Week Ten Class Critiques

Stick Ninja

Mechanics

The main mechanic in your game is your ability to strike your opponent. You were able to recognize this early and you already have a support structure for your main mechanic: you have super effective weapons and least effective weapons against certain types of enemies. The only problem I can see is with any secondary mechanics that you might have such as movement. Take for instance if you wanted to use the Torque 3D engine for this game. If you have movement in a 3D environment then that changes the dynamics of how you strike at someone because it is easy for you strafe around them if you are fast or you have be powerful if you are slow. The only exception to this is if you are making this a turn based strategy game like an early version of Final Fantasy.

Dynamics

The main dynamics of this game is the variety of opponents the user can face off against. This not only effects the mechanics of the game, because certain weapons are effective against certain monsters, but also because you can absorb the powers of the monsters you defeat making the enemy weapons either ineffective or super effective against you. This gives the game additional strategy because the player has to worry both about themselves and their enemy resistances. The only problem I see for this is the possibility for having random encounters. The reason for this is because if the encounters are random for the user then it makes it incredibly difficult to make a strategy. The user would be forced to use the strongest weapon rather than the most efficient strategy.

Aesthetics

The main forms of fun being used in this game are challenge, fantasy, narrative, expression and discovery. To help support challenge, you have created the intricate strategy system outlined above. For fantasy and narrative, you have made a character that is entirely fictitious, cartoon like and put him in a fantasy based story line. As for expression and discovery, the user has the choice to customize his character for combat and can figure out the effectiveness of character type and weapon combinations.

Zodiac War

Mechanics

For a 2D fighting game, the two main mechanics are the ability to move around and the ability to strike opponents. For movement, it is the same as normal 2D fighting games and that is acceptable since it is the norm. For attacking though, it is important to have a balance in variety of moves for the user to choose from. If the user is limited in their attack selection then they will button mash constantly. If there are too many attacks then the user will pick the best move and use it the most. With a balance of power on selection the player will feel as though they have a larger choice of good quality moves and will then use the variety given to them.

Dynamics

The easiest way to create dynamics in a 2D fighting game is to balance the speed of the game. If the game is fast paced, which most 2D fighting games are, then the user is expected to fight within the bounds of the speed and attempt to use the speed to his/her advantage. By having means to change the speed of the game, either literally with time stop or speed up abilities, or practically with super moves, this creates new and different strategies for the user to implement.

Aesthetics

Sensation, fantasy, challenge and submission are the main forms of fun for this game. To create a sense of sensation, the user will take great pleasure in decimating their opponent especially if the opponent provides a challenge against them. The fantasy of the game is supported in the non-realistic maneuvers. The challenge is provided by having the user face off against different human opponents as well as having them face off against different avatars with unique moves. Finally, this is a submissive game because it is not meant to last for hours like an RPG. It is meant to take several minutes to play the entirety of the game and have replay value because of the character selection available to the player.

Crack Quest

Mechanics

The two most important mechanics in the game is the ability to move in a 2D space and the ability to shoot. Because of this it is important to have power ups, environments and enemies that either hinder or help these mechanics. One example of this could be glue on the floor to slow the user down or some kind of drug that boosts the character speed.

Dynamics

Like Metal Slug, there is a lot that happens in a very short period of time. The user wants to scroll through the level as quickly and safely as possible. Because of this, it needs to be a fast paced game with lots of enemies to shoot down. Also, there should be multiple ways to destroy enemies and enemies should also be resistant to some ways of destruction.

Aesthetics

Like Zodiac War, sensation, fantasy, challenge and submission are the main forms of fun for this game. To create a sense of sensation, the user will take great pleasure in decimating their opponent especially if the opponent provides a challenge against them. The fantasy of the game is supported in the non-realistic characters and quests. The challenge is provided by having the user face off against different opponents but more importantly a large number of them. Finally, this is a submissive game because it is not meant to last for hours like an RPG. It is meant to take several minutes to play the entirety of the game.