Story thoughts:
-Before the game starts, you kill yourself for some reason, or die because of something you did. My current thought is that you get involved in a cult in life, but as you learn more about it, you disagree with their nihilist ideals. However, something happens to change your mind – perhaps your family gets killed, or something roughly as traumatic. Basically, enough to turn you initially to the dark side, but still have a believable possibility of light inside. You then decide to go through with an elaborate cult ritual which ends in your death.
-You are then, as expected, raised by your cosmic horror master, and your latent necromantic powers are awakened by him. You are told by him that you are now bound to his will, and will be his agent on earth. He needs you to free him from his bonds that keep him trapped beneath the earth, as he only has very limited influence on the events on earth from his current situation.
-Your form is that of a being made of magic. Your body and soul have been absorbed and merged by magic, rather than being any conventional sort of undead. Your appearance would be something like a multicolored (mostly dark colors), pseudocorporeal human.
-You are told by your cosmic horror master that you are simply one of many that have taken the ritual – however, this isn’t true. You are special. He only awakened your untapped necromancy potential – usually, he has to imbue the victim with some of his own power – and having done that, your power can grow greatly on its own.
-You make choose to make different moral choices as you progress, controlled by how you have your undead defeat people. Sure, at first you think that the world should be destroyed by your master, but how much pain do you need to inflict on people in the meantime? As the story progresses, you begin to question your feelings more and more as you see some goodness in humanity (at least if you are leaning towards good), and you begin to doubt your mission. Ultimately, you could choose to continue to do his will, because you like the power and like the mayhem. Or, you could choose to defy him, and make him your enemy, and ultimately redeem yourself.
-You master cannot directly see what you’re doing, but you report to him, and other, loyal cultists also report to him behind your back – thus, he can get some sense of whether you’re lying to him or not, but can’t know for sure.
-The gameplay is changed somewhat by how you choose to play morally. First, you can still have your undead fight with you, but you have to tell them to disable, not kill, your enemies – they deal slightly less damage this way, and you don’t get very many resources from the bodies, however, you also attract less attention from other enemies (For example, if this was GTA, your star rating would go up less) – and thus you have to fight less enemies. Certain undead might have certain moves that make this easier than others – creatures that can shock enemies into unconsciousness, for example. You also have undead that can be stealthy, and favoring them could make going “good” easier.
-As you progress in the story, in addition to changing the way that you play the game somewhat, the story also begins to change as you make your choices. You do missions in different ways, obviously, but you can also choose to do different missions – if you want to destroy your master, you can do a quest to get more information from a former cult site in some mountains, for example, which in turn leads to a hunt for an artifact to destroy him. If you want to simply release him, as he’d like, you have to collect a different artifact to complete the relic that could free him. If you want to destroy him and absorb his power, then you could do a mix of the two, but neither would require quite as much effort – the idea is for all four paths to be roughly the same difficulty. If you want to prevent his raising but not take the risk of trying to destroy him, then you hunt down what would be used to raise him and hide it better or try to destroy it.
-Obviously, you can harvest your resources from people, but you can also get corpses and souls from graveyards and the like (morgues?) The alternate resources, such as plants and magical stone, could also be harvested in other, murder-neutral ways.
-Using souls isn’t as evil as it initially sounds. Souls outside of bodies can’t be destroyed, and are by default unconscious in this world – they usually only remain in the world for a short time after their body’s death by default, though they can persist for some time, especially near graveyards and the like. Thus, while you do keep them from going on to the afterlife with your magic, they are not conscious for it, and if they “fall” in your service, the magic binding them releases, and they depart to the afterlife.
-You have to recover some mysterious artifact in order to free your master, the pieces to which are scattered around the world.
-A mysterious (and ultimately very powerful, though that part is hidden) counter/foil to the cosmic horror appears (perhaps a love-interestish female?), and tries to draw you back into the light, or at least, to deny your master. He or she probably appears at the end of certain missions, at least to start with, and just points out the goodness of humanity to you and the like. S/he is the agent of some other force, and in the end, you accept that person’s ideas, or you kill (or at least reject) him or her.
Possible endings:
- You summon forth your horror master to take over the world, as its servant. You become absorbed into its being, and it does its stuff. World ends, everyone dies – or something like that. Final Boss: Mysterious other character.
- You summon forth your master, in order to destroy it. You do so, and save the world. Possibly involving a heroic sacrifice. Final Boss: Cosmic Horror
- You re-seal (or don’t unseal, and perhaps make it harder for the next guy to try to unseal) the monster, so it remains, but so do you, at least in theory. Final Boss: Mysterious other character
- You summon forth your master in order to destroy it, and take its place. Final Boss: Cosmic Horror
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Design: Awakenings
This week I'm going to be featuring a game that I wrote up a relatively basic design for last semester.
Title: Awakenings
Premise: You play as a necromancer spirit of some variety, raised and granted power by a horror trapped within the earth. Your initial goal is to free him, but you can choose to disobey.
Gameplay Style:
General style is a third-person action game, with you controlling one person directly, a few people indirectly, and more allies that you can summon but cannot control.
Undead controlling system:
You can possess a single undead at a time. As you do, that undead gains additional health, speed, and power, and you would also have access to certain special abilities that that type of undead can’t usually use.
You summon undead from your reserves of resources (corpses, souls, and other things). When you kill someone and they aren’t auto-raised by whatever you killed them with, you get a certain amount of corpses and souls.
While you do directly control one undead at a time, you also have a party of undead that you can indirectly control by giving them orders, a la Spore or Kingdom Hearts. This posse can only be so big, however, and any more undead that you make are under their own control – a basic ai that kills every enemy in sight. Also, the ones that are directly in your party gain a bit of power, speed, and maybe an extra ability compared to the ai ones, to make being in your party feel meaningful.
Some undead have abilities that instantly raise slain enemies as undead. For example, Vampires that kill enemies with their bite attack raise the enemy as a vampire. These would automatically become basic ai-controlled undead that help you out, but you can’t control.
You can also be outside an undead, but you don’t have a whole lot of powers in that form.
Undead Stuff:
As you progress, perhaps you can upgrade your undeads’ abilities, or grant them new ones, as well as unlock more types of undead. I was thinking that you could start with 2 types of undead for each corporeal and incorporeal, for a total of 4 total. Zombie, Skeleton, Ghost, and Wraith seem good to start with, and unlockables could include (corporeal) Vampire, Patchwork Monster, and Lich, and (incorporeal) Banshee, Shade, and Poultergeist. You can spend experience (gained from, at least, completing quests and beating people up) to upgrade existing undead’s abilities, and to get new types of undead if you’ve upgraded previous ones enough, though the previous ones will still be useful. You could also have more undead in your party as you level up.
