17 replies to this topic

[Yal]

I'm currently working on a tropical-island platformer called Dracula's Island, which is quite similar to NES game Adventure Island III and also borrows gameplay elements from Shinobi III. The general premise is:



1) You're on a vacation
2) Oldschool pirates invade the islands


I have some screenshots and a small demo here if that explanation didn't tell you enough:
<Demo with 3 complete stages>

<Original game I made 3 years ago with GM6>


Screens from the demo:




EDIT: I've decided to use a world map. So ignore this spoilered text that questions whether I should use a world map. I still need more ideas for mini-games, though. Have some?

Spoiler

On your quest, you'll obtain useful items like weapons (knives, tomahawks, boomerangs), stronger weapons (anchors, crosses, razor boomerangs), and hostile pets you can ride on. You can get items in two ways: by smashing barrels in the levels, and via mini-games. Now it's the mini-games that I need some brainstorming with.

First of all: should I have a SMB3-style world map (which makes things, in my opinion, a bit more complicated than necessary with this game), or should I somehow squeeze the mini-games in within levels, or between levels? I've considered having some sort of mini-world-map in the Item Select screen that doesn't depict the actual islands but rather icons for "stage" and "mini-game", but for multiple reasons (especially having an easy-to-use interface) I don't like that idea.

The original game (a project I never finished) featured treasure that filled up gauges: get 5 Bronze Points to play the surfing mini-game, 5 gold points for..., and so on. Treasure typically were worth 1 point of its type (Bronze, Gold or Pearl), but there were rarer treasure worth 2 or 3 points.

The bad thing with these treasure was, in a linear platformer game with tight time limits, you don't have much places to hide them. ACtually, these treasures was obtained by triggering invisible treasure chests to appear, and then open them. This basically meant that the most rewarding way to clear a stage was to slowly move forward, spamming an attack covering a big area, hoping to hit a treasure chest. For the remake I'm making now, I've decided I gotta sneak in hidden treasure rooms behind fake walls and in the background and so on, but I can't make such places everywhere to I gotta have mini-game gauge-ups appear in a regular basis in some other way.

Also, since you could top up a mini-game gauge ANYWHERE depending on how full it was when you triggered a chest to appear, I had no control over where a mini-game were entered and they could become quite bothering breaks in the actual gameplay. (You would return to the stage stationary and invincible for a short while so that you wouldn't accidentally glide off platforms or get spawn-killed, though)


Any ideas for how to have mini-game entry points somewhat evenly and regularily spaced, but still not in completely random places? Also, I'm not 100% fond of having the mini-games be "use once and it's gone", but the player shouldn't be able to "milk" the mini-game indefinitely (aka there HAVE to be some sort of "cost" or "requirement" to get to it), and also I want the player to know about that there are mini-games; they shouldn't be too easy to miss.


Finally, the minigames should be able to appear in any setting (including, like, aboard pirate ships and in volcanoes), not just in towns. Of course, it's good enough if ONE minigame can appear there, all of them doesn't have to have a logical motivation to why they are there (e.g. surfing inside volcano)




============================


Part two is: mini-game ideas.

Between platform levels, the player will have the opportunity to play mini-games, just like in Super Mario 3 and New Super Mario Bros. The point of these mini-games is to collect extra lives or helpful items, such as rideable animals with special attacks, or rare weapons such as the Steel Boomerang that can instantly kill enemies. Basically, the mini-games will be "Bonus Rounds" that provide you a chance to get items "for free", that is without risk of dying, and they'll be used to keep the player well supplied (if they're good at the mini-games) in their struggle to get past the game world.

So bear in mind that the mini-games are Bonus Rounds; they should preferably have a well defined "End condition" and not continue until the player fails, and they should feel rewarding, it would in fact be pretty nice if the player somehow collect his rewards during the mini-game.

