk

Character: Stereotypical Private Eye, with a lucky coin.

Plot: People have been disappearing lately. Each victim was kidnapped from their room, and left in their place was a circle of burning candles in the middle of the floor. Our protagonist investigates and discovers a cult that's worshiping some deity. Tracking down the cult, he comes across an ancient and forgotten art of magic, and learns a thing or two.



Game Play:

A tile based game with relatively large tiles. Whenever the player moves one square, time moves forward. When the player is not moving, time is not moving. Basically, the player takes their turn, the NPCs take their's. Like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

This allows the game to feel fluid, like it's not turn based, but when the player needs to make actions, it doesn't feel like the game is paused while you do. Perhaps, one button will allow you to skip turns to allow the world around you to take their actions.

One button opens a menu of social actions: Talk, Whisper, Shout, Examine, etc.
Another button opens a menu of combat actions: Punch, Shoot, Magic, Duck, etc.

Each action is a command and has a radius and a charge time, like a turn-based tactics game, including 'Talk.' This allows the player to talk to characters they're not standing directly next to, and helps to make combat and noncombat very seemless. Also, it would make the player actually, really, want to talk to that NPC for a specific reason since it takes a couple buttons and a cursor placement. We don't usually go up to every single person we meet on the street and ask them questions, and I don't think the player should be doing this either. It should 'cost' the something player to just go around fishing for hints.

During conversations, players can press a button to go into 'word selection' mode. With a word selected, the player can choose "Ask About", "Talk About", or "Add to Notes." During a conversation, each thing the NPC says can be responded to in this way, but for some conversations, specific options are available. A Conversation might go like this:

  • Player chooses talk, chooses the target.
  • He can choose 'Ask About' or 'Talk About' and then choose 'People', 'Places', 'Things', or 'Events' that have been added to his notes.
  • He Asks this NPC about the kidnappings
  • The NPC replies "I don't know much about them, but I think Corona knows something. She looked sort of happy when we heard the report on the radio."
  • The player enters 'Word Selection' mode and chooses 'Corona', then "Ask About", and the NPC tells you she's his roommate and works at the diner on 5th street.
  • This time, the player has a special response option, "Is she at work now?"

The player can also examine and interact with objects, fusing in graphic adventure elements. Sometimes he needs to steal a key, sometimes he needs to find a way to get up to a fire escape ladder, sometimes he needs to hide in a dumpster. He has a command 'Interact' that he can use on any object, and each object has a list of interaction options. So, Hold Shift, choose 'interact', click the dumpster, the menu says 'Push, Hide inside, Search, Climb Onto.' Since the Hero is a private eye, it's important that the player feel like they're actually investigating and using clues to uncover the truth.

Combat is sort of your standard turn-based combat, with in-cover bonuses, charge times for actions, etc. One thing that would set this apart from other TBS combat is that since 'combat' and 'exploration' are not separate engines, the player can actually yell things to his enemy. For example, he's chasing down some guy and corners him in an alley. The guy pulls a gun and the player dives behind a dumpster. The player can choose to fire on the guy, or can choose to try and reason with him.

Finally, combat can be rather lethal. When a character is fired upon, it calculates hit % based on various factors (weather, lighting, behind cover, etc). If a hit is made, the bullet could hit a vital or a nonvital area. There are no hit points. To even things out for the player, the Hero has his "lucky coin," which grants him a little extra % to miss, and a better chance of not getting hit in a vital spot. Possibly, he finds other lucky mementos so that combat difficulty can scale up and still feel natural and 'realistic'.

TLDR;: A Turn Based Graphic Adventure.


I'd love to make this game, but it's a bit ambitious for one person - or even several.
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« Reply #1506 on: February 04, 2013, 05:02:44 PM »

I've been tossing around this idea for a multiplayer board-game/roguelikelike that totally forsakes character sheets; all attacks do the same amount of damage (unless you're manly enough to find a better weapon), and you definitely hit without fail. It's set in a multi-level dungeon that can be randomized every game by the GM (the board is made up of moveable tiles or drawn on graph paper). Each level of the dungeon has tiles that overlap tiles from the level above, which can be affected by events from above (such as cave-ins).