Two Main Resources: Corpses and Souls. Corpses are mostly used for corporeal undead (skeletons, zombies) and souls mostly used for incorporeal undead (ghosts, wraiths). These can be harvested from people, obviously, but can also be taken from graveyards. There’s also some specialty resources that can be taken from other places to get special creatures – Magical stone for Gargoyles, certain plants to make into shambling mounds, that sort of thing – perhaps obtainable by side quest. (Rough Example: As you explore a pyramid in Egypt as part of a plot-driven mission, you could also go further down a different, more dangerous part of the pyramid (or a different pyramid entirely), and at the end find the ritual to raise a new type of monster.)
There’s also a final resource, magic, that is needed for everything. Perhaps it slowly recharges over time?
Setting:
Modern. You’d be running around in largely metropolitan areas, GTA style – killing, raising, and completing missions. You’d probably have a home base of some sort.
I'll post the plot Thursday. And yes, I realized that I missed Thursday last week, and that my one post wasn't about genres at all. I'll get there.
Title: Awakenings
Premise: You play as a necromancer spirit of some variety, raised and granted power by a horror trapped within the earth. Your initial goal is to free him, but you can choose to disobey.
Gameplay Style:
General style is a third-person action game, with you controlling one person directly, a few people indirectly, and more allies that you can summon but cannot control.
Undead controlling system:
You can possess a single undead at a time. As you do, that undead gains additional health, speed, and power, and you would also have access to certain special abilities that that type of undead can’t usually use.
You summon undead from your reserves of resources (corpses, souls, and other things). When you kill someone and they aren’t auto-raised by whatever you killed them with, you get a certain amount of corpses and souls.
While you do directly control one undead at a time, you also have a party of undead that you can indirectly control by giving them orders, a la Spore or Kingdom Hearts. This posse can only be so big, however, and any more undead that you make are under their own control – a basic ai that kills every enemy in sight. Also, the ones that are directly in your party gain a bit of power, speed, and maybe an extra ability compared to the ai ones, to make being in your party feel meaningful.
Some undead have abilities that instantly raise slain enemies as undead. For example, Vampires that kill enemies with their bite attack raise the enemy as a vampire. These would automatically become basic ai-controlled undead that help you out, but you can’t control.
You can also be outside an undead, but you don’t have a whole lot of powers in that form.
Undead Stuff:
As you progress, perhaps you can upgrade your undeads’ abilities, or grant them new ones, as well as unlock more types of undead. I was thinking that you could start with 2 types of undead for each corporeal and incorporeal, for a total of 4 total. Zombie, Skeleton, Ghost, and Wraith seem good to start with, and unlockables could include (corporeal) Vampire, Patchwork Monster, and Lich, and (incorporeal) Banshee, Shade, and Poultergeist. You can spend experience (gained from, at least, completing quests and beating people up) to upgrade existing undead’s abilities, and to get new types of undead if you’ve upgraded previous ones enough, though the previous ones will still be useful. You could also have more undead in your party as you level up.
Two Main Resources: Corpses and Souls. Corpses are mostly used for corporeal undead (skeletons, zombies) and souls mostly used for incorporeal undead (ghosts, wraiths). These can be harvested from people, obviously, but can also be taken from graveyards. There’s also some specialty resources that can be taken from other places to get special creatures – Magical stone for Gargoyles, certain plants to make into shambling mounds, that sort of thing – perhaps obtainable by side quest. (Rough Example: As you explore a pyramid in Egypt as part of a plot-driven mission, you could also go further down a different, more dangerous part of the pyramid (or a different pyramid entirely), and at the end find the ritual to raise a new type of monster.)
There’s also a final resource, magic, that is needed for everything. Perhaps it slowly recharges over time?
Setting:
Modern. You’d be running around in largely metropolitan areas, GTA style – killing, raising, and completing missions. You’d probably have a home base of some sort.
I'll post the plot Thursday. And yes, I realized that I missed Thursday last week, and that my one post wasn't about genres at all. I'll get there.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Review: World of Warcraft Karazhan Boss Reviews
I did some reviews of Karazhan bosses in WoW, a while back. Just to note some things about MMO boss design, MMO design, and game design in general. Here's what I wrote:
Romulo and Julienne
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. Julienne comes out first, followed by Romulo, then both. Both have self-buffs that must be dispelled. Julienne is primarily a caster, Romulo is physical. When you fight both at once, they must be killed within 10 seconds of each other.
Good Points: The ability to spellsteal Julienne’s buff for great effect is nice, as opposed to simply dispelling it. Also, Julienne and Romulo are well designed in that only one of them screws up melee, so it naturally divides the raid into who’s attacking who.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The progressive nature of the fight.
Tank: Tank one, and/or the other. Quite basic, really.
Ranged DPS: DPS one or the other. Spellsteal Julienne’s buff.
Melee DPS: DPS primarily Julienne.
Healers: Heal tanks and whoever’s getting hit by Julienne’s spells. Dispel their buffs.
Raid Leader: Coordinate DPS between Romulo and Julienne.
Lessons Learned: Again, pulling out pseudo-obscure abilities is good. Makes people remember every spell they have. Dividing the raid can also prove entertaining.
How I would change the fight: Make them both somewhat harder individually. Make them both rez at less than 100% health during the final part of the fight, and whenever you kill one of them, the other one kills him/herself. Shakespeare at its finest.
The Wizard of Oz
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. The fight starts by introducing, one by one, the members of the fight: Dorothee (who summons Tito), Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar. Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar each have a weakness based on the movie: Strawman is disoriented by fire, Tinhead becomes slower and slower, and Roar can be feared. After this, you fight the Crone.
Good Points: The fight is very funny. The weaknesses of Dorothee’s companions are quite amusing, and logical. Also the fight demands things of people outside their standard roles.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The Crone is very easy. If you get to her, you’ve basically won.
Tank: Tank/kite Tinhead, distract Strawman and/or Roar, and offtank Tito.
Ranged DPS: DPS them in order, while fearing Roar and using fire on Strawman, and avoiding Tinhead.
Melee DPS: DPS them in order, avoiding Tinhead.
Healers: Healing on whoever needs it.
Raid Leader: Decide the order in which to DPS them down, and who should control who.
Lessons Learned: Cluster fights can work, and can be quite entertaining. Quirky but logical weaknesses are also fun.
How I’d change the fight: Make the Crone a little harder.
The Curator
Summary: The first fight of the “second half” of Karazhan (or perhaps the last fight of the first half), the curator has several abilities. The first is his sparks, which are summoned every 10 seconds, and must be killed, ideally before the next one is summoned. The second is Hateful Bolt, an arcane bolt that he shoots at whoever is second on his threat list. Last is his evocation, which he does after every tenth spark. He stops doing anything and regains the mana he lost summoning the sparks. While doing this for twenty seconds, he takes triple damage.
Good Points: Tank and Spank with a very interesting twist. The sparks force the DPS to do something other than just sit there and throw spells/attacks at the curator, and the evocations are a natural time to switch to the curator. Also, there’s several ways to deal with the Hateful Bolts.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: Tank does very little.
Tank: Just tank the Curator. One tank may also be attempting to corral the sparks.
