Yesterday, a competition began on GameJolt. And as you know, I'm a sucker for competitions.
But I can say with certainty that I'm failing this one, majorly. The theme is "Chaos", and I really can't see myself rushing to complete the idea I had.Anyway, during my competition related brainstorming, I came up with some new elements I want to add to Exile, and I want to see what the local critics think.Hub worldOK, first thing. Originally Exile had a hub world. It was still in the distributed map folder, I think. Can't remember. But anyway…Simply put, the 'hub' world is an entryway into all the other levels, and also allows you to revisit levels (Perhaps to unlock a door you couldn't unlock before, or retrieve a new item, or just get some extra health potions). The hub itself is likely to be "Darkhold", the name of the castle you'll be storming this time round.Rune systemFor the GJ competition, I came up with the basic design for a game called Arx Congeria, in which you, an apprentice magus of sorts, is trying to discover what happened to his mentor. You find runes and glyphs, and and combine them to create spells. Now, I decided that instead of the individual runes in Exile, a system of Frames, Gems and Runes that make up a system of customizable magic might be of more interest to the player. The system would work something like this: The quality of the frame or jewelry you set the rune and gem into affects the casting power and cost. The Gem determines the element involved (Fire, Water, Life, Death, etc), and the Rune determines the Effect (Bolt, Ball, Self, etc). The game as it stands already supports this system. But what I want to know, before I add it in, is: does it sound like a good idea? Or, will it make the game more interesting?The storyThe story in Exile was non-existent from the user perspective, besides what I threw into the readme. But I do actually have a story I wanted to tell with it. Originally, the idea was to have readable materials lying around the world (Papers, Books, etc), and a simple Journal system (Detailing objectives). From this, the player could pick up pieces of the story as they go. Again. Good idea? Bad idea?Maybe have simple quests? Or not? And there are many more ideas besides. But these are the immediate "I might actually get around to doing these this century" ones. The reason I'm dumping these ideas up here is because they appeal to me, as a minor programming and art challenge. But I want to know if they'll add to the game or not. So be harsh…MiscellanyFallout 3.Finally got my hands on it. And you know what? It's great. Also, mini-nuke launchers are fun in closed spaces. I'd do a Shenanigans blog if I didn't get that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'll never pull them off as well as Cesque. To close off, here's the icon for Arx Congeria that I vectored as a bit or random art.
EDIT:Oh look, I hit 50000 views…
What colseed said pretty much.
also, will there be any bosses in the game? or like - any enemies that have specific ways to defeat them?I'm asking this because, you could write down the strategies to defeat these enemies in the books or probably even drawings that show exactly where their weakspot is, so that the books actually seem useful, outside of just giving you more insight to the game's story.I'm OK with hubs but… i don't find them better than standard linear episodes. In fact they can get pretty annoying, like some levels in Hexen were a huge pain due to all the back tracking and respawning enemies. It depends on the focus of the game, hub levels aren't good for an action-focused game but they are good for more puzzle/adventure-focused games.
Improving the magic system could make it more interesting, but at the same time you have to take into consideration how much time you want the player to be fumbling around with the magic system. They would have to pause the game, perhaps during action, and set up or change their magic than return to the action to test it. I think it detracts from the action but adds to the customization. You'll have to test it and tweak it to make it work well within the game so that it doesn't end up with a negative effect on the experience. You want all additions to be a positive change for players.Any push for story would be beneficial at this point. Even if it's a minor intro just to set up the plot. You don't even have to do much dialogue, you can rely on visual cues to set up some basic story telling.Trolls. You should add trolls.
Trolls that you can kill.And that are trolls.Every game needs trolls.@colseed: Yeah, I'm not about to write tomes :3
The Rune crafting is basically a simple 'combine X with Y and Z'. The entire system will probably be explained in-game, in a simple way.@JID: Yes, I'm designing more bosses, with proper patterns and strengths. That is an interesting idea, and I'll give it a shot.@Death: For the magic system, I was thinking something along the line of allowing for five configurable slots (Selected with the mouse-wheel, perhaps). So you can perform some planning (Favorite Fireball spell, a healing spell, etc). I want the game to have action, but at the same time, I want areas that slow down and present a puzzle to the player. @Charlie: I'll recycle those horrible looking Goblin sprites that look trollish enough. @Cpsgames: Nope. But I'm enjoying the game so far as-is. :PJuurian, you're lucky e-slaps aren't an actual thing.
What?
I agree.He should totally add some trolls.