It's been a while, hasn't it? Life has been busy... But I've been advancing slowly, and I'm close to finishing my next prototype, a prototype searching for fun.
The Search for Fun
You may or may not remember (probably the latter) that one of the main problems I had with my game was that it lacked fun. My logic was that while my game was a mix of time management and action, the time management is inherently not fun by itself, so it needs the help of the action aspect to be good. In my last prototype the action was pretty barebones, so I decided to add more fun action while not adding too much new elements.
I decided to change what happened to dead people's souls if the player didn't collect them on time. Originally, if the player didn't collect the soul on time the soul would instantly and unavoidably attack the player, making him/her lose a hefty amount of seconds. This harsh punishment was supposed to encourage players to collect souls on time, but it's frustrating and feels unfair. I decided to rework this mechanic, and add some action in the mix. The result is "corrupted" souls.
The main characteristics of corrupted souls are the following:
- A soul that isn't collected on time becomes a corrupted soul.
- A corrupted soul follows you if you get near and tries to attack you. If you're hit, you lose some seconds, but you can dodge them.
- If you manage to dodge them, they'll become weakened for a moment, and during that moment you can attack back, and if you manage to make it disappear you get a small second bonus.
- Corrupted souls grow and become stronger if left alone, which makes them harder to get rid of and more powerful. Thanks to Pabo, I based this aspect on some feedback of his.
The next prototype is a simple test of whether corrupted souls are fun action-wise; is dodging and eliminating them fun? We'll know the answer by next Friday hopefully, when I finish this simple prototype. If they are, you'll be seeing a new version of my main prototype with these included.