Ranged DPS: DPS the sparks, and then the Curator. One ranged DPS may be “tanking” the Hateful Bolts.
Melee DPS: DPS the sparks and Curator. One may be attempting to corral the sparks.
Healers: Heal the tank, the hateful bolt tank, and whoever gets hit by the sparks.
Raid Leader: Figure out how to deal with the bolts and the sparks.
Lessons Learned: While somewhat complicated, the curator is very much the bridge between the first and second halves of Karazhan. He is a well-designed fight for this, testing all aspects of your raid (save for the main tank, unfortunately).
How I would change the fight: Make it test the main tank somehow. I’d say some sort of spell reflection timing, but that would make it warrior-exclusive. Perhaps making the tank move him constantly, or move him only at certain times. At 50% mana, perhaps, the tank has to move out. Something.
Just three sample reviews. I do like the fights, obviously: I think WoW is a very well designed game, and the bosses are great. I do have some small quibbles with choices made by the designers occasionally, and sometimes larger quibbles - but the progress made over the expansions is great, and by and large everything is really good - as you can tell. My boss reviews (these, anyway) don't have any "bad points" listed, because I really think that all the fights are well done - I do have some quibbles with them, but they're more "things i would do" rather than "things that SHOULD have been done."
Romulo and Julienne
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. Julienne comes out first, followed by Romulo, then both. Both have self-buffs that must be dispelled. Julienne is primarily a caster, Romulo is physical. When you fight both at once, they must be killed within 10 seconds of each other.
Good Points: The ability to spellsteal Julienne’s buff for great effect is nice, as opposed to simply dispelling it. Also, Julienne and Romulo are well designed in that only one of them screws up melee, so it naturally divides the raid into who’s attacking who.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The progressive nature of the fight.
Tank: Tank one, and/or the other. Quite basic, really.
Ranged DPS: DPS one or the other. Spellsteal Julienne’s buff.
Melee DPS: DPS primarily Julienne.
Healers: Heal tanks and whoever’s getting hit by Julienne’s spells. Dispel their buffs.
Raid Leader: Coordinate DPS between Romulo and Julienne.
Lessons Learned: Again, pulling out pseudo-obscure abilities is good. Makes people remember every spell they have. Dividing the raid can also prove entertaining.
How I would change the fight: Make them both somewhat harder individually. Make them both rez at less than 100% health during the final part of the fight, and whenever you kill one of them, the other one kills him/herself. Shakespeare at its finest.
The Wizard of Oz
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. The fight starts by introducing, one by one, the members of the fight: Dorothee (who summons Tito), Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar. Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar each have a weakness based on the movie: Strawman is disoriented by fire, Tinhead becomes slower and slower, and Roar can be feared. After this, you fight the Crone.
Good Points: The fight is very funny. The weaknesses of Dorothee’s companions are quite amusing, and logical. Also the fight demands things of people outside their standard roles.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The Crone is very easy. If you get to her, you’ve basically won.
Tank: Tank/kite Tinhead, distract Strawman and/or Roar, and offtank Tito.
Ranged DPS: DPS them in order, while fearing Roar and using fire on Strawman, and avoiding Tinhead.
Melee DPS: DPS them in order, avoiding Tinhead.
Healers: Healing on whoever needs it.
Raid Leader: Decide the order in which to DPS them down, and who should control who.
Lessons Learned: Cluster fights can work, and can be quite entertaining. Quirky but logical weaknesses are also fun.
How I’d change the fight: Make the Crone a little harder.
The Curator
Summary: The first fight of the “second half” of Karazhan (or perhaps the last fight of the first half), the curator has several abilities. The first is his sparks, which are summoned every 10 seconds, and must be killed, ideally before the next one is summoned. The second is Hateful Bolt, an arcane bolt that he shoots at whoever is second on his threat list. Last is his evocation, which he does after every tenth spark. He stops doing anything and regains the mana he lost summoning the sparks. While doing this for twenty seconds, he takes triple damage.
Good Points: Tank and Spank with a very interesting twist. The sparks force the DPS to do something other than just sit there and throw spells/attacks at the curator, and the evocations are a natural time to switch to the curator. Also, there’s several ways to deal with the Hateful Bolts.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: Tank does very little.
Tank: Just tank the Curator. One tank may also be attempting to corral the sparks.
Ranged DPS: DPS the sparks, and then the Curator. One ranged DPS may be “tanking” the Hateful Bolts.
Melee DPS: DPS the sparks and Curator. One may be attempting to corral the sparks.
Healers: Heal the tank, the hateful bolt tank, and whoever gets hit by the sparks.
Raid Leader: Figure out how to deal with the bolts and the sparks.
Lessons Learned: While somewhat complicated, the curator is very much the bridge between the first and second halves of Karazhan. He is a well-designed fight for this, testing all aspects of your raid (save for the main tank, unfortunately).
How I would change the fight: Make it test the main tank somehow. I’d say some sort of spell reflection timing, but that would make it warrior-exclusive. Perhaps making the tank move him constantly, or move him only at certain times. At 50% mana, perhaps, the tank has to move out. Something.
Just three sample reviews. I do like the fights, obviously: I think WoW is a very well designed game, and the bosses are great. I do have some small quibbles with choices made by the designers occasionally, and sometimes larger quibbles - but the progress made over the expansions is great, and by and large everything is really good - as you can tell. My boss reviews (these, anyway) don't have any "bad points" listed, because I really think that all the fights are well done - I do have some quibbles with them, but they're more "things i would do" rather than "things that SHOULD have been done."
Friday, February 13, 2009
Review: Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
And here's the second part of this series, if a little late.
Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
Lufia 2 is a really solid SNES RPG. It's a fairly typical sword-and-sorcery RPG set in a pretty typical world. First of all, the targetting system from Lufia was ditched (thankfully), using instead the more typical "target anyone you want with anything" system that most RPG's use. A good choice - like I said earlier, just because something is unique doesn't mean that it's good, or even interesting.
Perhaps the most noticable change between Lufia and Lufia 2 (after the targetting system) is the dungeons. Namely, Lufia 2's dungeons are actually interesting and engaging. They accomplish this by (at least to me, and other people that have played it around me) very well-tuned puzzles. Their solutions aren't usually so obvious as to jump out at you, but also not too hard as to keep you trapped in a dungeon until you look up the solution online. These puzzles are really what makes Lufia 2 a great game - it keeps you thinking, and keeps you interested.
Beyond the well-tuned puzzles to keep dungeons interesting, combat was also made much more interesting with the addition of IP's and capsule monsters. IP's are powers that you can use based on the items you have currently equipped - you use a certain amount of your IP bar (which refills as you get hit) to use an ability that one of your items has - which can range from dealing damage to healing to buffing and pretty much anything else. This makes equipment choice more interesting than in many RPG's, as you have to take into account the item's power rather than just its raw stats. Obviously, however, the main advantage is to give physical characters something to do when they're not just using a basic attack - and it gives casters another option as well.