Such rewards are (full list):

Spoiler

- Common Weapons: knives, wooden boomerangs, tomahawks
- Rare Weapons: steel boomerang, anchors, Castlevania-style cross shuriken boomerang
- Animals: tortoise that can pass water surfaces, fire-breathing cobra, flying grizzly bear
- A bunch of other items, in particular the forcefield Shield item.
- Innocents: typical tourists. Saved innocents has a chance to join you as "party members". This is used to unlock new characters (any sprited humanoid in the entire game, including skeletons, lizardmen, cannibals and pirates, will be playable) and blah blah blah. This is just a minor important feature. More importantly, saved innocents may give you item rewards or kisses.
- Finally, the most common item is Fruit. 100 fruits = 1UP.

My current ideas are:


SURFING: Don't Miss The Fruit
You are on a surfing board. Your goal is to avoid waves and grab flying fruit. 100 fruits is one extra life, plus each fruit also refills a small bit of Pep: combined life and time. Waves pushes you back, and if you get pushed out of the screen, you lose. If you manage to stay on the screen long enough, you arrive at a beach and are rewarded with a chest with some semi-random contents (e.g., like 50 knives, one Steel Boomerang, a Spikybelly Tortoise... something half-good)

BALLOON FIGHT:
You have two balloons and spiky shoes. There are five bad guys/gals with the same premises (but a single balloon). The goal is to pop the others' balloons and make them fall into the sharky water. I have this idea about also having a raft and some innocents: to save the innocents, pop their balloons so that they fall onto the raft. If a bad guy falls onto the raft, (s)he'll stay on it and push any innocents off it. When you start to run out of time, a bad guy with a musket will appear in the foreground and start popping all remaining innocents' balloons, then your balloons. Either hurry up and finish the bad guys, or if done with that, get near the raft. If you get shot down into the water, you'll leap onto the raft (losing lives in mini-games is MEAN), but if you land on the raft, you'll get some bonus points (20 000 points is an extra life) plus the added pleasure of making a teasing pose to the (highly annoyed) musket pirate as you make your getaway.

Saved innocents would reward you in multiple ways:
- If of opposite gender, you would recieve a kiss (on the cheek), that increases Hearts by 10-20 something. Hearts is also awarded from killing enemies, and 100 of them is an extra life.
- If of same gender, you recieve an random item.
- In any case, there's a chance that said innocent would "Join your party". Among other things, you can play as any party member and have any other party member following you around for support. I'm also thinking about going co-op with this.

BEACHMAGEDDON: Throw Them Safe (THX, mach3000!)
As you run on a shore, a pirate ship in the background fires cannon balls at the beach. Your goal is to
1) Avoid the cannonballs' explosions - if you're charred black, you'll lose the minigame and all further rewards.
2) Get innocents out of the way - there'll be loads of oblivious people sunbathing. Lift them up and throw them if one of the bombs threathen to hit them. You can either just hurl them offscreen for a small reward... or you can try to get them to stick on-screen 'til the goal appears and hurl them into the goal zone for a BIG reward... but the more people on the screen, the bigger the risk that someone will be exploded. Dead innocents give you no reward, so you gotta balance risk vs reward.

Oh, also people will look pretty annoyed when you violently chuck them all over the place, especially when they land and get sand in their mouth and stuff.

Edited by Yal, 21 February 2012 - 01:09 PM.

[Rusty]

Place an item, one that is relevant to the mini-game and easily to identify on the map. Using this item will cause the player to enter the mini-game room, e.g using a fake z axis by showing the player jump onto the surf board and ride into the distance.

You could also make the mini-games replayable whilst not effecting the story mode by adding a "mini game arcade" onto the main menu. The player can unlock mini-games by beating them or fulfilling certain requirements in the main game.

Edit:
A good example of this would be to place a surf board next to the "plank" of a pirate ship, the player will use the item and run away from the screen down the plank and to the water. He/she can then surf around the wreckage of some recently destroyed ship and collect the dropped fruit before returning and jumping back up to the ship via the plank. Thus placing the surf board back at it's original position, should the player want to try again.

Edited by Rusty, 26 January 2012 - 12:15 PM.

[masterofhisowndomain]

So this game ... is ... a linear platformer? I'm still unsure of this, sorry.

Anyway, whilst reading my mind came back to the method used in Crash Bandicoot (1) to access bonus levels where you had to collect 3 (or 2?) tokens per level to enter a mini-game. Perhaps you could make the levels slightly less linear by having alternative routes through them? I'm finding it quite hard to conceptualise quite how your game will work, for which I apologise.