It allows players to move five squares in every direction and attack/counterattack out of turn. The goal was to emphasize exploration while adding spatial strategy, like a Fire Emblem-type RPG. Cards that contain events (such as cave-ins, monster encounters, or treasure discoveries) described on them are placed upside-down randomly on the board for the players to uncover.

The goal of the game is to find the staircases downward (hidden in event cards) and grab the treasure at the lowest level. As you progress downwards, the monsters and environment get tougher (all controlled by the GM), and once a player finds the treasure, all the other players turn against him.

I chose a more merit-based progression system for this (loot is found in tougher monsters, but loot is never the sole reason why you succeed), and let the monsters be controlled by an actual human so that defeating monsters and finding treasure is rewarding in itself. The mechanics are focused mainly on tricking your opponents and luring them into traps or setting up elaborate multi-level schemes rather than attacking and killing monsters.

Presentation really isn't the focus, because you can just play with graph paper and rocks. The role-playing really lies in the ability for players to craft a playstyle with their weapons and strategy.

I feel like randomization and open-endedness are pretty crucial to a fun role-playing experience.
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« Reply #1507 on: February 08, 2013, 07:10:14 AM »

Mr Motivator

You play Derrick Evans - having left the British spotlight 20 years ago after losing your "magic Spandex" and slipped into obscurity your goal is to motivate Derrick Evans to become MR MOTIVATOR. Level 1 is to Motivate your feckless teenage children and layabout wife to get out of the house and go to School / Work. You then have to motivate your way through the oppressions of day-to-day life on the endless quest to find your Spandex...



"Everybody say HUH!"

Ironically I'm not motivated enough to write any more, I'm at work, I have oppressions too don't you know.
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« Reply #1508 on: February 11, 2013, 07:03:47 AM »

A rap simulator sort of like a Kairosoft game. You start with a rapper, and you get gain hype men and various members of your crew. You watch for trends in music to help you create a hit, or, go underground!

Rap construction starts with picking a theme, a topic, and then picking various rhymes from a list of words.

also,

a game where every class is a support class n you just sit around hugging n healing each other. pushing boxes around. gettin shit done.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2013, 09:41:23 AM by Rabbit » Logged

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« Reply #1509 on: February 11, 2013, 02:24:39 PM »

Zombie games nowadays are all:
Hey a zombie apocalypse just happened, grab the nearest gun and start shooting!
or
Hey it's the future, we screwed up. Zombies are around so grab the nearest gun and start shooting!

I feel like the medieval times are being left out of this.
Which is more tense really:
You stand at a range from the zombies, shooting them out of their reach, you run out of ammo, so you run, and since you were standing away from them, you get a lead on them.
or
You stand amidst the zombies, clad in your armor, you can't run, you have to fight.
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« Reply #1510 on: February 11, 2013, 03:52:00 PM »

This may warrant a new topic, but heres a NeoGaf thread of things from old games that people want to see more of: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=510552. Has a ton of amazing ideas/mechanics.

It sort of surprises me, I'm not programmer but people seem to design games more when they're playing with code rather than "wouldn't it be cool if". Maybe there's a reason for that.

Well, I'm all about games focused on mechanics/abilities/game elements .. I'll take a look here and see if there's anything I think would be interesting.

"Real time tactics games where you can control one of your soldiers directly" - While I don't see anything bad about this idea, it's not really interesting either.  The tactics part of the game has to be pretty dumbed down for everything to be running on auto-pilot while you're playing hero with one of your guys.

"More realistic flight mechanics or at least the feel of flight and lift in parts of games." - I'd really be surprised if there weren't some flight simulators that do this already.

"Mega Man style acquiring the enemy's powers." - This is actually one of the worst things about the classic series, as once you know the hard ability counters to each boss (and they sure aren't hard to figure out), the boss fights after the first one become trivial.  In order for this to not suck, the abilities would either have to be non-combat related, or not do extra damage to certain bosses.

"Real world based fantasy sports." - This could be interesting, I'm pretty sure you'd need to be a bit more specific though, as this is pretty damn vague.  Which sport?  What kind of powers/abilities?

"Setting the tone of the game via gameplay mechanics and meta-mechanics." - Yeah, I'm really not a fan of gimmicky "Fuck with the player" stuff like this.  Give the player challenges that work within the framework of the game rules you've established, don't screw around with the player just because you can.

