My ideas - Make the house a home

jasonrohrer · 2013-10-30 09:49:16

She could be an amazon queen and the kids could become her pygmy minions.

awesomebill wrote:

Stupid crap that does nothing other then give me something to work for.

Dude! I've made 17 games.... the fact that I wouldn't want to put that kind of stuff in one of my games should not be at all surprising or disappointing, at least not if you're familiar with my track record. My games have no filler, no icing, no fluff, no carrots, no pointless wastes of time, etc. I don't want my game to give you "something to work for."

If you're bored with the game, that means you've learned all that you can learn from it. That means it's time to move on to something else. Boredom is a survival mechanism.

All things considered, I think this is a pretty deep game, in that there's a huge gap between the way a beginning player will play and the way an expert player plays. And even among expert players, there's a pretty big gap between the worst expert and the best expert. And even if you take Zed (you guys remember Zed, right?), I think it's possible to get much better at the game than Zed.

But that's REAL game value.

The other alternative.... the alternative that most people are used to... is to take a relatively shallow game and pad it out with "fake depth." The cheapest way to do this is to allow a player to "level up," while also leveling up the monsters, so that where they use to swing 5 times to kill a level 10 monster, they now swing 5 times to kill a level 20 monster, and the level 20 monster looks bigger, and the level 20 sword makes more sparks when it swings. Yes, that kind of setup will give a player something to work for. And many players will stay on the treadmill indefinitely, all the way up to level 99 or whatever the cap is.

Other ways to pad the game out are with gameplay-meaningless loot that can be earned, like skins, or special-looking weapons, etc. Sometimes they even charge real money for this stuff!

And yeah, that will keep a player on the treadmill too. They'll spend all week slaying 10,000 sewer rats to get that diamond-crusted sword or whatever.

This game does have something to work for: get your house to the top of the list when we have 500 active players. That is quite a challenge indeed. Even getting your house in the top ten list will be a huge challenge. The vast majority of players will never be able to achieve this. Even I will not be able to. Deep mastery of the game and the metagame is required.

So, the game doesn't need anything else to work for. After you do that, and you've learned everything you're going to learn and felt everything you're going to feel (like the crushing anguish when someone finally robs your top-of-the-list house), it's probably time to stop playing.

SO... that's the game design reason why I shouldn't put couches and grandfather clocks in there.

Thematically, this game is stark and brutal. Your family's house starts out as an empty concrete warehouse. You build pits and trapdoors in there. It's a bizarre setup. Surreal. An alternative universe where everyone is a criminal and everyone is at risk. No couches. No rugs. Concrete floors. A nightmare.

And a family living deep in there somewhere. You can hear the echo of their voices down the empty corridors...

ukuko · 2013-10-30 12:49:13

Mmmm.. pygmy minions

awesomebill · 2013-10-30 12:54:33

I beg you to reconsider! I see your point here, but there is still no great reason to keep this stuff out. I think you can see that my main problem here is that there is no other game like this, its not as if when I get bored here I can just look for that other mmorpg rogelike housedefense sim, that has furniture in it. This game is like the ideal form of voxel pvp gameplay. No other voxel game has hit on anything like it. I just dont understand why you want to take out the decorative elements of those games.

Anyways, there is another reason to consider this. I think all great games should offer periodic updates to keep their player base interested, and to help lure new ones in. It would be super easy to periodically release new decorations, and as you mentioned, some people would even be willing to pay for them (LIKE ME! TAKE MY MONEY AND GIVE ME STUPID CRAP!) You could always just offer this stuff for free though, as new content is a sound strategy for generating new interest in a previously released title. Especially for mmorpgs.

jasonrohrer · 2013-10-30 13:39:19

By the way.... this game is "faking" a voxel look with pure pixel art. I worked hard to make it look like voxels, and I'm glad that it's passing as a voxel game! :-)

Anyway, I've said what I have to say about this. I do appreciate your thoughts here!

awesomebill · 2013-10-30 17:10:03

Its voxel at heat even if its not technically voxel =b and you have not heard the last from me on this, I really think we should revisit this idea at a later date, if we had a larger gaming population and you asked them if they wanted more junk, im sure the answer would be "of course we want sofas and junk. why dont we have sofas and junk?" And Im sure many would be willing to pay for it as well. moneys good right?

Just keep the possibility in the back of your mind for now. I respect that your not a cash whore like most of the industry, but theres nothing wrong with putting in some extra work and asking to be paid for it.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#26 2013-10-30 09:49:16

Re: My ideas - Make the house a home

#27 2013-10-30 12:49:13

Re: My ideas - Make the house a home

#28 2013-10-30 12:54:33

Re: My ideas - Make the house a home

#29 2013-10-30 13:39:19

Re: My ideas - Make the house a home

#30 2013-10-30 17:10:03

Re: My ideas - Make the house a home

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