I dunno, some games are meant to be played to completion. You can eke it out for a little while by adding minigames, additional quests, etc. But sooner or later, people wanna play your sequel. So don't worry about that overly.
A few things to enhance gameplay might be:
MINI GAMES/Sidelines
THEODORE
A very competetive athlete who likes to beat people at stuff.
He challenges you to an obstacle course, which may involve basic running races, perhaps lifting rocks or jumping large gaps.
If you lose, he taunts you cockily; you win, and he flips out and swears he'll beat you.
When you return, you find he's trained to become faster, or stronger, and has a new challenge for you. Sometimes, rather than just doing a harder version of the previous game, he may focus more on another aspect of skill. So if you wupped him at strength, he may try a speed game, or a swimming/diving game, or an obstacle course that involves all these things.
Gradually as you progress, he gets more desperate to win. You start to see him eating weeds and stuff in the foyer (so he's obviously started trying to increase his powers by unscrupulous means. He'll deny it, of course). Finally, when he's been beaten at every game (but is now immensely fast, strong and skilled), he goes absolutely nuts.
If you've got one or more spare lives left, he'll pull a gun and shoot you.
If you're on your last life, he'll sulk saying stuff like 'Yeh, you just come back here when you're stronger, I got one last game, hehehe...'
When you return, and have more lives, then he'll shoot you (so he never gives you a game over).
Once he's shot you, you come back minus one life, and he takes the energy you left. So now you're absolutely equal in power (you don't lose your abilities, he just copies yours). In this final battle, he's able to copy your attacks. Make him HARD to beat.
When you finally beat him, he learns his lesson about the competetive spirit, and becomes a pipe-smokin' spiritualist who sells life potions, LOL.
FINDING EMO
A mum has mislaid her psycho teenage daughter, Emo (who dresses emo). She went off to sulk in a cave after an argument and never came back. You have to lift the rocks from the entrance, and inside there's a water boss (perhaps related to any water bosses you face in the main game storyline).
You beat it, and it hides from you, saying you'll have to use your brain to save Emo. There's a pool behind where the boss stood, and you have to dive in it to retrieve clues in treasure chests. The clues refer to tasks you face further in the cave (on dry land, in deeper caverns). Each completed task opens another tunnel in the pool, letting you go deeper.
This way, the Find Emo storyline requires a mix of beating the tasks/minigames in the caverns, but also acquiring the ability to spend more time underwater (cos the pool gets VERY deep).
In the deepest part, you find another boss underwater, holding Emo in a bubble. The hole you came in from closes off, and the fight begins. If you don't have unlimited air by now, you'll drown (cos the fight takes too long).
When you finally beat the boss, it explodes, launching you and Emo back up to the surface. She's really grumpy still, like "Yeh. Thanks. Whatever" and walks off back home.
That's the last you hear of her, but you can visit her in her home. She's still grumpy, but her room's absolutely covered in posters and pictures of your character.
ABILITY IDEAS
NightCaller Monster
.In some areas, monsters come out the floor at night. The NightCaller monster can shriek and cause the night to come, making monsters come out and attack you while it makes its escape.
If you kill it, you get its night summoning ability (but have to use it when you're standing on stone, because monsters may come out the soil and attack you).
DayCaller Monster
.Related to the above. It dwells in patches of plants that open in daylight and retract at night (which bite when they're open, so they're not too healthy). If it sees you at night, it sings the sun up, causing the plants to come up and bite you if you're close. You have to kill it one of these ways:
-- Shoot it from a distance at night, before it notices you. Doing this in daylight is useless since the arrows hit the plants and do no harm, as with any other attack against the plants.
-- Creep up behind it at night so it doesn't see you, and then attack.
-- Using a flame attack at daytime, torch the plants. They'll die and the flames will kill the DayCaller too.
IcePhaser Monster
. In one dungeon, you have to save yourself from monsters by hitting/shooting ice columns so they fall and block the way. But when the IcePhaser comes to an icy wall, stretches its hand and (with effort) slowly phases through it. It's surrounded by a freezing cloud, so:
-- Arrows/Projectiles freeze and shatter on impact
-- Bombs are disabled, or their flames are neutralised by the cold
-- Kicks and Punches obviously do no good, cos you'll freeze
You have to slow it down using the ice columns and reach a higher level (where you can still just see the monster moving below you). There's a seering boulder - normally you'd just jump over it with a learned double-jump move. But if you have enough heat resistance, and strength, you can lift the boulder and drop it down onto the IcePhaser's head, killing it. Drop down and steal his energy to gain the walk-thru-ice ability, and a lot of ice and heat resistance (flaming arrows will now extinguish and become normal arrows when they hit you).
Ice Wolf Monster
. Ice wolves obviously add to cold resistance. But they can also run on ice without skidding. So that's the skill you learn. It could help you playing a hockey game with eskimos too.
Wow, you guys have a lot of unique ideas. Too bad they're just not the type of games I like to make. Lol, the community is full of platformers, top-down shooters, but I'm more into RPGs and turn-based strategy. I think I'm in the wrong community
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I was playing Advance Wars on the shitter last night and really wished I could make a game like it. Those types of games are so much fun, and a lot better than staring at the wallpaper or something on those special occasions.
--
"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
Advertisement
Post Reply
