Castle Paradox

Joe Man · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:30 am Post subject: Blood Dragon

Alrighty, so since I haven't popped in here in a while, I suppose I'll share one game idea I came up with a while ago. I haven't designed it much, and I likely won't be putting much more work into it, but if anybody thinks it's interesting enough to produce I'd be glad to allow anybody who can pull it off to make it.

The concept was to have nonstop action, with the player forced to constantly attack enemies, leaving no room for exploration or evasion, but simply nonstop offense.

To enforce this, I came up with a simple system. The PC has a health meter which constantly goes down at a regular rate. The only way to stop or reverse this flow is by killing enemies. To help the player, the health meter does not go down when attacked. However, the flinching that results does equivalent damage.

To visually justify this system, I came up with a PC I call the Blood Dragon. Like the name implies, the Blood Dragon is a dragon made out of blood. Therefor, by the liquid nature of blood, the dragon constantly falls apart. However, by consuming creatures, the dragon can recover the lost blood.

To make the game more interesting, and at the same time slightly easier, I thought of altering the Blood Dragon's form based on the health meter. For example, at an ideal state, the dragon would have a layer of coagulated blood stretched across thick, dripping fluid and a spiny skeleton, and even some flesh-like cruor forming wings. Slightly less ideal, the wings might disintegrate, the skeletal spines might begin to protrude, and the flow of blood might increase. Near the verge of death, the dragon may be reduced almost merely to a skeleton, with only the scantest sanguine drippings holding the bones together.
With each of these stages, the properties of the Blood Dragon would be altered. For example, in the ideal form, the player may have a new move set opened using the wings, and the constant life loss might be stunted due to the layer of flesh, but the blood loss might increase when struck by enemies. In the lesser form, the move set may be slightly limited and the blood loss increased, but attacks may me more effective due to the protruding spines. In the near-skeletal form, movement may be made more rigid, but to help the player, flinching would be limited (due to having no sensory capabilities) and attacks would be most potent.

Of course, coming up with any sort of decent story would be difficult, but it couldn't be too hard to make the gameplay fun and interesting.

Anyhows, that's what I have to share. Any input?
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

Reading your idea, because of its originality, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I wouldn't think coming up with a story would be too hard. You already have a backstory it looks like, you just need some appropriate drama to go with it.
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TMC · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:42 am Post subject: Re: Blood Dragon

Ha, nice details.

Joe Man · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 5:43 am Post subject:

You may have noticed in many games that when you are struck by an enemy, you are briefly immobilized (only for a fraction of a second). I believe that's generally called flinching, though I suppose I was vague.
_________________
"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

I don't think OHR's flinching causes actual immobility. You will either have to make the attack itself do damage, or set stun for a few seconds to let the cumulative HP drain the Blood Dragon has kick in.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

TwinHamster · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject:

Raekuul · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:50 am Post subject:

No, when an attack is made, the timers all stop long enough for the calculations to be made. This appears to be the "flinching" that he's talking about.
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A broken clock is still right twice a day.

Joe Man · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:19 pm Post subject:

Actually, I never envisioned this on OHR before you brought it up. The format I actually had in my mind was side-scrolling brawl, but I suppose what I said could potentially work in any system. However, RPG format is entirely unfitting, as it contradicts the entire original goal of having nonstop action, something RPGs never pull off.

Still, if someone implements this into the OHR battle engine effectively, I give him massive kudos.
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

djfenix · Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 359

Upon reading it, i thought it to be a sort of conceptually similar to Tower Defense. In TD, monsters slowly move towards a goal, and ultimately you were to protect that goal and prevent monsters from getting there.

So with this, the distance from the monster spawn area and the goal is similar to the health of the Blood Dragon. And the more monsters you slay, you get more distance from the monster to the goal, essentially, your "health".

But enough of my rambling.

I thought this would be really cool as an action RPG type thing. Maybe almost Zelda-like. You would start off with simple attacks that would drain health upon death, and as you progressed, the monsters wouldn't spill blood unless you get creative with the weapons that you gained.

As for a story, possibly the reason behind the hero needing to live such a life. I dunno, I think there could be plenty of story ideas if you planned it out according to the system that you have.

pharo212 · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 52

actually, it would work well with rpgs. kinda. If you have 100% encounter rate, all you need is some way to have moving take health away, like lots of damage tiles, and then have all attacks have a negative hp cost so you gain health when you attack. see, simple.

Joe Man · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 11:13 am Post subject:

Yeah, but that would suck.
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

pharo212 · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 52

Well, its the simplest way to implement your idea that I know of.

Joe Man · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:08 pm Post subject:

...Yes, but it's also crappy. I give you credit for trying though.
_________________
"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

pharo212 · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 52

yeah, your right, you'd be unable to take damage in battles, and with one every square, any damage would be negated. You could have NPC activatable battles so you'd have to look for them, or just 50 encounter rate.