Opening post by Vael Victus
08/31/2009 12:58
I wonder how many topics I'll make of this. It is 11:40 AM and I've just spent the majority of my morning thinking of how to make MonBre "cooler". I sit here with icyhot on my wrist because I'm clicking too much, and icyhot on my back because I sit incorrectly at this terminal. (I'm in training to not sit like this)
I'm taking a week off from development. I'll fix some bugs, set up paypal, and I'm gonna add AJAX to the forum. (and fix the bottom-forum-page thing) Basically I looked at how many people stuck to the game and... I understand, the old city page was ugly. This one is sooo sexy. The new combat is pretty great, right? It's a lot more fair and makes it feel like a real game.
I sent out 94 emails to people who quit in the past month. (13-30 inactivedays) My friend signed up, totally grinded on the game, I think he really liked it... and then lost interest. So I get a mail back from some guy who has no idea what he's talking about, but still, he said one thing: it is lame. Do I think MonBre is lame? No. Do I think it's bursting at the seams with fun? No. So here I go again, making crazy ideas.
Life expectancy. Fuck it. Seriously. I've been trying to think of a way to put it on the backburner, but I was using it to balance the eggs types a bit. Well the new idea I've got won't even scratch that.
So here's the idea. Think about your monsters. Compare them to someone else's and they are going to be the same. They'll have different equips, maybe, but really they are the same. Right now you can select what your monster is going to look like when you evolve them, but it doesn't do anything different. Well that's going to change.
I'm going to change the monster page so that when you click on your monster's individual picture, it brings up a skill menu. There's going to be a lot more skills in this game. Passive, active, attacks, all those wonderful things. So you now think, okay, each evolution, I will get the choice between 6 skills. That makes a total of 18 new skills per monster. That's a lot of skills for you to code, Vael. I know it is.
I might end up removing a single selection from each monster but I don't know at this point. The good news is if I do that, I at least have some more mob pics to use... 
Anyway that's not the point now. Lots of skills, great.
But now with life expectancy gone, won't splicing be worth less? (worth less, not worthless) Indeed it might seem that way, but here's where the magic happens. This is where the game gets depth without complication. When you splice this monster with another one, you will get to merge their skills! Yes! So now finally you can get a cool healing ability for your evil monster.
But don't get too excited. This doesn't mean you just completely assimilate their skill sets into each other, there are going to have to be tradeoffs. When you splice, right before confirming, you'll need to select the skills you want for each level of the monster: child, teen, adult. HOWEVER. Depending on the splice rating, there will be the possibility to get more, and there will be the possibility to keep "solid" techniques that will never be lost.
Ultimately this will make many monsters unique and open up way more possibilities than we have now. Like, did you know I can EASILY create a "drain life" skill? Piece of cake. How about a passive skill to have +10 energy? Not too hard. (but still sorta hard) How about a passive skill to give the monster constant bleeding status but their attacks surpass 50% of the opponent's armor?
All of these things will be possible. If you are worrying that I will run out of ideas for skills, I admit I fear that too. Well I found this wonderful game recently called Heroes of Newerth and they have inspired me with their depth, to create this very system I am describing to you now.
To sum it up: monsters will be more detailed, life expectancy is gone, and maybe perhaps I will have a genuinely fun game finally. I have already done three major things in the past week to make the game more enjoyable: moving quickly in exploring, a better combat system, and a new city page. No matter how long it takes, I am not going to let this game die... I simply have no choice.
I will spend this week on my next project and meanwhile plan the next moves for monbre's cruel dream of conquest.
I'm taking a week off from development. I'll fix some bugs, set up paypal, and I'm gonna add AJAX to the forum. (and fix the bottom-forum-page thing) Basically I looked at how many people stuck to the game and... I understand, the old city page was ugly. This one is sooo sexy. The new combat is pretty great, right? It's a lot more fair and makes it feel like a real game.
I sent out 94 emails to people who quit in the past month. (13-30 inactivedays) My friend signed up, totally grinded on the game, I think he really liked it... and then lost interest. So I get a mail back from some guy who has no idea what he's talking about, but still, he said one thing: it is lame. Do I think MonBre is lame? No. Do I think it's bursting at the seams with fun? No. So here I go again, making crazy ideas.
Life expectancy. Fuck it. Seriously. I've been trying to think of a way to put it on the backburner, but I was using it to balance the eggs types a bit. Well the new idea I've got won't even scratch that.
So here's the idea. Think about your monsters. Compare them to someone else's and they are going to be the same. They'll have different equips, maybe, but really they are the same. Right now you can select what your monster is going to look like when you evolve them, but it doesn't do anything different. Well that's going to change.
I'm going to change the monster page so that when you click on your monster's individual picture, it brings up a skill menu. There's going to be a lot more skills in this game. Passive, active, attacks, all those wonderful things. So you now think, okay, each evolution, I will get the choice between 6 skills. That makes a total of 18 new skills per monster. That's a lot of skills for you to code, Vael. I know it is.
I might end up removing a single selection from each monster but I don't know at this point. The good news is if I do that, I at least have some more mob pics to use... Anyway that's not the point now. Lots of skills, great.But now with life expectancy gone, won't splicing be worth less? (worth less, not worthless) Indeed it might seem that way, but here's where the magic happens. This is where the game gets depth without complication. When you splice this monster with another one, you will get to merge their skills! Yes! So now finally you can get a cool healing ability for your evil monster.
But don't get too excited. This doesn't mean you just completely assimilate their skill sets into each other, there are going to have to be tradeoffs. When you splice, right before confirming, you'll need to select the skills you want for each level of the monster: child, teen, adult. HOWEVER. Depending on the splice rating, there will be the possibility to get more, and there will be the possibility to keep "solid" techniques that will never be lost.Ultimately this will make many monsters unique and open up way more possibilities than we have now. Like, did you know I can EASILY create a "drain life" skill? Piece of cake. How about a passive skill to have +10 energy? Not too hard. (but still sorta hard) How about a passive skill to give the monster constant bleeding status but their attacks surpass 50% of the opponent's armor?
All of these things will be possible. If you are worrying that I will run out of ideas for skills, I admit I fear that too. Well I found this wonderful game recently called Heroes of Newerth and they have inspired me with their depth, to create this very system I am describing to you now.
To sum it up: monsters will be more detailed, life expectancy is gone, and maybe perhaps I will have a genuinely fun game finally. I have already done three major things in the past week to make the game more enjoyable: moving quickly in exploring, a better combat system, and a new city page. No matter how long it takes, I am not going to let this game die... I simply have no choice.
I will spend this week on my next project and meanwhile plan the next moves for monbre's cruel dream of conquest.
MonBre is an unlisted game of Tinydark Studio.
Personal Website: vaelvict.us