"No fail states should be explored more. Arbitrary "Oh no you got seen and now the mission is over forever" moments are lazy and completely immersion breaking." - The eventual result of failing a stealth mission would be reinforcements which would kill you, so the game is kind of skipping all that.  If it didn't just fade out on you, you'd probably just restart at that point since you're doomed.  Unless you mean some alternate game path that opens up once you're caught, like you can fight your way out, but then why were you even bothering with stealth in the first place?

"destructible landscapes which actually force you to change your plan of attack." - I think this is best done by having only some parts of the landscape that are destroyable.  When everything can be destroyed, you end up with a level that just resembles swiss cheese after awhile.

"gun that changed the height of the ground you shot." - Being able to create platforms is cool, I did that in one of my games.

"Time loops" - In a lot of ways, this describes every game that you start over from a fresh start with no save data every time you play it. :O

"Abilities that use your health as energy" - This wasn't cool in beat-em-ups and I don't particularly like the idea.  Cooldowns, limited supply and limited energy are all better ideas.

"Mobility in first person games." - It's actually really difficult to do this because you can't see or feel your character's limbs.

"Blocking/reversals in beat 'em up games." - You could take a lot of mechanics from modern fighting games and put them in beat-em-ups to make them more interesting.  It actually is surprising nobody's done this yet. 

"Logic puzzles." - Doesn't Prof. Layton series do this pretty well?

"game that constantly changes up the gameplay before things get stale" - Very hard to do this right or well at all, since you have to playtest and balance almost 4 times as hard.

"Attacks that focus on disabling/wounding certain body parts" - Problem with this is that if it's real-time, it's difficult to aim for a certain body part unless the game is going in slow motion, and if it's turn-based, you just select the most optimal part to wound every time.  Also, didn't Dead Space series do this?

"Mech customization" - Gets min/maxed rather easily.  Still not a bad idea, but I wouldn't do it myself.

"Deathmatch based FPS games like Quake and Unreal" - Yeah, these kind of disappeared after Quake 3 basically perfected the genre.  Maybe it's time for another one.  But what would you do to make it new/interesting?

"Tank controls in survival horror games" - There was an entire thread about this around here recently.

"Story progression and character development/interaction happening during gameplay" - Annoying, gets in the way of things and the player shouldn't be paying attention to that while the game is going anyway.

"Wall Running" - Could be cool, depending on how it's used.

"Enemies surrendering/fleeing after being disarmed/overpowered/caught off-guard" - This is pretty subtle but could be interesting if they run to other guards and alert them. 

"Parkour-style map movement in a FPS that also equally utilizes good gunplay." - How are you supposed to aim or carry a gun when you're vaulting off walls and stuff? D:

"Parallel worlds" - Cool, but very hard to pull off well.  I should attempt this at some point, it seems like it's right up my alley.

"Competitive team multiplayer" - This is always good, there should be more games like this.

"We need a 'Watson' moment in gaming AI. " - That thing was a supercomputer researched and backed up by zillions of dollars D:

And that was the whole first page.  More later, maybe, probably not. >_>
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« Reply #1511 on: February 11, 2013, 08:01:24 PM »

I like Mega Man gaining enemies' powers. He just needs to use them for strategic variety, like the powers you get in a well designed RPG.

Even cooler: have an open-like world - similar to Mega Man - and have lots of powers for the hero to collect. The game would be like Minecraft - not - but with platforming challenges, and instead of getting treasure - ok, so like Diablo ... - the player gets powers from defeated enemies. ... like Pokemon, except of course in Pokemon the powers are the monsters; you defeat one and gain it (not its power).

So Pokemon, but you kill the Pokemon, take their powers, and use them somehow. Maybe you can't level powers. You can only get new ones. So you get the level 3 wind one that pushes enemies around, to take out fast guys on cliffs more easily, to get the level 2 agility one... to get the other one, to get the other one, to get the level 6 wind.

Also not turn-based combat. Normal action-type stuff.

So then like with Minecraft, you build the house to stay the night, to go mining tomorrow, to get the iron, to make the pick, to get the coal, to torch the depths, to get the gold. Blah blah. ... But! You get the wind to get the ice, to go deep in the lava place, to get the berry, to feed the dragon, to ride it to victory! And get the wind, to fight the other dragon, to build your house, so it looks pretty.