Capsule monsters, while less important than the IP system, also help to spice up combat, as well as provide you with another thing to do outside of combat. Capsule monsters, in combat, are basically just another party member, with a few restrictions - they can't be directly controlled, and you can't heal them. They are automatically resurrected after battle and healed to full. They provide a source of interesting occurances in battle - you go "yay!" when either the monster wastes a powerful attack hitting the capsule monster, or when the capsule monster does something especially awesome - for example, busting out his most powerful attack and owning an enemy. You collect capsule monsters by finding them throughout the world - in dungeons is a typical place to find them, as a reward for exploring an extra corner of the dungeon. A few are also tucked in different parts of the world that you wouldn't otherwise go to, like an underground cave or a shrine on an obscure island.
Out of combat, capsule monsters are an interesting diversion. You can feed them, and they can evolve to higher forms. You feed them your leftover items. Once they are fed enough, they'll evolve. It seems pretty basic, but it really is an interesting diversion, and something to look forward too when your capsule monster is about to evolve. And seeing their fancy new powers after they've evolved is always fun too.
(This game came out quite a bit pre-pokemon, in case you were wondering and hadn't looked it up.)
Another thing that this game fixed over Lufia 1 is the random battles. No longer are they truly random - you can see (and avoid) the enemy sprites in the dungeon, and actually sneak up on some of them if you're careful. Getting in first on enemies in this game is determined by how your sprites are positioned pre-battle - if you get behind them, you get a free round at the beginning of combat, if they're behind you, they get one. If you are facing their side, then there's something like a 50% chance you'll get in first, and the same thing if they are facing your side. Additionally, you can stun the enemy sprites by shooting them with arrows - a nice feature, and one that can allow you to sneak up on enemies more easily, or simply avoid them if you're not interested. Different enemy types also have different movement patterns in the dungeons - for example, bulls will rush at you, but undead might wander aimlessly. This is yet another thing that really helps bring the dungeons to life in this game.
One interesting thing - while in dungeons you can see the random encounters coming, on the overworld they are truly random. I don't think that the game really suffers for this - the overworld encounters are neither too common nor too hard. The only time that this might be considered annoying is when you're sailing, but even then it's quite reasonable. It's actually kind of nice, if you want to gain a bit of xp or gold that you don't have to track down the enemies, but just wander around on the overworld for a bit.
Also, random encounter difficulty was toned way down, thankfully, as was boss difficulty. One of my few complaints about this game might be that the final bosses are too easy, but all in all, this game's difficulty is far more reasonable and fun than Lufia 1's.
The side quests in Lufia 2 are also much more interesting (and, you know, there) - Lufia 1 had a couple, but generally they just weren't interesting. Lufia 2, however, has a very good casino, collectable dragon eggs, collectable capsule monsters, and the Ancient Cave. I won't get into the details of these, but suffice to say that they're all, especially the Ancient Cave, quite interesting.
Last but certainly not least is the plot. Lufia 2's plot is leaps and bounds above Lufia 1's, and the characters are even better. The plot keeps you engaged, rather than being a snoozefest like Lufia 1's There's not really much more to say about that - it's not exactly the best plot ever, but it does its job just fine, and keeps the players engaged to the end. I will say, however, that the characters are really what keeps you watching - they're just fantastically written, even by today's standards.
That said, Lufia 2 is by no means the perfect game. You still can't see a numerical amount of HP in combat, you just get equal length bars for everyone. The monster translation is still bizzarely terrible compared to the main game's translation - "gorem" instead of "golem" is a common one, and there's many others as well. The battle system, while much more interesting that Lufia 1's, could probably use some work - it's still fairly simplistic, if passable, by today's standards.
Lessons to be learned:
The main thing to learn from Lufia 2 over any other RPG (including Lufia 1) is to learn from the mistakes of the past - see what went wrong with previous games, and correct them. See what previous games did right, and emulate them. Don't just make the same mistakes over and over, and don't abandon what worked in the past.
Capsule monsters are an interesting thing – they are collectible monsters that fight along side you, but they are a relatively minor part of the game. Very few games have monster collection as part of the game and yet minor – I like it. It’s a good way to add pseudo party members with an elemental theme and little to no backstory. Plus, they can serve as good and interesting rewards for particularly challenging puzzles or fights off the beaten path.
An interesting combat system and interesting dungeon design are key. Level designers should be given more credit by players than they are.
A game’s characters and good writing can make up for a relatively formulaic plot and gameplay. City, dungeon, city, dungeon… it’s most of what Lufia is, but it works nonetheless. Indeed, you may fail to even notice it (at least in a bad way) until after you beat the game.
In closing, Lufia 2 is just really a great game that took pretty much everything that was wrong with Lufia 1 and made it awesome, keeping the few good things from Lufia 1. If you can, you should really consider picking this game up. It's a pity that Lufia 3 and 4 aren't more like this game - Lufia 3 borks up the combat system to an extreme degree, and has too many party members. Maybe I'll talk about it sometime, but Lufia 3 seems to have forgotten that just because something is unique doesn't make it good. While its combat system is better than Lufia 1's, it tries to be too interesting and just ends up being less good than the admittedly relatively formulaic Lufia 2's. Additionally, its characters (perhaps because there are so many PC's) just aren't as fun or interesting as Lufia 2's, nor is its plot as good. I've never personally played Lufia 4, but I've heard that it's little more than a mediocre Pokemon clone with a Lufia name and a few characters from Lufia 2.
Next week, I think I'll talk about a couple of genres of games in detail.
Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
Lufia 2 is a really solid SNES RPG. It's a fairly typical sword-and-sorcery RPG set in a pretty typical world. First of all, the targetting system from Lufia was ditched (thankfully), using instead the more typical "target anyone you want with anything" system that most RPG's use. A good choice - like I said earlier, just because something is unique doesn't mean that it's good, or even interesting.
Perhaps the most noticable change between Lufia and Lufia 2 (after the targetting system) is the dungeons. Namely, Lufia 2's dungeons are actually interesting and engaging. They accomplish this by (at least to me, and other people that have played it around me) very well-tuned puzzles. Their solutions aren't usually so obvious as to jump out at you, but also not too hard as to keep you trapped in a dungeon until you look up the solution online. These puzzles are really what makes Lufia 2 a great game - it keeps you thinking, and keeps you interested.
Beyond the well-tuned puzzles to keep dungeons interesting, combat was also made much more interesting with the addition of IP's and capsule monsters. IP's are powers that you can use based on the items you have currently equipped - you use a certain amount of your IP bar (which refills as you get hit) to use an ability that one of your items has - which can range from dealing damage to healing to buffing and pretty much anything else. This makes equipment choice more interesting than in many RPG's, as you have to take into account the item's power rather than just its raw stats. Obviously, however, the main advantage is to give physical characters something to do when they're not just using a basic attack - and it gives casters another option as well.
