Castle Paradox

Machu · Last edited by Machu on Thu Nov 06, 2003 6:10 pm; edited 2 times in total

Warning: theft of ideas will result in massive Rage Explosion

Now, I haven't played any of these "bad-ass vampire" games, but I assume the concept of playing a bad guy is nothing new. The character for the game I'm thinking of isn't really a vampire, but different kind of sadistic monstrosity. Whenever you wound enemies, their blood is quickly absorbed from the air. After absorbing enough blood from enemies (blood points?), you can grow out some mondo upgrades, E.V.O. style! Give yourself claws to deal damage when you grab guys, sprout a wristblade to cut enemies, augment your muscles to run faster, develop a callous to increase defense, and lots of other crazy crap! Besides blood, you can also absorb "pain" from enemies (and minor amounts from self-damage). After filling up the pain meter, you can unleash big special attacks (Limit breaks? Hyper combos? Well, it makes more sense for a sadistic guy to use this). You'll also be able to use fire magic, as well as absorb ashes to replenish health. I imagine many situations where you'll be wounded after a huge battle and you'd commence with a mass cremation.

Now I'm trying to think of a creative control scheme for this game. Among current systems, I've noticed this trend: L and R triggers, two analog sticks, one control pad, and at least 4 face buttons. As far as attacking goes, I was thinking that L and R would corespond to his left and right hands (they will develop separate "weaponry"), the left stick would move, and right stick would be used in conjunction with the triggers for separate attacks. For example, using his bare/clawed hand with the right stick neutral would grab the enemy, while pressing it down could shove and left/right would scratch. However, since this game will be third-person, camera control and possibly lock-on features would have to be implemented. This would depend on the controller (Gamecube will lock-on with Z, PS2 with R2/L2, and X-Box by clicking the right stick. Of course, I'm sure there'll be new systems by the time I'll make this). Face buttons could be used to jump, use fire magic, block/deflect, and possibly "use". I can't be sure about button lay-out now, but I really like my attack system.

Now, I'm no character artist, but I'd say that the character is inspired most by Last Blade 2's Setsuna:

If you can play through the actual game as him, you'll see how violent he is.

Storyline; I haven't really worked it out yet. Most "bad-asses" are going after a "greater evil", but this character is pretty nutso himself. Perhaps he's a demon on an evil mission? If he ends up being a truly evil guy, he'll get what's coming to him near the end, I'll assure you. I could still use a little help with plot here.

This is the concept so far. I'm quite open for suggestions, though.

Sephyroth · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 10:18 am Post subject:

Whoo.. when I first looked at the thread title I thought this would be a thread about balancing gameplay difficulty. Oh well..

I don't know if you want to make it more of an action-based game, but I have a few suggestions that may spice up the game a bit..

This is my own opinion, but I'm not too crazy about the Blood Points idea. What the system implies is that character progression would be completely based on fighting a lot. If the BP cost for getting new limbs is too low, then the game would be too easy. If it's too high, then the player would get bored spending all of his time fighting the enemies in order to get enough points to get that special upgrade. Also, I may have misunderstood, but I had the impression that the player started off with *all* of his potential upgrades (a.l.a. EVO). The suggestion I have for a system like this is to make the player *find* his upgrade informations within the levels. As to the Blood Point balancing, the best idea I have is to have minor enemies give off very little BPs (say about 1% of how much it takes to get the next upgrade), but have the majority of the BP be given off by bosses (100% of how much is needed, or whatever).

I like the Pain points system. Very cool Big grin

Finally, it's always fun to put a few good puzzles in your levels. Say your character has a limb that is kind of like a hook that it uses to skewer enemies. That same hook might also be used as a hook shot ala Zelda. It'd be effective to put the Hook shot upgrade in some part of a level, then have a kind of "hook shot barrier" blocking the player from the second part of the level. You mentioned that the player has an upgrade that makes him run faster. Make him find the upgrade and then make him run across a bridge that falls apart as soon as you step on it or something. (ala Super Metroid)

Yes, I do love Zelda.

Anyhoo, these are all of my suggestions.
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Shadowiii · **It's been real.** Joined: 14 Feb 2003 Posts: 2460

I don't know how many people here play WCIII:TFT on Battle.net, or which of them play Tides Of Blood map, but this remined me a lot of that.

That map plays like an Aeon/RPG style...and the Blood Mage is by far the coolest guy. He has no mana, instead, all his spells drain his own HP. He has a vampiric attack (but he attacks weak) so you have to preserve your life while casting them bloody spells

Eh, thats just what it reminded me of.
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madhatter · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 2:43 pm Post subject:

There's one thing that's bothering me. Would a person actually want to sit down and play this? I have to agree that senseless violence and/or indulging in evilness is fun, but only for a little bit. Then after awhile it gets old, and the player doesn't really feel inspired to play it. Most gamers want some "good" heroes to kick some badass, but what would the reaction be if it were the other way around? And if the evil character does get kicked at the end, the player would have no motive. Basically, I think the player wouldn't really feel motivated to play this kind of game, or something to that effect.

