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How do I make this more "fun"?

  • Marrend
  • 08/15/2011 01:56 PM
  • 3351 views
As a form of interactive entertainment-based media, I want players to have fun in experiencing the end-product. There's two factors I'm seeing that hold the game back from being a more enjoyable experience as a whole: dungeons and battles.


First off, dungeons. What makes dungeons fun? Puzzles? Convoluted mazes? Gorgeous vistas? Probably some combination of the three, but in consideration of my current skill-set, and how much time I've got left (16 days and counting!) I think I want to concentrate on the "puzzle" element.

So, what kind of puzzles do I want? The theme allows for some oblique thinking, but I don't want to be too crazy/convoluted with the puzzles, or their answers. In the end, I think that keeping the "jump point" as the central gameplay mechanic for the puzzle element is what I want do to. However, my ideas for how to implement puzzle elements with this mechanic is essentially limited to "Go here, flick the swtich, more dungeon opens."


What about battles? What makes combat fun? This is, perhaps, a more difficult question for me to answer. As a player, I love the "Control+A" method of combat (essentially "spam Attack"). As a developer, I want to see the tactical use of abilities on the part of players.

The game has no items or inventory, putting the player into "conserve" mode. Well, if there wasn't a rest-point that's easily accessible, anyway! That means the tactic of "spam Skill" is a perfectly viable tactic. Making the restoration points harder to access is not an option I'm particularly willing to consider, so the amount of stuff I want to do, or can do, with the combat is limited at best.


If I'm unwilling or unable to change the way combat works, I'm pretty much stuck with making interesting puzzles. 16 days left, hrm? I wonder if Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Ages, or it's sister Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Time have any ideas for me?

Posts

Pages: 1
Saya
30
08/15/2011 06:33 PM
Huh... truth be told, I'm not that big on puzzles. I'm a fan of light re-directing puzzles and maybe ice sliding puzzles, but not much else. It always kind of annoyed me in a way.

I think that Golden Sun did a good job with puzzles though-- where you use psyenergy to manipulate the environment and get where you want to go. Maybe they had a slight issue with making it a little bit too easy (you see a pillar, you move it, you see a puddle, you freeze it, ect.) but it's a good idea in theory.

Having a boss in the middle of the dungeon rather than at the end is a neat way of breaking things up.

And um... treasure. Treasure makes things a lot more fun. You can't believe how exciting it was in FF7 to find new materia for me. (Perhaps the whole materia system was fun in itself?) Guild Raiders is also a good example. Maybe V&V, but I guess I was too busy avoiding random battles than being excited by treasure in that game.

One thing that WAS fun in V&V was having the characters speak randomly (maybe there were events, now that I think of it) while inside the dungeon, having small conversations. It was a nice distraction.

That's just my 2 cents.
StrawberryFlower
278
08/15/2011 08:13 PM
I'm also not a big fan of puzzles (I'm really slow when it comes to them). I prefer looking for treasure in a dungeon, rather than doing puzzles to progress. :D

Also, as for combat - my only peeve is don't make random encounters. I feel safer knowing I cleared the floor out or can avoid the enemies, rather than wandering around on my last leg only to get into combat...

Just what I think. ^^
rabitZ
amusing tassadar, your taste in companionship grows ever more inexplicable
1349
08/15/2011 08:21 PM
Yeah... I don't know why, but there's something about finding tons and tons of different treasures in a game that gives me a nice feeling!
Avee
5794
08/15/2011 10:57 PM
What makes a game good, by Wolgang Kramer:
http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/WhatMakesaGame.shtml
The article's about boardgames but it applies as well to video games.
Darken
3952
08/16/2011 12:27 AM
author=Avee
What makes a game good, by Wolgang Kramer:
http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/WhatMakesaGame.shtml
The article's about boardgames but it applies as well to video games.


it might apply to multiplayer video games maybe... most of it is really unhelpful in marrend's case
ShortStar
CONSIQUENCE!
4400
08/16/2011 03:47 AM
Focus on gameplay. Literally just make a game about jumping and push rocks instead of a game with a story.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
08/16/2011 11:15 AM
Amongst my ideations for the game, was the idea of giving the player a boomerang-like tool. The idea was to give the boomerang a range of, I dunno, five. If it came into contact with an enemy, or a wall, it came back prematurely. If it hit an emey, it defeated the enemy without the need for combat. I was even considering giving out minimal experience for foes defeated this way.

Thus far, I've been using "Erase Event" to remove enemies from the map on a temporary basis, but I'm not even sure if "Erase Event" works with the boomerang idea. As far as I can tell, "Erase Event" only works on the currently running event. As the currently running event would be the boomerang's event, I'm not sure how useful emulating "Get Event ID" for the hit detection would be.

Anyway, I'm going to research the basic "boomerang" idea a tad more. I'm assuming that I'm in over my head with the idea, but we shall see.
chana
(Socrates would certainly not contadict me!)
1584
08/17/2011 06:34 AM
Personaly I like puzzles(if there not too hard), humour, useless side litte things, a certain freedom in my play, how to figure out things wtithout being too directed, amongst others.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
08/17/2011 12:39 PM
Got the boomerang to work, movement-wise. Character movement is possible while it's being thrown, making the return journey a bit off, but that's probably the least of my worries at the moment. What's become at the forefront of my mind is that, theoretically, any event ("jump points", normal enemies, and bosses alike) hit with the boomerang should be removed from the map. If this theory holds true, it's neither a very balanced mechanic, and may cause the player to be temporarily unable to advance the game.

In any event, I've found a method that returns "true" or "false" when a collision happens, but I've yet to find a method that returns returns the ID# of an event. Then again, seeing as I may have to take the extra step of ensuring that only normal enemies are removed from the map, this whole idea might just end up going nowhere.

I'm seriously considering just "handing in" this project as-is. Maybe this isn't the best game that comes out via the event, or my best attempt at making a game in general. However, I can't think of any way I can make this any better given what I know, or can reasonably do, with the amount of time I've got left. I'll mull it over the next couple of days, though, just in case I do come up with something.


*Edit: Don't get me wrong, I like some of these suggestions. However, I'm uncertain if I can implement any of these ideas with what meager knowledge I have, conceptual restraints (Treasure-hunting makes no sense if there's no treasure!) or time constraints.
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