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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignWhat about a Metroid-vania cooperative game?
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danielss87
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« on: January 15, 2016, 07:56:22 PM »

Here's the deal:

Usually, people who like the Metroid and Castlevania style of games play it with a friend. The second guy, which I call 'the navigator' helps with the map and give advice to the player, about the map and the directions.

What you guys think about a metroid-like where your helper friend actually plays with you? The idea is each player control a character with different abilities, and the two would be necesseries for solving the puzzles and proceding on the game.

We are actually working on our game 'Keen' (https://twitter.com/keen_game), and this would be a future project. Still,I would like to hear your oppinion about it.
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TitoOliveira
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« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2016, 10:54:14 AM »

Well i wouldn't say that people usually do what you described. But i would be interested in seeing how a cooperative metroidvania could play out.
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baconman
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« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2016, 02:02:06 PM »

Zelda: Tri Force Heroes.
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valrus
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« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2016, 05:45:58 PM »

Sure, I'd play that.  What my girlfriend enjoys about watching videogames (she usually doesn't play) is the sense of learning the world.  She doesn't necessarily want her hand-eye coordination tested, but she likes big and intricate and interesting worlds to learn, and to contribute by knowing the maps, telling me where to go next, etc.  She might like an additional (but still support) role in which she takes a larger hand in directing the game.

But it'd be important to at least let the first player progress if the second one isn't around.  Past a certain age, it's hard for a lot of people to *schedule* regular videogame time with a friend.  It's more of a serendipitous occurrence.  So I'd rather have a game where having a second player opens up various bonuses ("energy tanks" etc.), secrets, shortcuts, etc., than one where the second player is required to progress down the critical path.
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« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2016, 05:55:56 PM »

either that or mak the gam short enough to be finishable in 1 sitting

actually you could use procgen levels for replayability. that way you'd have infinite bite-sized metroidvanias to enjoy with friends/family/SO.
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valrus
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« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2016, 08:35:41 PM »

That's a good idea.  Maybe even both -- one or many little adventures so it's easy to convince a friend to join, a big adventure once they've warmed up to the idea.

You could "procedurally degenerate": take a fixed big adventure where you know the structure basically works, randomly choose which upgrades are going to be in the mini-adventure, then go through and delete the rooms that require the unchosen upgrades, stitching their exits together to maintain the general path.  So you keep the basic shape of the world and course of the adventure, but get a random mini-slice of it each time, varying in size to fit the amount of time you and your friend expect to take (be that an evening, a weekend, or a week).
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Drof
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« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2016, 04:14:59 PM »

either that or mak the gam short enough to be finishable in 1 sitting

actually you could use procgen levels for replayability. that way you'd have infinite bite-sized metroidvanias to enjoy with friends/family/SO.

Bite-sized metroidvanias just sounds like a great idea, full stop. I don't even think it needs to be procgen. Sort of a dungeon delving experience. It would also happen to work really well in co-located play.
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« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2016, 04:23:18 PM »

my thinking behind the procgen thing was: a co-op metroidvania that can be played like a boardgame. boardgames are usually designed to be very dynamic for maximum replayability and completeable in one sitting, so you just sit down with someone and spend an hour or two having fun and playing a session of Bite-Sized Procgen Co-op Metroivania™.

unfortunately the idea of self-contained sessions is becoming more and more unpopular in videogames tho. everyone wants meta progression mechanics and unlocks and shit like that. but thats another story.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2016, 05:25:12 PM by Silbereisen » Logged
danielss87
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« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2016, 10:13:54 AM »

Thanks for you piece of advice, guys! It's ceartainly going to be useful!
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baconman
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« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2016, 12:49:34 PM »

valrus: You two need "Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime."

either that or mak the gam short enough to be finishable in 1 sitting

actually you could use procgen levels for replayability. that way you'd have infinite bite-sized metroidvanias to enjoy with friends/family/SO.

Yeah, this is kind of the premise of Gentrieve, actually. Wink
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DrCosmic
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« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2016, 01:24:01 PM »

Concept sounds really cool. Asymmetric play can be a beautiful thing. I think a bite-sized version of this is what you might find in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 so long ago, where the second player could pop in and out as Tails. If they were there, tails could fly you to special places, if not, no worries. I can imagine what would happen if a player could pick up and play as Navi in Ocarina of Time... they could point out things, reach hard to reach items, distract and buzz around enemies, but the game would still be playable without her.

So, basically, you're one cool sidekick mechanic away from making it work. Essentially what you're asking is, what if one of the items available to the Metroidvania character was:
1) Completely optional to complete the quest story
2) Available from the Start
3) Only controllable from a second player who could drop in and out

Whether that item is lighting dark areas, distracting enemies, reflecting attacks or whatever, the concept from a design standpoint is the same. Keep in mind, the more the second player has to do, the more the game becomes an 'easy mode' with two players. Still, with that same principle you could perhaps create several players at once all centered on a main hero. It's also a gameplay set up that lends to online play as well as co-op on the couch (more fun, imho).
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quantumpotato
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« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2016, 04:20:55 PM »

http://choicechamber.com/.