[Yal]

Hard to visualize how the game looks?

Demo of current version: http://www.box.com/s...kn31m8olutvk2oo
Original game from 2009: http://www.box.com/s...vk05r0sbl2nbxh7

You could also make the mini-games replayable whilst not effecting the story mode by adding a "mini game arcade" onto the main menu. The player can unlock mini-games by beating them or fulfilling certain requirements in the main game.

The thing is, the mini-games are there as bonus stages where the player can get extra lives and helpful items without risk, compared to getting the items in normal levels. Kinda like in Donkey Kong Country, or Super Mario Bros. 3. The player needs to go to a mini-game every once in a while to get some extra items and lives, especially poor players might need that extra supply to keep alive through the next checkpoint. But obviously, good players should get (slightly) more rewards from the mini-games (leading into the Unstable Equilibrium area, though).

I like the idea with a Mini Game Arcade, though. Might add "endless" modes to all mini-games and let the player enjoy those at the title screen.



I'm a bit recultant to adding a World Map (I really like the original system), but it might be the only solution, even though making nice world maps where all area types can link together nicely would be loads of work.

Edited by Yal, 30 January 2012 - 12:09 PM.

[Yal]

Bump! I've gotten enough flesh about the world map, but I still want some mini-game ideas.

Also, I've updated the demo a bit. Among other things now the turtle has a proper leg animation and also you should now get a setup prompt the first time you start the game.

[masterofhisowndomain]

It's rather a standard mini-game, but nonetheless I'm sure your imagination can take it places:

Coconut Grab

• On the far side of the island stand some extra tall coconut trees that are ready for harvesting. Unfortunately the wily pirates are already up there, picking off the fruits! Coconuts periodically drop from the trees, so that the player must position themselves under the trees with a basket in hand to collect them. Pirates will drop dangerous items that should be avoided. ?The player could be allowed to knock the pirates off the trees with some sort of aimed weapon?

[mach3000]

how bout some kinda underwater swimming game where u collect stuff and dodge sharks/jelly fishes? maybe there are pearls in oyster shells down there

coconut bowling

vine swinging throught the jungle where you gotta let go of the vine at the right time to get at the perfect height to dodge obstacles

something to do with monsoons or hurricanes? can't have all the mini games be bright and happy. maybe the hurricane sucks you up really high in the air and you gotta jump from object to object to get down safely /shrug

flame juggling at night, i dunno how that's gonna be a mini game, i just wanted something with a night background with stars twinkling in the sky

bug catching? tons of flying bugs/beetles on the islands

dodge poison darts and arrows from island natives

cannon ball dodging if pirates are shooting while you're running on the shore or wherever

got waterfalls in the background? maybe there are mossy trees around them like in the disney movie tarzen and you gotta "surf" the trees to collect stuff

[chance]

flame juggling at night

bug catching? tons of flying bugs/beetles on the islands

dodge poison darts and arrows from island natives

cannon ball dodging if pirates are shooting

You've got ONE hellava great game here. +1

Start out where you keep multiple torches in the air (using the mouse). Next, you have to move back-and-forth to catch flying bugs (arrow keys). Then, you must dodge darts and cannon balls while you catch bugs.... keeping torches in the air.

[Yal]

I realized I've missed out on some vital information. Gotta update the first post with this:

Between platform levels, the player will have the opportunity to play mini-games, just like in Super Mario 3 and New Super Mario Bros. The point of these mini-games is to collect extra lives or helpful items, such as rideable animals with special attacks, or rare weapons such as the Steel Boomerang that can instantly kill enemies. Basically, the mini-games will be "Bonus Rounds" that provide you a chance to get items "for free", that is without risk of dying, and they'll be used to keep the player well supplied (if they're good at the mini-games) in their struggle to get past the game world.

So bear in mind that the mini-games are Bonus Rounds; they should preferably have a well defined "End condition" and not continue until the player fails, and they should feel rewarding, it would in fact be pretty nice if the player somehow collect his rewards during the mini-game.