Capsule monsters, while less important than the IP system, also help to spice up combat, as well as provide you with another thing to do outside of combat. Capsule monsters, in combat, are basically just another party member, with a few restrictions - they can't be directly controlled, and you can't heal them. They are automatically resurrected after battle and healed to full. They provide a source of interesting occurances in battle - you go "yay!" when either the monster wastes a powerful attack hitting the capsule monster, or when the capsule monster does something especially awesome - for example, busting out his most powerful attack and owning an enemy. You collect capsule monsters by finding them throughout the world - in dungeons is a typical place to find them, as a reward for exploring an extra corner of the dungeon. A few are also tucked in different parts of the world that you wouldn't otherwise go to, like an underground cave or a shrine on an obscure island.
Out of combat, capsule monsters are an interesting diversion. You can feed them, and they can evolve to higher forms. You feed them your leftover items. Once they are fed enough, they'll evolve. It seems pretty basic, but it really is an interesting diversion, and something to look forward too when your capsule monster is about to evolve. And seeing their fancy new powers after they've evolved is always fun too.
(This game came out quite a bit pre-pokemon, in case you were wondering and hadn't looked it up.)
Another thing that this game fixed over Lufia 1 is the random battles. No longer are they truly random - you can see (and avoid) the enemy sprites in the dungeon, and actually sneak up on some of them if you're careful. Getting in first on enemies in this game is determined by how your sprites are positioned pre-battle - if you get behind them, you get a free round at the beginning of combat, if they're behind you, they get one. If you are facing their side, then there's something like a 50% chance you'll get in first, and the same thing if they are facing your side. Additionally, you can stun the enemy sprites by shooting them with arrows - a nice feature, and one that can allow you to sneak up on enemies more easily, or simply avoid them if you're not interested. Different enemy types also have different movement patterns in the dungeons - for example, bulls will rush at you, but undead might wander aimlessly. This is yet another thing that really helps bring the dungeons to life in this game.
One interesting thing - while in dungeons you can see the random encounters coming, on the overworld they are truly random. I don't think that the game really suffers for this - the overworld encounters are neither too common nor too hard. The only time that this might be considered annoying is when you're sailing, but even then it's quite reasonable. It's actually kind of nice, if you want to gain a bit of xp or gold that you don't have to track down the enemies, but just wander around on the overworld for a bit.
Also, random encounter difficulty was toned way down, thankfully, as was boss difficulty. One of my few complaints about this game might be that the final bosses are too easy, but all in all, this game's difficulty is far more reasonable and fun than Lufia 1's.
The side quests in Lufia 2 are also much more interesting (and, you know, there) - Lufia 1 had a couple, but generally they just weren't interesting. Lufia 2, however, has a very good casino, collectable dragon eggs, collectable capsule monsters, and the Ancient Cave. I won't get into the details of these, but suffice to say that they're all, especially the Ancient Cave, quite interesting.
Last but certainly not least is the plot. Lufia 2's plot is leaps and bounds above Lufia 1's, and the characters are even better. The plot keeps you engaged, rather than being a snoozefest like Lufia 1's There's not really much more to say about that - it's not exactly the best plot ever, but it does its job just fine, and keeps the players engaged to the end. I will say, however, that the characters are really what keeps you watching - they're just fantastically written, even by today's standards.
That said, Lufia 2 is by no means the perfect game. You still can't see a numerical amount of HP in combat, you just get equal length bars for everyone. The monster translation is still bizzarely terrible compared to the main game's translation - "gorem" instead of "golem" is a common one, and there's many others as well. The battle system, while much more interesting that Lufia 1's, could probably use some work - it's still fairly simplistic, if passable, by today's standards.
Lessons to be learned:
The main thing to learn from Lufia 2 over any other RPG (including Lufia 1) is to learn from the mistakes of the past - see what went wrong with previous games, and correct them. See what previous games did right, and emulate them. Don't just make the same mistakes over and over, and don't abandon what worked in the past.
Capsule monsters are an interesting thing – they are collectible monsters that fight along side you, but they are a relatively minor part of the game. Very few games have monster collection as part of the game and yet minor – I like it. It’s a good way to add pseudo party members with an elemental theme and little to no backstory. Plus, they can serve as good and interesting rewards for particularly challenging puzzles or fights off the beaten path.
An interesting combat system and interesting dungeon design are key. Level designers should be given more credit by players than they are.
A game’s characters and good writing can make up for a relatively formulaic plot and gameplay. City, dungeon, city, dungeon… it’s most of what Lufia is, but it works nonetheless. Indeed, you may fail to even notice it (at least in a bad way) until after you beat the game.
In closing, Lufia 2 is just really a great game that took pretty much everything that was wrong with Lufia 1 and made it awesome, keeping the few good things from Lufia 1. If you can, you should really consider picking this game up. It's a pity that Lufia 3 and 4 aren't more like this game - Lufia 3 borks up the combat system to an extreme degree, and has too many party members. Maybe I'll talk about it sometime, but Lufia 3 seems to have forgotten that just because something is unique doesn't make it good. While its combat system is better than Lufia 1's, it tries to be too interesting and just ends up being less good than the admittedly relatively formulaic Lufia 2's. Additionally, its characters (perhaps because there are so many PC's) just aren't as fun or interesting as Lufia 2's, nor is its plot as good. I've never personally played Lufia 4, but I've heard that it's little more than a mediocre Pokemon clone with a Lufia name and a few characters from Lufia 2.
Next week, I think I'll talk about a couple of genres of games in detail.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Review: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom
This week, I'm going to be looking at two games: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom, and its vastly improved sequel, Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals. Lufia 2 is a game that is very near and dear to my heart, and so I thought, why not play the first game in the series? Well, it turns out there are quite a few perfectly valid answers to that question. This is probably going to be an ongoing thing - look at two games that are related, and see just how one of them improves on the other, or doesn't, as the case may be. It's a good way to glean some design knowledge - look at what was dropped from a previous game, and what was added, and think about just why it was done that way.
(For more information about these games, see their wikipedia entry and, perhaps more helpfully, their tvtropes entry.)
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom
An SNES RPG, it embodies everything that has changed about RPG’s since then. First of all, the targeting system in this game was just awful – you could only target groups of enemies, not specific ones, IE if there were three bats and a spider, you could target either the three bats or the spider, and if you targeted the bats and were using a single-target attack, it would hit one of the bats randomly. The only thing I can think that the designers were thinking when they made this was that it would be a unique twist on combat. Well, it was unique, but the lesson to learn here is to actually think whether your “unique twist” is a good/fun idea. This is a lesson many game designers could stand to remember – just because something is unique does not make it fun, or even necessarily interesting.
And it’s not just the dumb targeting system that doesn’t age well about this game. Like so many old RPG’s, it has too many random encounters – and by proxy, it has truly random encounters in general. What I mean by “truly random” is that just walking around triggers them – there’s no way to avoid them, like avoiding their sprite on the dungeon map. Additionally, these random encounters can actually be quite hard – you have to burn a surprisingly high number of spells and items just to make it through a dungeon. And the bosses are harder than that, even – quite a bit of level grinding is required. Fortunately, most modern (but not all – Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army (what a mouthful) has truly random encounters, and even has them in cities) games have eliminated completely random encounters, and only rarely have ones that are hard enough to be a overbearing tax on your resources.