The advantage of this format, compared to regular Mega Man - well one advantage anyway - is that the player enjoys playing both the slow and fast way. He learns the world by playing, and gets better... but he also learns weakness chains, and interesting strategies for exploiting them, adapting to the world he actually finds himself in. Each time he dies, or replenishes his stock - goes home to sleep, report, whatever - he has to replay something, sort of, and can take the shortcuts he has learned about. Nothing ever breaks because all the player is doing is saving time.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2013, 08:51:13 PM by Graham. » Logged
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« Reply #1512 on: February 11, 2013, 08:17:30 PM »

Here's an idea: you can go back 5 seconds in time.

How many times do you play a game and just want to redo that last little bit there? In Prince of Persia it is stupid slow... not meant for quick backtracks, only huge errors. I'm pulling apart the same mechanics as Blow did for Braid....

You also charge fast. So you have a 1 second rewind, a 5 second, and 1 minute. You can get 5 of the first, 3 of the second, and 1 of the last. Each charges based on how flashy you do stuff. So an awesome move - like a perfect counter, or clever maneuver - refills a level 1 second rewind, a more complex one refills a 5 second one, and something even more awesome gets you the 1 minute one.

The important bit is to balance the game entirely off of these things, so the player is always gaining charges for all of them. ... There's some stuff you can do to ensure the player is using what he has, instead of saving it and so on - a problem with Prince of Persia.

Combat is fluid and fast, and the player uses all of his powers often, because the game is designed for it to be that way. Also the effects of going back in time are really sharp. Iterating on that so rewinding feels cool is super important. Rewinding needs to feel like the proper punctuation in a sequence of events that it actually is. Snappy, elegant, like jumping in Mario.

This promotes experimentation, because the player is actually not punished for trying things out, and redoing them feels cool. And of course there are always opportunities to use the high powered rewinds.... So there is motivation to get them. You build up the low level ones, to try out some tricky moves to get the higher level ones, to get enough to do something really crazy and own someone.

Often games punish you hard for trying stuff. I like the idea of taking away that stuff. With the above idea the player is only owned if he makes many mistakes in a row, and refuses to pull himself back up. If you (the player) follow up some bad plays with some good ones you end up right where you started. "Get out of jail free" cards. That's what gaming is all about!

... Or maybe the high powered rewind isn't a rewind at all. Doing something really well earns you rewinds, and doing something perfectly earns you special moves - that do fancy/extra damage/effects. So you earn your rewinds by playing well, then try riskier things to get the super powers, probably having to use up your rewinds in the process. You cycle between gaining/expending rewinds until you're good enough to nail a guy and get the thing you want to own him with. Or maybe you just beat him regularly in the process.

The powers/charges don't carry between battles. You earn and use them in one. Maybe if you have some excess after a battle you get some proportionately valuable buff/exp bonus or something, something, but not enough for the benefits to be as good as using the charges in combat.

Visually, the rewinds show on the player avatar. They are like floating orbs of light around him or something, that flash around as he is doing moves. So maybe like 5 small yellow ones and 3 larger orangey-red ones are there. When the player uses one up, the ball of light pops and "pushes" the player back through time, undoing what he just did. The action slows down a little during this, then transitions back to full speed smoothly, giving the player 1/2 second of lead-in that he can't do anything during, before the 1 second window opens that he can change.

« Last Edit: February 15, 2013, 07:32:04 PM by Graham. » Logged
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« Reply #1513 on: February 12, 2013, 11:03:46 AM »

"Real time tactics games where you can control one of your soldiers directly" - While I don't see anything bad about this idea, it's not really interesting either.  The tactics part of the game has to be pretty dumbed down for everything to be running on auto-pilot while you're playing hero with one of your guys.

Batallion Wars was an underrated franchise that could be most aptly described as a third-person shooter Advance Wars, that did this really well. The game was still very tactical, having incorporated the familiar mechanics in an intuitive and smoothly designed way, and it retained that element because you had a personal stake in what units survived, vs. most strategy games where they're picked off by calculations under the hood.

