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Game Design Thoughts, cont'd
a year ago
I almost forgot to continue this! While I have a moment, here we go:
I mentioned having been thinking about the class system in three layers, and the visual presentation of it has definitely been heavily affected by certain recent games (cough TUNIC cough). I really liked the design of Tunic where the player was building a "manual" of sorts by collecting pages as you go through the game, giving a collectible that does a good job of helping teach game mechanics when they're expected on the first playthrough while also being unintrusive on future playthroughs (and for Tunic, I believe nearly completely not required? [spoilers redacted]). For the RPG project I've been keeping notes on, the following are all things that I wanted to keep in mind for a class system:
-Randomizer viability. I'm a big fan of randomizers in general, mostly e.g. Super Metroid, other metroidvania/platformers, but have been known to dabble in a couple of the final fantasy randomizers or Lufia, so while I may not design entirely around randomizer viability I want to keep it in mind.
-Clarity of information for a first playthrough. At least the ability to provide enough information to get started in a clearer concise way.
-Depth of information for subsequent playthroughs, as well as depth of customization. A lot of this is also in keeping earlier classes balanced against later, but that's scope creep for this discussion I think
-Nothing else comes to mind at the moment but I'm *certain* I'm forgetting something
With that in mind, and going back to tunic's example and the layers I mentioned yesterday: On the surface, I'm currently thinking of dungeons and dragons style class blurbs. Describing what it is that a class does from a thematic standpoint, hint at important things or intended synergies. When you pick up a page, it's a front and back with stat blocks for abilities and equippables/etc on one side, with maybe a key art and the thematic description on the other. Unlike Tunic, the system would function more like the final fantasy job crystals - you can't use a class until you pick up its page. (The pages themselves then would lend to randomizers on several layers, the pages themselves can be an item that is randomized, and then the information *on* the pages could be rendered in a way to make it easily changed, providing an easy way for class features to be shifted around and pieced back together into new classes)
From the characters standpoint, I'm thinking of the (main, at least) characters knowing they're inside of a game (tactics advanced/many isekai series) and that the pages are partially what gives them the abilities, which also explains why they *lose* these abilities when they change class (it always bothers me when games have characters suddenly not able to cast certain spells just because they're not -x class- without having an in game reason for it, but it's a minor pet peeve)
... I definitely had more to write but I'm blanking on it for now to the point of not having *anything* to keep noting down related to the project, so this is all of this for a while. I just wanted to pick back up writing and with the games I've been playing I had thoughts on game design rather than story plots to work on. :)
I mentioned having been thinking about the class system in three layers, and the visual presentation of it has definitely been heavily affected by certain recent games (cough TUNIC cough). I really liked the design of Tunic where the player was building a "manual" of sorts by collecting pages as you go through the game, giving a collectible that does a good job of helping teach game mechanics when they're expected on the first playthrough while also being unintrusive on future playthroughs (and for Tunic, I believe nearly completely not required? [spoilers redacted]). For the RPG project I've been keeping notes on, the following are all things that I wanted to keep in mind for a class system:
-Randomizer viability. I'm a big fan of randomizers in general, mostly e.g. Super Metroid, other metroidvania/platformers, but have been known to dabble in a couple of the final fantasy randomizers or Lufia, so while I may not design entirely around randomizer viability I want to keep it in mind.
-Clarity of information for a first playthrough. At least the ability to provide enough information to get started in a clearer concise way.
-Depth of information for subsequent playthroughs, as well as depth of customization. A lot of this is also in keeping earlier classes balanced against later, but that's scope creep for this discussion I think
-Nothing else comes to mind at the moment but I'm *certain* I'm forgetting something
With that in mind, and going back to tunic's example and the layers I mentioned yesterday: On the surface, I'm currently thinking of dungeons and dragons style class blurbs. Describing what it is that a class does from a thematic standpoint, hint at important things or intended synergies. When you pick up a page, it's a front and back with stat blocks for abilities and equippables/etc on one side, with maybe a key art and the thematic description on the other. Unlike Tunic, the system would function more like the final fantasy job crystals - you can't use a class until you pick up its page. (The pages themselves then would lend to randomizers on several layers, the pages themselves can be an item that is randomized, and then the information *on* the pages could be rendered in a way to make it easily changed, providing an easy way for class features to be shifted around and pieced back together into new classes)
From the characters standpoint, I'm thinking of the (main, at least) characters knowing they're inside of a game (tactics advanced/many isekai series) and that the pages are partially what gives them the abilities, which also explains why they *lose* these abilities when they change class (it always bothers me when games have characters suddenly not able to cast certain spells just because they're not -x class- without having an in game reason for it, but it's a minor pet peeve)
... I definitely had more to write but I'm blanking on it for now to the point of not having *anything* to keep noting down related to the project, so this is all of this for a while. I just wanted to pick back up writing and with the games I've been playing I had thoughts on game design rather than story plots to work on. :)