On a side note, people who remake old games could learn something from new games – there’s a reason very few games have truly random encounters anymore. I’d love to see some older games that, when re-released, didn’t feel the need to keep truly random encounters – Final Fantasies, for example. While I haven’t played the latest release of FF4 for the DS, all the previous remakes of older FF’s I’ve played have kept the truly random encounter system, and it bugs me that they did. Yes, it’s staying true to the original, and yes, it doesn’t require any rebalancing of exp/money gain if you just keep it like it was, but it would improve the game dramatically to fix this.
The translation is actually pretty good, and one of the few saving graces of this game – except for monster names. The team that did the story translation and the team that did the monster translation must have been completely different – the monster names are often completely nonsensical, or simply just strange. For example (while this actually comes from Lufia 2, both games have similar monster naming issues), there is the “Mad Gorem” when the sprite clearly depicts what should be a “Mud Golem.” It’s not that huge of an issue on its own, but it makes you question the quality of the game in general (not that you needed any help doing that for Lufia 1, with its other problems).
The dungeons were also quite boring. There was no spice to the dungeons – you simply walked through all of them until you found the boss, maybe finding some sort of key or other treasure – if you were lucky. There were no puzzles, no random plot events in the middle of dungeons, nothing to really keep you interest. Additionally, their layout was often boring and either too linear or too sprawling – and the aforementioned high frequency and difficulty of random encounters made dungeons in general quite a chore. I had thought this to no longer be the case in any modern RPG, but I recently played Star Ocean: Until the End of Time, and it has a very similar problem. The dungeons in that game are waaaaaaay too big, and frequently have no puzzles or anything to break up their monotony.
It’s not just the targeting system that makes combat in this game annoying. You have “Attack,” “Magic,” “Item,” and “Run” as your only options in battle (and the physical fighters don’t even get Magic). No game has done anything so restrictive in a very long time, and for good reason. You simply have far too few options in combat in this game.
The plot also deserves mentioning. It’s incredibly one-dimensional. I mentioned this in my pacing article, but the meta-plot of this game is always the same. You’re always trying to stop the Sinistrals. Occasionally you vary in exactly how you’re trying to stop them – finding someone who knows about them, finding a powerful weapon to fight them, actually confronting them – but it’s always the same overall goal. There’s also a few subplots, but they’re always very clearly subplots, and frankly, none of them are that interesting.
Lastly, there are a few smaller issues worth mentioning – first of all, you can’t see your numerical max hp/mp in combat, only a bar that was a representation of the percent your characters were at. While that usually sufficed, the difference between the HP of your casters and melee characters was large enough make this annoying. You also couldn’t see what items out of combat (and I forget if you even could in combat) – or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was that you only couldn’t see them when you were about to buy them. Regardless, you should always be able to see what the items you have can do. This goes for spells too, as I mentioned in my earlier post, “Things Games Should Never/Always Have.” Again, I thought that this was a thing that only occurred in old games, but Persona 3 had this problem for spells, and it was quite annoying – fortunately, Persona 4 fixed that problem.
So, you might ask me (and justifiably so), did this game do anything right? First of all, there’s something to be said for judging something outside its time. When this game was released, the RPG genre wasn’t was it is today – standards were different. (Excessive) Truly random encounters were the norm, and “Fight/Magic/Item/Run” was pretty typical as well. So in its day, it was probably a passable, but unexceptional, RPG. However, one thing that this game does do right is its characters. They are fairly compelling and deep, especially for their day. Even if the plot itself was fairly uninteresting, the characters still managed to bring it to life. Indeed, the indeed characters are probably the only reason that this game got a sequel. Not that I’m sad that it did – Lufia 2, as I mentioned earlier, is a fantastic SNES-era RPG not to be missed, even now, but after having played this game, it does make me wonder slightly just how it did manage to get a sequel.
Lessons to be learned:
Truly random encounters should be history. Encounters should be avoidable. More generally, make recurring potentially annoying things in games avoidable.
Make sure your gimmick actually works and is fun. (Combat targeting, in this case.)
Max HP – let me see it at all times. In number form, or in bars that are of different sizes. Basically, don't make the player work to see how much HP his party has left, and more generally, don't make the player work for information that he should have. Of course, this brings up a whole different issue of "just how much information should I give the player," but that's an article for a different day - for now, let's just go with: max and current HP values, what different stats do (generally), and what your different items and spells do.
Make your dungeons(and more generally, levels) interesting! Good backdrops, puzzles (mostly this), and some character interaction can go a long way. Something to break the standard pattern.
Let me see descriptions of anything at any time. (Items, Magic, in this case.)
Don’t make random encounters (and more generally, your repetative things that happen in non-boss encounters) too hard! Or if you do, autoheal to full after every fight. See: Baten Kaitos Origins.
Don’t make the meta-plot stale, or if you must, make the subplots interesting.
(For more information about these games, see their wikipedia entry and, perhaps more helpfully, their tvtropes entry.)
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom
An SNES RPG, it embodies everything that has changed about RPG’s since then. First of all, the targeting system in this game was just awful – you could only target groups of enemies, not specific ones, IE if there were three bats and a spider, you could target either the three bats or the spider, and if you targeted the bats and were using a single-target attack, it would hit one of the bats randomly. The only thing I can think that the designers were thinking when they made this was that it would be a unique twist on combat. Well, it was unique, but the lesson to learn here is to actually think whether your “unique twist” is a good/fun idea. This is a lesson many game designers could stand to remember – just because something is unique does not make it fun, or even necessarily interesting.
And it’s not just the dumb targeting system that doesn’t age well about this game. Like so many old RPG’s, it has too many random encounters – and by proxy, it has truly random encounters in general. What I mean by “truly random” is that just walking around triggers them – there’s no way to avoid them, like avoiding their sprite on the dungeon map. Additionally, these random encounters can actually be quite hard – you have to burn a surprisingly high number of spells and items just to make it through a dungeon. And the bosses are harder than that, even – quite a bit of level grinding is required. Fortunately, most modern (but not all – Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army (what a mouthful) has truly random encounters, and even has them in cities) games have eliminated completely random encounters, and only rarely have ones that are hard enough to be a overbearing tax on your resources.
On a side note, people who remake old games could learn something from new games – there’s a reason very few games have truly random encounters anymore. I’d love to see some older games that, when re-released, didn’t feel the need to keep truly random encounters – Final Fantasies, for example. While I haven’t played the latest release of FF4 for the DS, all the previous remakes of older FF’s I’ve played have kept the truly random encounter system, and it bugs me that they did. Yes, it’s staying true to the original, and yes, it doesn’t require any rebalancing of exp/money gain if you just keep it like it was, but it would improve the game dramatically to fix this.