Machu · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:32 pm Post subject:

Of course this will be an action game. Y'know, I haven't really considered how the game will start. All the uprgrades will not be available from the start, of course. In EVO, you could save up points and skip right to the best upgrade, but my game will be step-by-step. I'm sure there will be plenty of "upgrade paths" as well; you'd have to decide what each hand has at a given time and stuff like that. I'm thinking that you'd be able to make progress in, say, dashing legs and high-jumping legs, and you could spend moderate amount of BP to switch between them. As far as "finding" upgrade information, I don't want this to be an exploration game. I'm guessing that there'd be limits in early levels and more would become available with progress through the game. Maybe he learns them after defeating a boss? And yes, he'd start out going against, say, zombies, which don't feel pain (thus no Rage attacks) and bleed very little since they have decayed. Large bosses will yield signifacantly more, though the ultimate reward would be the upgrades mentioned earlier.

Now, about these "puzzle" elements; this won't be a game about block pushing and crest collecting, lemme tell ya'. I won't make it necessary to get certain upgrades to progress with the game, but there could be some interesting alternate paths. Oh yeah, I'm definately including a extending-claw now!

Concerning "who would play this kind of game", this game, along with the others I'll make, will be about having fun. I assure you that I'll make the game fun to play. You seem to be worried about how the game will end. Howzabout a suprise "turn into a good guy" bit near the end? Y'know, the classic "Manslayer turns holy and seeks repentance for what he's done". However, if something this drastic happens, he probably wouldn't be blood-and-pain anymore. I'll have to think about this.

LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:42 am Post subject:

The bad guy turning into a good guy gig would throw the general balance of this game off, man. You got to make a nemesis that is the nice guy, and you can choose between the two, maybe with a plot item that saves your current game with the evil one, and switches to another map via use door command, and swaps characters (locking the evil one of course) and the nice guy has to clean up the mess. The nice guy has powers of absorbing mirth (opposite deal here) The stuff you do as one character changes the plot with the other character character. (the evil one takes the blood, thus people are dieing, and unhappy; thus the nice guy cant get any mirth) This can be a base for a plot, no? Needless to say, you will be needing lots of towns, so they can have an equal chance of getting bonusses. There can be a travelling healer and his party of admins who bring the towns back to life after a while, so you can check on the towns you visitted earlier via some kind of dark rift, or something, then destroy/save them again (maybe there should be some sort of common enemy here... Zombies...)... The two characters can eventually meet up, and try to destroy eachother. Of course you are able to choose who to fight with via saving before the texts that allow you to choose one pop up, then make some identicle texts so you can square off as the other guy when you restart the game. Now you have a choice, and more alternate paths to take. More choices with two interesting characters = more fun! Big grin

Of course, the nice guy wont know where the evil guy is, because it moves him back to some dark sancuary of some kind before the game ends. (same goes for the nice guy.)

Well? Was that long, sorry. the point is, did you like it? Huh?

You can think of some upgrades to give the nice guy. Maybe some sort of guardian would be cool... Bigger sword??? Gavel of Justice??? Oookay...

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Machu · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 5:36 pm Post subject:

Keep in mind that this ain't an OHR game; it's what I'm planning on doing when I grow up and become a "real" game-maker. The idea of playing as both a good and bad guy is spiffy, though.

LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 12:12 am Post subject:

oops.. Hehe... Well, the plot was a thought, at least... (see the nice guy idea, and friction between the evil, and nice guys*insert names here*)

Maybe we shall meet someday, in RL. I also plan on becoming a game programmer,(grafics artist/ multimedia / multimillionare) someday. Big grin

Heh, maybe not a multimillionare...

(and when you say REAL game maker (excuse me, my quotations dont work where I am at the moment) do you mean making games that could really make some money?
PS: You couldd always practice using the OHRRPGCE though...
_________________
Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

Dark SKell Angel · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 3:39 pm Post subject:

Funny that you state that, cuz I wanted to make a fighter game on the OHR system (not much is done xept for pixel walking and 8-way runner) with samurais and stuff. But I wanted to make ppl able to cut off limbs and pieces during battle and stuff like that, and make injurys received in batle effect the outside batle game, thus making you feel as if you were really fighting for your life. The system needs work, but the storyline is huge and intense and praticly all though out.

On a side note, the system you were talking about reminds the one in Blood Omen 2
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LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 11:31 pm Post subject:

Machu · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 6:08 pm Post subject:

Let's see... How about if the "good" and "bad" guys are both the same guy?! This person somehow got his personality split into physical beings. I've already described how his evil side will play, so I'll now plan out his good side. I'm thinking that he'll have some "honor" point system in which he'd lose points whenever he kills a person and gains them by saving lives (for balance's sake, the evil guy will lose Blood points whenever he's cut). Whenever he saves someone (whether an enemy or someone in need), he'll receive healing as well as honor points. Rather than "growing" upgrades by spending points, he'll automatically acquire blessings when his honor reaches certain points. This way, slaying people can make him weaker. He'll probably have to choose which blessings he can use at a time, but I'm thinking that honor will increase both what he gets and how much he can have at once. Instead of "Pain", the good guy will fill his "Justice" meter whenever he's wounded or sees an innocent get harmed. When filled, he can cast miracles. I'd assume that he'll receive weaponry through blessings as well, and he'll probably have a lightning affinity, since he won't hold back against mindless monsters like zombies and robots.

I've put a little thought into the title as well. If I call it "Love and Hate", I'll make the logo the words "Love" and "Hate" overlaped with different colors. Maybe "LhOaVtEe", or something else subliminal. It'd be cool if I could also name the characters so that their names combine into something else.