Such rewards are (full list):

Spoiler

- Common Weapons: knives, wooden boomerangs, tomahawks
- Rare Weapons: steel boomerang, anchors, Castlevania-style cross shuriken boomerang
- Animals: tortoise that can pass water surfaces, fire-breathing cobra, flying grizzly bear
- A bunch of other items, in particular the forcefield Shield item.
- Innocents: typical tourists. Saved innocents has a chance to join you as "party members". This is used to unlock new characters (any sprited humanoid in the entire game, including skeletons, lizardmen, cannibals and pirates, will be playable) and blah blah blah. This is just a minor important feature. More importantly, saved innocents may give you item rewards or kisses.
- Finally, the most common item is Fruit. 100 fruits = 1UP.

[mach3000]

beach volley ball - i dunno the rules of volleyball so just make up your own version of it. you play against the pirate and they know how much you love saving innocent lives so they throw knives into the crowd every now and then. to keep the ball alive or to save a crowd member (if there is one in the spot that the pirate threw the sword), that is the question..

giant giant sandcastle - somehow the innocents managed to build a giant giant sandcastle that you can actually walk in. i'm just imagining the whole screen be a wall of the castle and there are lots of doors and it's like a maze or something? you go through one door and it'll lead to another door on a different level. /shrug no idea what the goal of that would be

cruise ship vs pirate ship - pirates have positioned their ship to the side of the cruise ship and are ready to board, you must stop them or they kidnap your innocent ppl. and you summon ninjas to help you out somehow.

the circus is in town - there's a big sign that says "No pirates allowed!" stuff happens and you can open cages of super exotic animals to help you out.

relaxing day at the aquarium - the player is just there to relax and take photographs of all the neat sea creature. nothing happens here yal. don't put the player through any more stress!! use a fishing pole to fish out unwanted guests in the tanks or something. watch out for them electric eels.

a day at the market - this will be hard to believe, but on the weekends, the player is a part time cashier at a fruit stand in the tent markets. seems like there's going to be a huge crowd coming in this afternoon. better get ready.

zombies, yup i said it - maybe the mini game is a dream that the player has. that's what you get from eating all that fruit before bed!

[Yal]

Mach, can you provide some examples on how to "Win" or "End" these minigames? Also, I'd want some explanation about how to obtain bonus items from them. For instance, the A Day At The Market minigame just make me think "Don't get items! Sell off your old items to get a fresh, completely empty inventory!"

And zombies... no. There will be undeads at Dracurajima, the final titular island; but they will NOT be typical pop-culture zombies but rather something more sophisticated. Voodoo zombies, perhaps? The voodoo religion actually comes from the caribbean. It's about a lot more than zombifying people, of course, I'm aware of that; still, being a typical japanese-style game developper I just steal cool ideas from all over the world and fuse them together.

[mach3000]

i can't make that huge jump on the second level... maybe i just suck at video games.


--Megashark Chase
Intro: In the middle of the screen, you and a group of people jump out of a small ship to go snorkeling to observe a small group of turtles at the bottom of the waters. The captain of the ship , who was looking to the left, suddenly starts yelling and jumps to the right of the ship and everyone swims off to the right of the screen in a frenzy. You finally understand what's going on when a huge shark jumps from the top left of the screen and takes a huge chunk out of the ship also throwing off board a small harpoon gun which sinks to the bottom of the screen. Most of the turtles swim off but one decides to hide in his shell and stay at the bottom of the water.

Goal: Swim to shore to the right, save as many people as possible, save the bonus turtle if you can and any other items you find at the bottom of the water by grabbing them and throwing them to the right and avoid getting eaten and don't drown (go to the top of the water to collect fruit to renew the lifebar)

Gameplay: Dunno if it's possible, but maybe the jump button is also the swim up button in this mini game? Shooting at the shark with the limited shots harpoon gun (or infinite ammo but it just takes some time to reload it) will make it retreat to the left of the screen for a few seconds and comes back in a random location. The shark maybe just gets angrier and swims faster to the right each time?


--Cononut Bowling
Intro: There's a huge crowd around a tent on the beach (maybe a big one). The owner of the place recognizes you and wants to thank you for saving so many people by giving you a free game at cononut bowling (maybe there are other games too). It's kinda like a carnival game place.