The translation is actually pretty good, and one of the few saving graces of this game – except for monster names. The team that did the story translation and the team that did the monster translation must have been completely different – the monster names are often completely nonsensical, or simply just strange. For example (while this actually comes from Lufia 2, both games have similar monster naming issues), there is the “Mad Gorem” when the sprite clearly depicts what should be a “Mud Golem.” It’s not that huge of an issue on its own, but it makes you question the quality of the game in general (not that you needed any help doing that for Lufia 1, with its other problems).
The dungeons were also quite boring. There was no spice to the dungeons – you simply walked through all of them until you found the boss, maybe finding some sort of key or other treasure – if you were lucky. There were no puzzles, no random plot events in the middle of dungeons, nothing to really keep you interest. Additionally, their layout was often boring and either too linear or too sprawling – and the aforementioned high frequency and difficulty of random encounters made dungeons in general quite a chore. I had thought this to no longer be the case in any modern RPG, but I recently played Star Ocean: Until the End of Time, and it has a very similar problem. The dungeons in that game are waaaaaaay too big, and frequently have no puzzles or anything to break up their monotony.
It’s not just the targeting system that makes combat in this game annoying. You have “Attack,” “Magic,” “Item,” and “Run” as your only options in battle (and the physical fighters don’t even get Magic). No game has done anything so restrictive in a very long time, and for good reason. You simply have far too few options in combat in this game.
The plot also deserves mentioning. It’s incredibly one-dimensional. I mentioned this in my pacing article, but the meta-plot of this game is always the same. You’re always trying to stop the Sinistrals. Occasionally you vary in exactly how you’re trying to stop them – finding someone who knows about them, finding a powerful weapon to fight them, actually confronting them – but it’s always the same overall goal. There’s also a few subplots, but they’re always very clearly subplots, and frankly, none of them are that interesting.
Lastly, there are a few smaller issues worth mentioning – first of all, you can’t see your numerical max hp/mp in combat, only a bar that was a representation of the percent your characters were at. While that usually sufficed, the difference between the HP of your casters and melee characters was large enough make this annoying. You also couldn’t see what items out of combat (and I forget if you even could in combat) – or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was that you only couldn’t see them when you were about to buy them. Regardless, you should always be able to see what the items you have can do. This goes for spells too, as I mentioned in my earlier post, “Things Games Should Never/Always Have.” Again, I thought that this was a thing that only occurred in old games, but Persona 3 had this problem for spells, and it was quite annoying – fortunately, Persona 4 fixed that problem.
So, you might ask me (and justifiably so), did this game do anything right? First of all, there’s something to be said for judging something outside its time. When this game was released, the RPG genre wasn’t was it is today – standards were different. (Excessive) Truly random encounters were the norm, and “Fight/Magic/Item/Run” was pretty typical as well. So in its day, it was probably a passable, but unexceptional, RPG. However, one thing that this game does do right is its characters. They are fairly compelling and deep, especially for their day. Even if the plot itself was fairly uninteresting, the characters still managed to bring it to life. Indeed, the indeed characters are probably the only reason that this game got a sequel. Not that I’m sad that it did – Lufia 2, as I mentioned earlier, is a fantastic SNES-era RPG not to be missed, even now, but after having played this game, it does make me wonder slightly just how it did manage to get a sequel.
Lessons to be learned:
Truly random encounters should be history. Encounters should be avoidable. More generally, make recurring potentially annoying things in games avoidable.
Make sure your gimmick actually works and is fun. (Combat targeting, in this case.)
Max HP – let me see it at all times. In number form, or in bars that are of different sizes. Basically, don't make the player work to see how much HP his party has left, and more generally, don't make the player work for information that he should have. Of course, this brings up a whole different issue of "just how much information should I give the player," but that's an article for a different day - for now, let's just go with: max and current HP values, what different stats do (generally), and what your different items and spells do.
Make your dungeons(and more generally, levels) interesting! Good backdrops, puzzles (mostly this), and some character interaction can go a long way. Something to break the standard pattern.
Let me see descriptions of anything at any time. (Items, Magic, in this case.)
Don’t make random encounters (and more generally, your repetative things that happen in non-boss encounters) too hard! Or if you do, autoheal to full after every fight. See: Baten Kaitos Origins.
Don’t make the meta-plot stale, or if you must, make the subplots interesting.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Design: Strategy RPG Create-A-Class
One idea I had for strategy RPG's was to have a system where, instead of your characters' classes being chosen from a group of classes, you could instead choose to create your own classes that had unique combinations of abilities. This is explored somewhat in some systems - final fantasy tactics, for example, has a system where your primary ability is determined by your current class, but your secondary abilities are determined by a class you had previously trained in. But what if you could craft your own classes to choose from?
For example, for each class you wished to create, you could choose from the following abilities:
Magic
-Thunder
-Fire
-Ice
-etc.
-Negative Status-effect causing
White Magic
-Healing
-Negative Status-effect curing
Stealing
Different Weapon Techniques (a la Disgaea?)
-Archery
-Swords
-Axes
-Nunchucks
-Dual-Wielding
-Guns
-etc.
Buff Spells
-only to self option
-only to others option (more expensive than only to self)
Monster Capturing/Transforming
-Monster Magic (Blue Magic)
-Summoners
-Pet Class (a la hunters of WoW)
-Morphing into monsters
For example, you could choose to make a Ice-Centric Mage who also used Nunchucks (perhaps uses spells through his weapons?), and dabbled very slightly in self-buffing spells. Or, instead, you could build the ultimate monster-centric caster - he could learn how to use certain monster-casted spells, learn to summon monsters to aid you on the battlefield, and learn how to straight-up transform into monsters. Obviously, the point system would have to be very complex for a system like this - adding certain abilities to a class would cost more, and stat growths would probably be controlled to some extent by the same pool of points. For example, in addition to abilities, you could buy high critical strike chance, or enhanced mana regeneration. Additionally, you could make very specific choices about certain things - for example, if you wanted to pick up a subset of ice magic, you could, but for an only slightly reduced price - like I said, point balance would be tricky, and definitely not linear. After all, hand-picking your abilities from a vast pool could be extremely powerful to a skilled gamer.
Also, there would be default template classes, such as White Mage, Black Mage, Fighter, etc. that you could either straight-up copy or modify to your own needs. Not too many, though - part of the point is to "force" creativity but still provide an out for those that don't feel like diving too deep into the system. Alternatively, you could have many standard classes, and provide the create-a-class as a nice extra for those who feel like using it.
I'm convinced that this could be an interesting and unique system, if done right. The trick is, like all things, doing it right. There's so many things to consider when you try to innovate, especially in something truly complex like a class system. Sometime later I'll post a larger game design that incorporates this system - try my hand at the task. I could see that spanning several updates, when I get around to it - depending on how much detail I decide to put into it.
Oh, and next week I'm switching to a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule, rather than two posts on Tuesday.
For example, for each class you wished to create, you could choose from the following abilities:
Magic
-Thunder
-Fire
-Ice
-etc.
