Welcome everyone to my blog. This is my first blog and I rarely read other people's so keep that in mind while reading these lines. The point of this blog, which I'll be hopefully updating on a weekly basis, is to serve as a depository of various game ideas and game-related anecdotes to inspire you, the readers, and myself. I already have a backlog of things to talk about so keep yourself posted and come back often.
Now for introductions: my name's Maxime Doucet and I'm currently working in Montreal as a game designer for mobile platforms, including cellphones, the iPhone and Facebook. It's the best job I've ever had and it's been long overdue. Games have been my passion for as long as I can remember; ever since I was playing Lunar Lander on a computer as a kid. Throughout the years, the most significant games for me have been Final Fantasy 4, Carmageddon 2, Diablo 2, Quake 3 Arena, Dark Age of Camelot and, more recently, online games such as World of Warcraft.
The possibilities for the future are endless and the point of this blog is to discuss these possibilities from a gameplay perspective. So go ahead and leave comments.
Making Things Bleed
So on to my first post! Someone at work sent me this article on Kotaku this week and I really enjoyed this part:
[The game] promises brutal, combo-infused combat, a new leaping technique that adds a whole new element of explorations, and a regeneration mechanic that uses visible cues rather than a health meter to display Rick's status.
I've been a fan of the series, even though I've never actually finished any of the old arcade games. I was way too young and they were way too hard. But I enjoyed and admired the game's gore and Lovecraftian lore. Back at the arcades in the late 80's, there was nothing like grabbing a 2x4 and batting those lagoon monsters and watch them splatter into the back wall. Fun anecdote: I used to go eat smoked meat sandwiches before heading to the arcades and Splatterhouse was the only game that made me nauseous.
But the article reminded me of an idea I've had for a couple years. I've played way too many MMO's and there's something that's always got on my nerves: people's obsession over their characters' stats. Granted, stats are extremely easy to get addicted to and since most combat-oriented MMO's are stats-heavy, people have a tendency to obsess over them and endlessly look to improve them. After all, what better way to gauge your character's strength by simply comparing numbers? But how well you do on a battlefield often has less to do with stats but with which buttons you're mashing, and when.
A solution to this problem would be to totally get rid of any on-screen HUD. No health points, no mana, no spell icons, nothing. The new Splatterhouse seems to aim for that. You gauge your health points by the amount of damage visible on your character and your enemies. Hit a zombie in the ribs and the texture of a gash is applied to where your hit struck. And, as the zombie's hit points are decreasing, its animation is also affected, as it starts to limp, its arms or legs breaking or falling off. This would also mean getting rid of health points - those damn health points - altogether, replacing them with some kind of damage table instead:
- Hit a monster on an arm and its attacks are weakened
- Hit a monster on a leg and its movement is impaired
- Hit a monster on the torso area and it bleeds, its health gradually decreasing
- Hit a monster in the face and it is knocked out or decapitated
All the while, your damage - and the damage done to you - and other actions are expressed with visual cues, rather than meters. Of course, this has existed for years in the FPS genre but the MMO genre remains stats-heavy.
Other Actions
Spell casting is also done using visual cues: an interesting interface could be by right-clicking the mouse which would call up a star-shaped menu of buttons, then clicking the spell would cast it. As there would be no mana shown on screen, it would be expressed by animating your character properly:
- 100% mana: Your character is standing upright, chest puffed out, ready for battle
- 50% mana: Your character is visually exhausted and is slumping, breathing heavily
- 0% mana: Your character is on the verge of collapse, as he is covered in sweat with veins covering his arms and face
Since there would be no visible stats per se, inventory management could be ultimately simplified to a 5-slot system, which would be called up with a mouse click or hotkey:
- Upper Body Armor: Armored protection to either block or glance off attacks
- Lower Body Armor: Armored protection to protect against immobilizing attacks
- Boots: Footwear which improves mobility
- Headwear: Armored protection against head attacks (Dungeons & Dragons Online had a great system to manage armor, whereby any class was able to equip any kind of gear but with penalties to spell casting, mana regeneration and mobility)
- Backpack: A varying-sized but limited container used to store various goods (Diablo and Dungeon Siege had good systems for representing the physical space used by each item, I would also add a weight limit)
- Back: A graphical cue would also be used to show things hanging on your character's back, such as a bow, a staff, a banner or a cloak
A lot of games have already opted for a minimal interface and heavy graphical cues, such as the Black & White and Grand Theft Auto series.
