[WIP] Morf Arena
Since I'm still waiting for Terri to finish up his RL stuff and I need to prepare for Ludum, I started working on a small game based on the assets from my roguelike (Morf).
I've only put in around 2 hours so it really doesn't do much. Move around with WASD and LMB to use a spell (once you've picked up a spell scroll). There are two different spells: fireball and frost nova.
Known Issues:
*If a rock spawns on top of you, you'll get stuck
*Sometimes the map will generate unreachable areas
LINK
I've only put in around 2 hours so it really doesn't do much. Move around with WASD and LMB to use a spell (once you've picked up a spell scroll). There are two different spells: fireball and frost nova.
Known Issues:
*If a rock spawns on top of you, you'll get stuck
*Sometimes the map will generate unreachable areas
LINK
Comments
I would suggest making the area bigger so that you can't see everything and once and then have the camera follow the player, but have weapons that can shoot further than you can see :)
Also, I didn't read the know issues and ran into the 2nd bug the first time. Was totally lost on what to do :P
I was wondering about the map size. How much bigger do you think it should be, keeping in mind that there will only be two players. 4 times the size?
Also, I'm not too sure about the procedural generation of the map. It is interesting, but there is something to be said for "learning the map" in arena and FPS type games. But again, do both, let some people play and see what gets the best response.
That is what came to mind when I saw your game. Think along those lines :)
Anyway, the thing I wanted to talk about was gameplay variability and interest. Monochrome predates Babo Violent AFAIK and I was rather disappointed with what they did with the gameplay. The first versions of Monochrome felt rather boring and positionally uninteresting, even though I had the size = health thing in there already and I'd been working on the ways that the different weapons and their alt-fires made people play each differently. Eventually I realised that movement wasn't really a big factor in the game - you were just plodding along at a specific speed and never really doing much else other than trying to click on enemies.
So I added leaping to the game: Hit space and your character zips towards your mouse cursor. That instantly made a big difference to gameplay and created a lot of tense situations: People would wait for a player to leap and then close distance by leaping to follow them; Players would leap behind cover to dodge shots, which meant that they could be more exposed and further from cover, opening up the game a lot; Players would leap "over" others inbetween shots, forcing what the fighting game community called cross-up situations; Players would leap to be in various weapon ranges all the time, etc.
Just adding that one mechanic really changed the feel of the game a ton and took something that was bland and made it more fun. Babo Violent's mechanic that they use to switch up the game is the way grenades can fly over certain walls. What ideas do you have that could open up gameplay in a similar way? Movement-centric, obstacle-centric, weapon-centric, etc?
For instance, a message pops up telling you that the 'Firestorm' spell has landed and everyone rushes for the center of the map. The person who gets it, casts it and is given a shield to protect him from the rain of fire that follows. Other players then do a bit of strategic running, taking more care to look where they run, leaving them open for attacks from the guy who got the spell in the first place.
Also, areas that are sealed off with lava and open every minute or so. If you can run through, you get the hp potion (or whatever) and you can also CC players in the path of the lava to kill them / get there first.
All of that combined with the random disasters (the lava paths that pop up, the walls that block you and whatever else I can think of) will make the map nice and organic and pit you not only against your enemies but against your own reflexes as well.
*New character sprite
*Much larger map
*Map decorations (skulls, lava spots and cracks)
*New spell: Rocky outbreak
*Small UI to show current spell name
Also, adding in "warning indicators" to places where rocks or fire are going to spawn would make predicting where people should be more interesting.
I'd be very happy if anyone has an idea to make the animations look less like crap and more like not crap.
LINK
Now, back to Morf Arena.