There IS a 2P mode in that, the second player controls a gun-turret that can turn into an extra platform.

The Crowd affects the game through chat, voting for power-ups to give and monsters to spawn. It's quite a cool system.

Chatted with the developer at Indiecade last year, he said that for Crowd size 1 or 100, they always followed a sin-wave of "oh it's too easy.. make it tough... shit, we feel guilty, give them powerups!".

I've played a few browser-based 2D platformers where players create their own spaces and found the evolving space very compelling, but the lack of gameplay awful. Would be fun to play a Metroidvania online... you could procedurally generate passageways and group N players all making the same transition together on a team.
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Gorgoo
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« Reply #12 on: March 20, 2016, 07:20:37 PM »

my thinking behind the procgen thing was: a co-op metroidvania that can be played like a boardgame. boardgames are usually designed to be very dynamic for maximum replayability and completeable in one sitting, so you just sit down with someone and spend an hour or two having fun and playing a session of Bite-Sized Procgen Co-op Metroivania™.

unfortunately the idea of self-contained sessions is becoming more and more unpopular in videogames tho. everyone wants meta progression mechanics and unlocks and shit like that. but thats another story.

You could still do it, I think. Just have the unlockable stuff be similar to Binding of Isaac's unlocks. As you play more and/or reach certain goals, future sessions get new types of objects, enemies, and (possibly) player upgrades. It has the added benefit of being a sort of meta-tutorial, if you start with simple mechanics and slowly introduce the more complex ones (instead of more powerful ones) as the player achieves things. Now, sections of the map might be flooded. Now, gravity-switching rooms can appear. Smiley
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quantumpotato
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« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2016, 07:33:48 AM »

my thinking behind the procgen thing was: a co-op metroidvania that can be played like a boardgame. boardgames are usually designed to be very dynamic for maximum replayability and completeable in one sitting, so you just sit down with someone and spend an hour or two having fun and playing a session of Bite-Sized Procgen Co-op Metroivania™.

unfortunately the idea of self-contained sessions is becoming more and more unpopular in videogames tho. everyone wants meta progression mechanics and unlocks and shit like that. but thats another story.

You could still do it, I think. Just have the unlockable stuff be similar to Binding of Isaac's unlocks. As you play more and/or reach certain goals, future sessions get new types of objects, enemies, and (possibly) player upgrades. It has the added benefit of being a sort of meta-tutorial, if you start with simple mechanics and slowly introduce the more complex ones (instead of more powerful ones) as the player achieves things. Now, sections of the map might be flooded. Now, gravity-switching rooms can appear. Smiley

Hell yeah for procedural generation (Choice Chamber, Binding of Issac). Has anyone played 868-Hack? They do an awesome job of unlocking new spells each game you win (and then starting you on New Game + with those spells).
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Gorgoo
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« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2016, 08:16:27 AM »

Hell yeah for procedural generation (Choice Chamber, Binding of Issac). Has anyone played 868-Hack? They do an awesome job of unlocking new spells each game you win (and then starting you on New Game + with those spells).

I haven't played it myself, but I've heard lots of good things. I should probably check it out at some point.
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quantumpotato
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« Reply #15 on: March 24, 2016, 01:20:52 PM »

Hell yeah for procedural generation (Choice Chamber, Binding of Issac). Has anyone played 868-Hack? They do an awesome job of unlocking new spells each game you win (and then starting you on New Game + with those spells).

I haven't played it myself, but I've heard lots of good things. I should probably check it out at some point.

It's phenomenally well-designed (so is their hilarious trailer about "downloading a car"). You score points in the game by summoning monsters from tiles that don't give you an extra spell (most summon tiles give you a new ability), and by spending resources on the "score" spell, which gives you more points the further away you are from the end of the 8 levels.

Enemies spawn at a rate of 8-current_level turns, each enemy moves completely differently which gives strong identity to them all (instead of Goblin vs Kobold vs Gnome in a traditional roguelike).

For Metroidvanias, a limited set of unique enemy movements and weapon attack patterns would go well. You could scale the power of each weapon in an unlock order:

A > B > C where each letter is a randomly chosen weapon from the game's arsenal and the further in the unlock sequence it is, the more raw firepower (or extra effects) it gets.

The closest thing that comes to mind is Spelunky but that is much more about little action puzzles than the exploration / vast rooms in a Metroidvania, IMO.

Anyone play multiplayer 4 swords on the GBA?
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