"Mega Man style acquiring the enemy's powers." - This is actually one of the worst things about the classic series, as once you know the hard ability counters to each boss (and they sure aren't hard to figure out), the boss fights after the first one become trivial.  In order for this to not suck, the abilities would either have to be non-combat related, or not do extra damage to certain bosses.

I think they can still be combat related, the advantages and elemental rock-paper-scissors just don't need to be so extreme. Kirby does this really well, especially The Crystal Shards--where each power you get feels special to use because they have functional variation, but none are inherently overpowered in certain circumstances...except the example-specific Kunai, that was a somewhat poorly balanced weapon.

"No fail states should be explored more. Arbitrary "Oh no you got seen and now the mission is over forever" moments are lazy and completely immersion breaking." - The eventual result of failing a stealth mission would be reinforcements which would kill you, so the game is kind of skipping all that.  If it didn't just fade out on you, you'd probably just restart at that point since you're doomed.  Unless you mean some alternate game path that opens up once you're caught, like you can fight your way out, but then why were you even bothering with stealth in the first place?

Thief and Mirror's Edge did this very well--the stealth was somewhat more optional in Thief, in a lot of circumstances. Like Deus Ex, it really most impacts how lethal you want to be in your maneuvering. But in Mirror's Edge, I remember this one part where I was fleeing from what felt like the entire city police force from different angles, and I being spilled out onto a big open highway area. I didn't know where to go, so I just ran, and was eventually chased and gunned down by rifle soldiers and gunships. It was really cool that the game let you do that, instead of just being presented with an invisible wall or kill screen.

"Abilities that use your health as energy" - This wasn't cool in beat-em-ups and I don't particularly like the idea.  Cooldowns, limited supply and limited energy are all better ideas.

I don't know, it worked really well in F-Zero, where you had to gauge and rely on your skill to risk sparing health towards increasing speed, which in turn made it more dangerous. I think it just has to be balanced well, so that the player recognizes the choice they're making when they sacrifice the health for the power. That's something things like Mana can't really pull off, the relationship between vitality and power.

"Logic puzzles." - Doesn't Prof. Layton series do this pretty well?

Perhaps meant logic puzzles incorporated in other genres, games that don't explicitly focus on those kinds of puzzles. But this can be really badly done, like the obtuse puzzles in Devil May Cry which broke up the rest of the game horribly.

"game that constantly changes up the gameplay before things get stale" - Very hard to do this right or well at all, since you have to playtest and balance almost 4 times as hard.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron lets the player get to grips with the controls of each character quickly, and every few missions puts them into a different robot. They're not really balanced towards each other, and it's an oddly satisfying way of pacing--like taking a loaf of bread, a head of lettuce, and 2 tomatoes and making a big interesting sandwich. In other words, gameplay variety, just not subtle and undercooked like when designers throw oddly contrasting minigames into an otherwise consistent game. That's more like finding an unpleasant surprise in your loaf of bread.

"Attacks that focus on disabling/wounding certain body parts" - Problem with this is that if it's real-time, it's difficult to aim for a certain body part unless the game is going in slow motion, and if it's turn-based, you just select the most optimal part to wound every time.  Also, didn't Dead Space series do this?

Fallout 3 comes to mind, but didn't utilize it do it's full potential, as healing still had the same implications that it would've had otherwise.

"Deathmatch based FPS games like Quake and Unreal" - Yeah, these kind of disappeared after Quake 3 basically perfected the genre.  Maybe it's time for another one.  But what would you do to make it new/interesting?

Halo recently revived it with new L4D-ish twists of Infection gamemodes. I think gamemode customization really helps spur this kind of game, too.

"Story progression and character development/interaction happening during gameplay" - Annoying, gets in the way of things and the player shouldn't be paying attention to that while the game is going anyway.

Bastion is popularly what perfected this method of storytelling, via active and well-voice-acted narration. It's not distracting from the gameplay when seamlessly integrated with what's going on. When there's gameplay and story segregation, however, and the story being developed has nothing to do with what you're trying to accomplish in-game, then there's a bad contrast and that's where you've made a design flaw.

"Parkour-style map movement in a FPS that also equally utilizes good gunplay." - How are you supposed to aim or carry a gun when you're vaulting off walls and stuff? D:

Again, see Mirror's Edge, does this very well.

