I enjoy designing video games, but have far more ideas than I have time to make. Many ideas are really only half ideas, things that on their own aren't enough, or things I wasn't able to figure out. They just need a little "more". In the spirit of squidi.net's Three Hundred Mechanics, I've decided to take these ideas and release them to the public for free in the hope that one might spark someone's imagination. If you want to learn how to think like a game designer, the above link is a great resource. This post is all text, but future free game ideas will have illustrated examples.
Free game idea #1 - The Plot Demands It This idea would be an adventure platformer, sort of a light metroidvania, but could be other genres. You would acquire skills only when they are required to progress. If the only way to go requires you to jump, you'll learn "jump", which might then be used elsewhere. At some points, you might have to choose between two skills, losing the ability to learn the other one. If you encounter a pit, for example, you could gain the jump skill and jump over it, or fall down it, reaching a cavern without learning the jump skill. Or you could jump down the pit, reaching the cavern with the jump skill, giving the player an alternate route. Another example would be if you were blocked by a wall or cliff, you could learn "climb" or "dig", continuing the game with only one of them. There might even be hidden skills like a "high jump". The controls would be pretty basic (mostly arrow keys or a d-pad) and the game wouldn't tell you what you can do or where. There would only be some basic instruction at the beginning telling you which buttons can be used, so players would need to try things out in different places. In the previous example, if you pushed "down" while standing next to the wall, you would learn "dig", if you pushed "up" while standing next to the wall, you would learn "climb", or if you pressed "up" a step or two away from the wall, you would learn "high jump". That's it! Let me know what you think of the idea, if you've seen a game with a similar feature before, or if you decide to use it, in the comments. Next week is "Top 10 songs from 2011".
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AuthorI'm an artist, game designer, composer, and writer. Always learning and improving. Archives
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