Well, you cant leave these out! both very important factors in creating the perfect gaming experience, and one of the few reasons to play a game over and over again. hopefully you guys at Beatnik will come up with some challenging challenges. Enough to keep me entertained for a very long time anyway.
We’ve experimented with costumes and wearable objects for the robot and they work quite nicely, so this is certainly a feasible (dare I say probable) form of unlockable items to let you customise your character.
Acheivements will also be available, as they are quite fashionable these days. We’ll hopefully have a variety of challenges running from pure gameplay centered through to more unusual ones revolving around colouring buildings or something.
Spot on, nothing makes people (and by ‘people’ I mean ‘me’) want to play a game more than to be measurably rewarded for it. Hence my profuse love for Team Fortress 2, which is the absolute king at giving the player that extra something to aim for.
The wackier the better! I don’t know how PS plays yet, but try not to make the achievements like Audiosurf, where they pretty much come naturally if you play well, and more like TF2, where you’re unlikely to punch 3 enemies in a single ubercharge without putting your mind to it.
I was thinking earlier today about the games and customisable avatars (i.e. small visual changes you can make to the robot…like some sunglasses for this god awfully sunny weather xD)
its something id really like to see in the game to distinguish players from eachother and such.
Ahh, Perfect. Costumes and wearable objects is kinda what i had in mind, especially if the game is online multiplayer, it could work as a kind of ranking system, you can show of your skill and achievements to the world! :/ and also as a way to classify our playing style and skill from other players, similar to an award system in a few other games. just an idea. Maybe an Uber Weapon or two if it doesnt cause problems with the game mechanics… and maybe something completly different, I cant really come up with any real good ideas untill I get a better understanding of the game mechanics.
Yeah Costume accessories would be really good. Nothing that would make your robot more powerful than anyone elses, only accessories that will make you look different.
Stacking these accessories would be good.
For Instance. You Unlock a Scarf, Sunglasses, Micky Mouse gloves. You can wear them all at the same time or you can mix and match
Could end up making some very funny lookin bots.
I think an innovative little collectibles and unlockables system would be great; with the robot models being plain white, however, I think a .jpeg-based customization system would be a fun idea. As far as unlockables like stuff to add on to the actual robot models, I think that’d be cool. Something like LittleBigPlanet perhaps?
From a time perspective; it’s much easier to for us to, let’s say, make a top hat, for the robot than to re-skin him.
Unfortunately, skinning takes quite a while and can have mixed results. For the team based game play modes, we’ll probably re-skin the robot so you’ll know what team you’re in.
We’ve played around with a few accessories for the robot; the little guy does look good pimped out. So, it’ll certainly be something we’ll want to put in (obviously linked with achievements etc)
We’ll have to see what ideas we (and you guys) can come up with!
Well sunglasses wouldn’t really work on an entity with one eye, would they? He really doesn’t look like the kind of guy you could kit out with too many clothes (maybe hats and gloves excluded) without losing his basic robotty character.
I just had a thought - since the little guy’s jumping all over the place like, as you say, a crazy gibbon, there’d have to be a lot of variety in the various paths you could take to get places. It occurred to me that all this jumping around is not unlike the Break The Targets minigame from Super Smash Bros. Any chance of little single player minigames? Multiplayer minigames? After all, that’s where most of the (non-character) SSB trophies are unlocked. Just a thought.
We’ve played around with a number of costumes for the little guy, so far we’re feeling pretty optimistic about getting him a good wardrobe ...
As for the minigames, its a great idea, however we’re not planning on any kind of singleplayer madness ( yet ). This is simply because we really want to nail the multiplayer aspect of the game.
Once that’s looking great, we’ll certainly look into minigames/ training missions.
(If only AI was easy to implement- life would be so much easier !)
LoL Yes, sunglasses would look a bit silly on a one eyed robot, was merely an example
Great to hear that the Accessories are going to go in and that you guys are already trying it out, would love to see some really wacky lookin robots.
What about costume customizations like Bomberman Live? Only instead of costume balls, the player unlocks content via current level of the character. But rather you change their head, body, and legs or face or whatever.