"Parallel worlds" - Cool, but very hard to pull off well.  I should attempt this at some point, it seems like it's right up my alley.

Games that do this well, like the recently released Giana Sisters indie title, or Metroid Prime 2, are most notable in the way that switching from one world to the other has implications on the level design, and often is a way of circumventing obstacles between two dimensions. Very cool.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 09:52:50 AM by Ridley » Logged
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« Reply #1514 on: February 13, 2013, 10:37:37 PM »

I'm not quite sure where else to put this, but I had some interesting thoughts about feelies.

In retrospect, they were a way of compartmentalizing a part of the game experience that couldn't be handled by the software alone. Where we now have access to full voice acting, cinematic cutscenes, polygonal 3D models and highly detailed 2D sprites, older games had none of this. Instead, they offloaded the visual aesthetics and the storytelling onto media that was better established and cheaper to produce. Game manuals are the most obvious example, and once you take this tack it's easy to see what happened. As games have gotten better at incorporating their story and visual aesthetic into itself, it doesn't need the manual anymore to prop itself up. Indeed, as games get better at teaching players the mechanics through tutorials and hint devices, it doesn't even need the manual to explain how the game is played. This is the reason why so many manuals for games now are paper-thin or even non-existent; they're no longer needed, their vital information has been absorbed into the game experience.

However, I think this relationship between the physical and the digital is a very interesting one and still worth exploring. That there is a revived interest in printmaking and book-binding as a craft is no coincidence; as more of society becomes digital, we are interested in the tangible, the hand-made. Indie game devs might not be able to afford to print cloth maps for every copy of their next roguelike platformer, but exploiting that relationship could yield some really interesting results. A short zine with illustrations of the baddies you're facing, or a hand-made diary with scribbles from the madman who placed you in this infernal maze, or a simple letter requesting your help to Save The World.

This is still a very loose idea in my head, but designing a game around that relationship could also be worthwhile. The idea that sparked it was reading a bit about the Book of the Dead. Here is a tome that guides the deceased through an enchanted realm, containing a list of spells that'll help them overcome obstacles and tons of information about all of the challenges they'll face. It's essentially a strategy guide for the afterlife. Now imagine a game with that idea in mind, the player depending on a small book for help- but what if the book is missing pages? Or some parts are translated poorly, and some are just outright fabricated? Now we have a metagame, where the player is interacting with the physical media to help them interact with the digital media. I have no idea if this would even be fun.... but it could be.
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« Reply #1515 on: February 13, 2013, 10:52:31 PM »

I love hard copies. I plan for my current game to do (hopefully):
  . hard copy manuals, that read like instructions/art book etc. players order these. they are given out for special editions etc.
  . a board/card game that lets players engage in the same mechanics, though slightly altered.
  . the ability to print/buy hardcopy versions of your special items/characters, which can work with the board/card game
  . a paper-only card/board game that lets player play most of the actual board/card game with stuff printed out at home.

I'm also very interested in "helpful" co-op, or back-seat driving. One player is playing, and the other player is helping, without actually playing. The second player is reading a book, or looking at their phone or whatever, and only "plays" by communicating.

One trick for digital media, based on your idea Zest. Create a special code, and print it on the book. Then generate all the number data in the book based on several functions that take the printed code as input. That way the book is unique. Then the player enters the code into their console, tying their book to it, and must rely on the book to do certain things.
  . This is tricky. Would not make a necessary feature.
  . No idea how this works with printers, since each book is one of a kind.

The simplest solution is just to make the book really helpful. Maybe there are times when the player can sort of take a back seat in the game - like flying between cities in WoW - and can read the book then, flipping through menus in the game too, while waiting.

The wiki for Minecraft is one of the most important parts of the experience. I would love to have a book for playing Minecraft beside me, or something, that's suited for how much I know about the game i.e. beginner book, advanced book.
  . the idea is the book has everything the web has, but is professionally organized. of course you can put redeemable codes in the book for game content. then package the book in with deals.