Goal: Get as many points as you can by hitting pins down carried by monkeys with parrot wings. The higher your score, the better your prize choices at the end.

Gameplay: You stand on a little mound (you can jump if you want, but can't go left or right) and throw a coconut across the screen to hit monkeys with parrot wings carrying bowling pins. The monkeys fly up and down in a wave pattern so just time your throw perfectly (maybe all 10 are flying next to each other in a row). Once the coconut reaches the edge of the screen, the score of that throw is calculated. The game should be short, only 3 frames maybe (I don't know how bowling scores are calculated).


--Freefall
Intro: The screen goes fuzzy and white as you go off into a dream. Everything clears up (maybe leave the edge of the screen fuzzy white) and you're flying happily in the clouds with butterfly wings. In the foreground, a pirate in a hot air balloon lights up a piece of cloth hanging out of a bottle of rum and then chucks it at you. Wings are gone, you're still on fire and losing life fast. Luckily, there's fruit everywhere below you.

Goal: Collect fruit as you fall and dodge attacks or items from dream elements (like a giant person with a fly swatter could be one). If you're still alive after maybe 10 screens of falling, there will be a handful of unique flying animals ready to save you IF you land on them. The dream ends whether you land on one of the flying creatures or not.

Gameplay: Go left or right and try to go through the fruit lanes which will split in multiple directions at times. I think this was used in a Mario game somewhere but with coins. When Mario reached the bottom of the screen, the game would pause for a lil bit and scroll down to the next screen to give you a little time to plan your fall. If you landed on one of the animals at the end, you'll find yourself waking up in a grassy field and the animal you caught was the thing what was waking you up from your dream. If you didn't land on an animal, you'll just be waking up from a nightmare or something.


feel free to use bits and pieces of any idea to generate something more suitable for the game engine

Edited by mach3000, 23 February 2012 - 08:53 PM.

[mach3000]

i like jumping and trying to kill things with knives from across the screen

another mini game in the tent? there are 12 balloons that fly around clockwise on the right side of the screen (or make it more challenging and have them on both sides at a different height) and you have a limited number of knives and a time limit. hit as many as you can. the more you hit, the better the prize.



--slot machine
intro: you're walking along the beach and there's debris all over the place. there a slot machine in the middle of it all and it seems to be still in working order. you pick up the only coin on the screen and try your luck.

goal: you just get one spin. maybe it's just a luck thing or maybe you can actually stop the reels yourself. win a bunch of fruit.

[Yal]

i can't make that huge jump on the second level... maybe i just suck at video games.

SHEESH! Doesn't the setup screen notify you enough that you need to hold down a button to run? >__<



Some ideas are pretty interesting... I'll play around with them in my notebook and see if I get some functionable game idea outta them.

[=(:5/7A!I:)=]

Hi Yal,

One mini game can show items up for grabs. You then have to choose and use the item/items in a tough scenario to see if you can win it/them. Like knives... you win a knife every time you hit a coconut with a knife. Maybe you either get it back or if you miss it disappears and you can't go and collect it.

[Yal]

@Mach 3000 (that's the one percent of the speed of light, by the way):
I like the "target practice" mini game... We'll see about it

@... that new guy:
Hmm... the whole "choose" scenario... I don't really like it. I sorta want the mini-game to be the same each time. If I'm gonna have an "up for grabs" mini-game, it's simply a "Choose Your Gift" mini-game like in Super Mario 3.

[=(:5/7A!I:)=]

Yal,
Don't call me new, it makes me feel guilty. If my name is hard to write, just copy and paste it.

... Ah, then I'll not go down that route. Alright, alright I'll come up with something quick and easy:

- Tide collections. Avoid spiky things and pick up items worth points while the tide increases in speed and the items float around increasingly rapidy. The game ends when the tide reaches a certain point. At the end, the points count towards an item.

And some tides can be lined with spikes, so you have to make a full jump.

Edited by =(:5/7A!I:)=, 09 March 2012 - 12:08 AM.

[Gertrude214]

I should use a world map. I still need more ideas for mini-games.

Edited by Gertrude214, 09 March 2012 - 01:29 AM.