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Game prototype. One step further to confusion.

Blogs > 0x64
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0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4635 Posts
February 22 2015 11:57 GMT
#1
For the last few weeks, I've been working on a little Celtic prototype.
You can try it here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12835591/AmadanArena/AmadanArena.html
Disclaimer: Prototypes are not even close to alpha or anything you usually get when you play a game. They are meant to test fundamental aspect of the possible future game, testing if the game idea might be fun.

I have now removed the Quest and adventure aspects to focus more on the character progression and fighting/path selection aspect.

The game is starting to shape up but I still can't figure out how to make the fighting mechanics clear to the player.
The fighting is already confusing without the stamina mechanics.
It's hard to wrap your head around as a designer, that something is unclear .

For one, my mechanics have a wait "Action". Players hate to do this. It has no effect but it can be used to save other important action while the opponent is using defensive moves.
Yet, it is the mechanic that define your weakness, the better you are, the less wait percents changes you have to draw a wait.

This is not a big issue later, once you understand the strategic use of Wait. The problem is that new players are the one drawing the most of the card they dislike the most, while not understanding why that card is out there.

Now, this could be changed in various way and this blog helps me put down some thoughts on "paper".

1. Remove wait and give the player a missing rate.
2. Remove wait from the tutorial and rename "wait" to something else
3. Remove wait and replace it by rest. Makes sense, everyone loves extra stamina and the turn is not wasted. Interesting effect to balance...

Any other idea?
I could also just redo the whole fighting mechanics but I find these fresh once you have 3 column to chose actions from. Maybe let the player start with 2 columns right from the start...
So many things to try !


TLDR: Don't bother trying game prototypes if you don't have the time to read :D


Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
boon2537
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States905 Posts
February 22 2015 19:36 GMT
#2
It's nice that your have almost all your art assets ready for your prototype. I often have to use place holder graphics for a long ass time because I always procrastinate using my non-existent art skill to make an acceptable looking graphic lol.

Good luck with your game!
0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4635 Posts
February 22 2015 19:56 GMT
#3
On February 23 2015 04:36 boon2537 wrote:
It's nice that your have almost all your art assets ready for your prototype. I often have to use place holder graphics for a long ass time because I always procrastinate using my non-existent art skill to make an acceptable looking graphic lol.

Good luck with your game!


Heh thanks, but that's just a fluke, we had a project last summer that clearly went over our head so we stopped the production after 2 months so I have those asset and even have 3d models but that's might be used for some future prototypes.

There are two school of thoughts. Some says that prototypes shouldn't have art because it distracts from the pure gameplay and shrouds it.
Others think that on the contrary, lack of presentation draws so much attention of the tester that people don't get to enjoy the game like it should and the results are inconclusive.

It's hard and I guess if you have a solid group of game designers as friends (Like guys such as Jonathan Blow has) you can just share things looking bad but playing good and get useful feedback.

On my side, I haven't been able to figure it out. Most of the feedback is bug reports and obvious stuff.

Now, I a wondering if I should release this version and test the mobile market while I'm working on the next prototype, or should I use 2-3 more weeks to polish this... Really hard decisions!
Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
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