I really like the idea of winning books. Like in the game you give out X books for players who are awesome. The give-away books are special edition. Hello strong community.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2013, 10:57:36 PM by Graham. » Logged
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« Reply #1516 on: February 13, 2013, 11:47:32 PM »

These are all fucking choice ideas. A video/boardgame hybrid could be crazy cool, and fulfill what all of those DVD boardgame hybrids attempted to do. Not totally sold on sealing a book to a single game, though- that's basically a single-use-install DRM. I like the line of thought, though, of personalizing the experience. Maybe the book would be better suited for it? Allow the user to sign a contract in it or something before they started playing, to get into character and make the book their own.
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« Reply #1517 on: February 14, 2013, 01:21:06 AM »

Yeah, I don't like the one-copy book idea either. It just has the core thing you want, making the book a necessary part of the experience. Though that might be over thinking it. Maybe the book just need to be super interesting.

I was a camp counsellor for 2 years. Kids would carry around these pokedexs, that were little pocket electronic toys that just told you pokemon powers when you typed in their number. they would quiz each other on them, just because they liked pokemon.

The value of a book is two-fold:
  1. You have a physical representation of your appreciation for a product.
  2. You can carry the book around, use it anywhere etc.

The reason I like old instruction manuals is because they told me things about the game, that I needed to know. They set the tone for how to play. Now we just jump in, and often to a detriment, because we don't take the care to become absorbed. We don't digest before we consume. Also, I could read the manual when my parents were watching tv, or it was past my bedtime or something. Games were only sometimes. The book was every time.

You can sit at a desk and pour over your math homework with a friend. It's more personal than at a computer. Because the emphasis is on you and the other. The pokedex was an excuse to bring the social connection pokemon could create with you on the go. It is hard to get someone to play a game with you. It is easy to get them to glance at a page. It is non committal.

You can bust out a book beside a pad and pen, and take notes. You can have it with you while you are playing, while the computer is over there. You can have it beside your computer while your monitor is tied up playing the game.

Wikis are extensive. They will always be more extensive than what devs produce, unless no one cares about your game. Devs can do these things:
  1. put in artwork
  2. customize the presentation to suit the vision of the game
  3. customize the information to be the perfect pocket companion

If you have to look in a book a lot, like an explorer checking his notebook for maps and clues and riddles, then the careful planning of its construction becomes very valuable, and thus irreplaceable by the internet.

And of course, you create templates in the book, or in a separate book, that the player can fill in with their own notes, that they take from the game - which can have some uniqueness to them, for the individual player - or from the web, or from their own calculations, that they must reference while playing, or suffer. ... That's how you make the book forcibly unique. You make the player "sign it" with unique information that shows up only in their campaign, over and over.

They must take great care in how they take their notes because the book has limitations (a physical length). They can print off extra pages on their computer, or buy new blank books/appendices in the store, but they'll want to keep what they do have as pristine as possible.

I would probably make two books: one that is all filled, and one of templates. So a player won't feel afraid of ruining their "main" copy. The template books are more replaceable.

The main book could have all this stuff that is needed to interpret some of the things recorded in the template book by the player, like an encoder ring. It doesn't have to be annoying or whatever. It can be simple. The point is that the player will often need the main book to make best use of their personal book.

When players play local co-op with a friend, or even online, they bring both books with them, and reference both. Occasionally on adventures the players will encounter challenges for which only one player may have a certain kind of valuable information (in their personal book) to help meet it. That player will have to study his own notes, confer with others, and express his ideas so the team can get the best results.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 01:34:43 AM by Graham. » Logged
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« Reply #1518 on: February 14, 2013, 09:23:42 AM »

What's really interesting is what you're describing is what I feel has made Skylanders so successful. It's a physical object that has value within the game and without. The games are designed for co-op, so you're encouraged to socialize with other players (I'm not even sure if the games have online play), which increases the value of the overall experience. The persistent leveling of the figurine and the simple branching paths makes your figure yours and yours alone, personalizing your experience and giving extra value to the physical object.

Man, we could do a whole compo around using a physical object alongside a game.
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« Reply #1519 on: February 14, 2013, 12:22:47 PM »

Some more ideas: Maybe a pre-existing text could be adopted to a new game, to cut down on time and money spent creating prose content. How about a wargame where the player can anticipate an enemy's attacks based on their monologues at a given point in the story? Or an adventure title that relies on unorthodox interpretations of passages from the King James Bible? Or a House of Leaves-style game where parts of the book appear to be speaking to the game, or directly to you?
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