sebastientromp
commented
10 years ago Other possibilities:
- You never gain life back (or only in very small, almostnegligble quantities), and the game stops when you're dead. When dead, you have the ability to gain an extra bonus for the next run (this could be the place where you get your new skill for instance, or possibly a mana / health upgrade, or something)
- You don't gain life back automatically between levels (you need skills for that), and when you're dead it's over Both options can work with "finite" (with clear objectives) or "infinite" game modes
Finite game could be to have standard levels (like today), with predefined bosses that you fight whenever you want (say, from the home screen), and when you kill the final boss, you win. Maybe you could even impose a max standard level you can reach before defeating the boss. This gives the player a clear goal, but engineering thoses bosses might be difficult, so that the player has multiple paths they could use to defeat it. It's also good in the way that it gives the player a sense of accomplishment and "wanting for more" (it's done? I've wanted to try this and that skill combination instead! Let's start again to see what it gives). More generally, the game feels "tighter", in that the player knows they won't have an infinite number of levels at their disposition to try everything.
Infinite game is fun because you can just keep getting stronger. The challenge is in how to give interesting choices to the player, and a goal to pursue.