-Negative Status-effect causing
White Magic
-Healing
-Negative Status-effect curing
Stealing
Different Weapon Techniques (a la Disgaea?)
-Archery
-Swords
-Axes
-Nunchucks
-Dual-Wielding
-Guns
-etc.
Buff Spells
-only to self option
-only to others option (more expensive than only to self)
Monster Capturing/Transforming
-Monster Magic (Blue Magic)
-Summoners
-Pet Class (a la hunters of WoW)
-Morphing into monsters
For example, you could choose to make a Ice-Centric Mage who also used Nunchucks (perhaps uses spells through his weapons?), and dabbled very slightly in self-buffing spells. Or, instead, you could build the ultimate monster-centric caster - he could learn how to use certain monster-casted spells, learn to summon monsters to aid you on the battlefield, and learn how to straight-up transform into monsters. Obviously, the point system would have to be very complex for a system like this - adding certain abilities to a class would cost more, and stat growths would probably be controlled to some extent by the same pool of points. For example, in addition to abilities, you could buy high critical strike chance, or enhanced mana regeneration. Additionally, you could make very specific choices about certain things - for example, if you wanted to pick up a subset of ice magic, you could, but for an only slightly reduced price - like I said, point balance would be tricky, and definitely not linear. After all, hand-picking your abilities from a vast pool could be extremely powerful to a skilled gamer.
Also, there would be default template classes, such as White Mage, Black Mage, Fighter, etc. that you could either straight-up copy or modify to your own needs. Not too many, though - part of the point is to "force" creativity but still provide an out for those that don't feel like diving too deep into the system. Alternatively, you could have many standard classes, and provide the create-a-class as a nice extra for those who feel like using it.
I'm convinced that this could be an interesting and unique system, if done right. The trick is, like all things, doing it right. There's so many things to consider when you try to innovate, especially in something truly complex like a class system. Sometime later I'll post a larger game design that incorporates this system - try my hand at the task. I could see that spanning several updates, when I get around to it - depending on how much detail I decide to put into it.
Oh, and next week I'm switching to a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule, rather than two posts on Tuesday.
Review: Psychonauts
Psychonauts
Psychonauts is a entertaining platformer/action game, along the lines of Banjo-Kazooie. It generally has a rather silly atmosphere – people’s brains get popped out by sneezing powder, the script is generally hilarious, and the worlds themselves are often whimsical. However, the game also has darker moments – people’s brains are getting stolen by the evil drill sergeant, and the final level – the “meat circus” – is very nightmarish.
The gameplay itself is quite good. You have all the basic abilities of most BK-ish games – jump, double-jump, and punch to start with, and over time, you gain new psychic abilities – levitation (which is really just super-jumping combined with gliding), pyrokinesis (nifty, but dangerous – you can set yourself on fire of you hit someone that’s too close), telekinesis (not handled as cool as in Psi-Ops or Destroy All Humans – here, you have to stand still to use telekinesis, and you can only move other objects by tossing them, not walking around with them), Invisibility (quite nifty, even if it isn’t greater invisibility), Clairvoyance (not particularly useful – lets you see through the eyes of others), Blast (basic mind laser), Shield (reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, makes you stand still – handy, but something of a game breaker if used correctly, especially against the final boss – but not too bad of one), and Stun Grenades (pretty handy, I assume – I didn’t use them much). All in all, a pretty decent arsenal for such a game, even if some of the powers are of questionable usability.
The worlds themselves are rather zany – the idea is, you go inside people’s minds and solve their mental problems or pass some sort of test. The worlds, thus, tend to be somewhat kooky – a spy who thinks she should be a TV star has a very bright, colorful party brain, a man with multiple personalities (one of them being Napoleon) is playing a board game in his mind with Napoleon, which you go into and win, and an insane mailman has a conspiracy-filled neighborhood in which you look for “the milkman.” The level design is usually quite good – the platforming is never too easy or too hard, and the bosses are a bit on the easy side, but not too bad – that’s really to be expected, given the genre.
Really, I don't see how this game got a reputation as being wildly original. I suppose its story premise is pretty unique - psychic camp, go inside people's minds as levels, but the gameplay is very little that Banjo-Kazooie didn't already cover. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts, but the reputation it's gotten strikes me as odd.
Lessons to be learned:
Zany worlds are fun, if you can do it right. Never knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the next world is quite cool. Of course, the player should never worry about what’s coming next – the levels need to be good in zany ways, not lame in zany ways.
A good array of powers is key. Make people look forward to getting the next power.
Upgrading existing powers in fun ways is also quite nice, and is a good thing for collectibles to grant.
Psychonauts is a entertaining platformer/action game, along the lines of Banjo-Kazooie. It generally has a rather silly atmosphere – people’s brains get popped out by sneezing powder, the script is generally hilarious, and the worlds themselves are often whimsical. However, the game also has darker moments – people’s brains are getting stolen by the evil drill sergeant, and the final level – the “meat circus” – is very nightmarish.
The gameplay itself is quite good. You have all the basic abilities of most BK-ish games – jump, double-jump, and punch to start with, and over time, you gain new psychic abilities – levitation (which is really just super-jumping combined with gliding), pyrokinesis (nifty, but dangerous – you can set yourself on fire of you hit someone that’s too close), telekinesis (not handled as cool as in Psi-Ops or Destroy All Humans – here, you have to stand still to use telekinesis, and you can only move other objects by tossing them, not walking around with them), Invisibility (quite nifty, even if it isn’t greater invisibility), Clairvoyance (not particularly useful – lets you see through the eyes of others), Blast (basic mind laser), Shield (reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, makes you stand still – handy, but something of a game breaker if used correctly, especially against the final boss – but not too bad of one), and Stun Grenades (pretty handy, I assume – I didn’t use them much). All in all, a pretty decent arsenal for such a game, even if some of the powers are of questionable usability.
The worlds themselves are rather zany – the idea is, you go inside people’s minds and solve their mental problems or pass some sort of test. The worlds, thus, tend to be somewhat kooky – a spy who thinks she should be a TV star has a very bright, colorful party brain, a man with multiple personalities (one of them being Napoleon) is playing a board game in his mind with Napoleon, which you go into and win, and an insane mailman has a conspiracy-filled neighborhood in which you look for “the milkman.” The level design is usually quite good – the platforming is never too easy or too hard, and the bosses are a bit on the easy side, but not too bad – that’s really to be expected, given the genre.
Really, I don't see how this game got a reputation as being wildly original. I suppose its story premise is pretty unique - psychic camp, go inside people's minds as levels, but the gameplay is very little that Banjo-Kazooie didn't already cover. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts, but the reputation it's gotten strikes me as odd.
Lessons to be learned:
Zany worlds are fun, if you can do it right. Never knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the next world is quite cool. Of course, the player should never worry about what’s coming next – the levels need to be good in zany ways, not lame in zany ways.
A good array of powers is key. Make people look forward to getting the next power.
Upgrading existing powers in fun ways is also quite nice, and is a good thing for collectibles to grant.
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