I like the idea of different weapons, which changes the sword into a giant remote control. Each weapon could have its benefits. The sword is the standard and does nothing. A golf club persay would make the persons head go flying. Some weapons could offer crazy kills as well as some weapons offering advantages with a disadvantage. Like the uber weapon you were talking about. Perhaps it can get one hit kills but its slightly slower to swing and you’re constantly glowing. To balance it of course, you wouldn’t want it to swing too slow. And the person wouldn’t be incredibly bright. Eventually his points would have to surpass the Ubersword current brightness and speed. All which can be decided in play time. Another weapon would keep your glow down but your easier to kill. This is getting too RPGish though. These ideas can also be resolved into power-ups. The ubersword would be a good power-up. Where you are all powerful for 10 seconds, with no repercussions (i.e. the brightness and speed thing i was talking about.) Power-ups would be a better alternative so the unlockable weapons don’t mess with game play balance. However, I would still like unlockable weapons with the special kills. Golf club and bat knocks some ones head off on a one hit kill (by which I mean sends it soaring across the arena). Which is a catch, it must be a one hit kill. Which could be sort of an incentive to unlock the weapons: Special ways to kill. So in conclusion, power-ups would be the alternative so the game doesn’t loose balance. Unlockable weapons that have special kills and unlockable clothing pertaining to level. Hey you could even add a sword called the sticky sword that has your oponents heads stick to it with a one hit kill or when you just slice off their head. Or a shotgun. Hear me out. The shotgun never fires, but when you get the one hit kill or final blow, they explode. That could even be a stick of dynamite.
Also, you could have a mode where everyone is in ubermode. One hit kills, superfast, and really bright.
P.S. I am really excited for this game.
Hi alexkavon
Good Post! Firstly let me just say that Bomberman Live is one of my top games, ever since the PC Engine version.
The idea to change the players head or body instead of just adding clothing is one that we are liking more and more ... this could then change the players attributes,(speed, glow, sword length, etc,) according to what helmet/body combination is used.
As for crazy kills and all the other excellent ways of killing you have outlined ... i love them all!
Be assured we chat about all the ideas in the office that come up in the forums.
Much thanks for the enthusiasm! ... keep ‘em comin!
I thought of some more.
Stick of dynamite that when a person kills a robot, he explodes, but not with his bomb. It just sends parts flying. No damage is delivered to the other player.
Wizard staff, that makes them disappear or dissolve into thin air (their body goes limp)
A bayonet that the person stabs the bot right in the stomach
A chainsaw that cuts diagonally in half
A light saber which cuts the robot horizontally in half (like darth maul)
A magicians wand that turns the bot into cardboard
A car antenna that causes the enemy to malfunction and shortout
A rubber chicken that causes the person to turn into a cooked egg with a side of bacon
Sticky sword a sword with all the heads of your enemies stuck on it
A frozen water pipe that makes them shatter like glass
A crowbar that turns them into boxes (half-life) or has a head crab jump on them
A white flag makes them stop and surrender
And of course there is a bunch of other weapons that do what the basic sword does. British flag, microphone and stand, bomberman antenna, ect…..
...is my thoughts on this.
Even though it might be fun and feasable to some degree, and if it’s more along the power up-line you suggested I could back it, but I think it should be mainly a cosmetic change, the more factors you throw in to mess up the balancing progress, the… Messier it becomes in my experience
I really like alexkavons ideas around the different weapon - different kill territory, though I don’t think there should be any one-hit-kill options or such, merely that the way an enemy dies would change depending on what weapon you use to deliver the killing blow. I would really look forward to the golf club strike
...Though I’m sure that’d be too annoying/time consuming to actually get in the game :/
Concerning the sunglasses, I’ve always been a huge promoter of the cyclopean, HAL-ish gaze when it comes to awesome robots, though I understand if that isn’t shared by everyone, so perhaps som visors that cover up the “original” eye and presents some new cosmetic possibilities there, or other such solutions with add-ons and whatnot?
They are robots after all, hardware should be (at least a bit) interchangeable, no?
Hey guys
Thanks for the fantastic feedback and suggestions. Apologies for taking so long to reply to this thread, it somehow crept under my radar!
Alex, your suggestions are ace – I found the magic wand idea to be especially amusing. We’re planning on implementing a number of similar powerups in the gameplay. However, as we haven’t made the assets yet, I’m getting Hin to have a look at your ideas to see if we can somehow squeeze some of your ideas/ imagery in. I would love to see some of your suggestions in the final game.
Cerogravian, you’ve made some really interesting points – tackling the ‘one hit kill’ idea…. when we made the first version of Plain Sight we were going to have health bars, counter moves etc – honestly, the game really started being fun when we did implement the ‘one hit kill’ gameplay mechanic. Plain Sight is very fast paced (with a strong arcade feel) – this is something we couldn’t get previously with longer sword fights. For this reason the actual weapon you use to kill someone with is purely cosmetic. Personally, and you guys are welcome to disagree with me on this, I think giving a player an unlockable weapon that is somehow better than the base weapons give that person (who is obviously an already seasoned player) an unfair disadvantage… This is why we’ve mostly gone down the ‘power up’ route.
Anyway, below is a small sneak preview of something Hin knocked up (in about an 10 minutes) - this probably won’t make it into the game, but we thought it was amusing. The robot (now called El Mono) in an evil helmet:
if it doesnt cause problems with the game mechanics… and maybe something completly different, I cant really come up with any real good ideas untill I get a better understanding of the game mechanics.
