/proplay/ - Project: Playtime

Instead of "all games are banned", make it "all games mist be sanitized/sterilized".

If you're going for a platformer, then you have to ask yourself what kind of platformer.

Basic mechanic (read: MATH) should be set.
Hit points? yes/no
Lives? yes/no
power ups? yes/no
inventory? yes/no
etc..

Personally I'd go for something mario-like. Open map with locations you can visit.


Enemies:
- sockpuppets
- soggy knees
- manginas
- cultists
- megaphones
- (auto)blocker - a big shield robot, produced by:
- Rand Whale (giant blue mad scientist whale)
- Finn Zoracy (would look like the photoshop of that Zoe fish head)
- Revolutor6000 (robot with a dick gun)
- Beata Sanita (meditating Anita with a halo)

Alright, there's been a lot of debate over the way that abilities/magic should be handled.

It was discussed that handheld-like objects would be the equivalent of a wand (I imagine them as looking like something out of a cargo cult). Cartridges are put into the handhelds which determines what spells/abilities the character gets.

Right now we're not sure how we want the cartridges to work mechanically, so, if you're a random lurker, feel free to post your opinions.

Cartridges as Equipment:
Cartridges are things that you equip in the equipment menu. They give you a small stat bonus based on their level and their level also determines what spells/abilities are unlocked. They all hold a substantial amount of spells and only a small amount of cartridges will be available to the player (Around 6-10 total, if not lower). The problem with this one is that there is no incentive for a player to really swap out their Cartridges. I know for a fact that when I played Grandia II, I never switched out my mana eggs because why would I subject myself to having to learn all my spells all over again? I feel this system would fail in that regard.

Cartridges as Class:
This would have the cartridges act like classes, similar to the dressphere system in FFX-2. In short, each change of cartage is going to swap out their abilities and give them much larger stat changes to make them better represent their role, each character individually leveling up their skill in each job. I can see the same problem here as I saw in the other one. Why would I change my classes if my current party set up works? FFX-2 got around this by giving bonuses for swapping classes in the middle of a fight, and the best ending was only possible if all classes for all characters were maxed out.

Cartridges as Materia:
Like Materia from FF7, the cartridges will be very plentiful and multiple cartridges will be able to be equipped at a time, but each cartridge will only have 1-4 spells on them. We may also have a number of different handhelds that have different number of slots and slot combinations similar to FF7. I don't like this system mostly because it feels wrong thematically. We could probably have every spell casting animation be the swapping out of cartridges, but other than that, the idea of multiple cartridges just feels off to me. You guys are free to disagree with me and I'll do whatever the majority wants, I just don't think things fit thematically.

Cartridges as Skill Books:
Similar to the FF9 system of gaining skills, each cartridge would have a small number of skills associated with it, but after gaining enough XP with the cartridge equipped, the abilities from the cartridge are then permanently unlocked for the character. We could either have a skill slot system in which the characters can take a number of learned skills and equip them to always have them, or simply leave it to where they always have access to any unlocked or equip abilities.

Any other ideas for how we could set things up is greatly appreciated. If I messed up an explanation of one, or you just don't understand, feel free to yell at me about that too.

>>219
>>242
So, a decision has been reached. We're going with the Cartridges as Class system.

All characters have 8 feature slots, 4 class features which are determined by the current class, and 4 custom features, which can be gained by leveling up your skill in each cartridge.

Each cartridge has 4 features, all of which are available when the cartridge is equipped, that more or less make that "class." It will be 1 "Library", 2 passive bonuses, and 1 meta changer that unlock in that order, so by getting a class to tier 2 they unlock its Library, by getting it to teir 3 they unlock its first passive bonus, etc.

The Library of each cartridge is more or less its ability list. So, Fighting Game would have Martial Arts as its Library while something like the Dating Sim cartridge would have Charms. Although making each Library unique for each character would be too much work, we are currently planning on have 2 or 3 abilities in each Library be character specific.

Passives are simple ability increases that boost the performance of the class, so back to the example, Fighting Games would have +Physical Damage and +HP, while Surgery Sim (Just an example, not sure if we'll use it) would have something like +Healing and +Critical Hit Chance (If we go with Crit heals as a thing).

The Metachanger is the big thing for each class/cartridge, which will change some of the mechanics for that character, which will be both a good thing and a bad thing. For example, Fighting Games would have Combo, which causes you to do your chosen action twice. This essentially causes your spells to cost twice as much (as you're casting them twice), but you're still doing twice as much damage in your turn. Surgery Sim, on the other hand, would have Hippocratic Oath, which causes all of your damage to heal instead of damage, allowing you to turn devastating damage attacks into healing spells, and also allow you to heal with your basic attack.

These are the basics of what we have planned so far, but the examples are by no means set in stone.