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Thaumaturge
10-07-2008, 04:24 AM
First of all, my apologies that this is so long. I did try to keep the length down, but wanted nevertheless to convey the idea. :/

This is an idea that came to me recently, and which I've been working on (within my head, at least) over the past few days.

It's still partial, and I'm not sure that I'll actually build it, but I do rather like the concept, at least, and thought that I might either get interesting or useful feedback here, or might provide someone else with an idea.

The idea is essentially a time-limited logic puzzle with an action appearance.

The player is, either in the core of the game or simply as part of it, faced with enemies (at the moment always one-on-one) to overcome by creating a sort of "counter-spell" (or set of spells). The "time limit" comes from the opponent attacking the player, reducing a health bar.

The first part of this is essentially a detective mystery, along the lines of Whodunnit (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=3620). Instead of questioning murder suspects in order to deduce the culprit, however, the player studies the creature in order to determine either its total underlying structure, or the location and perhaps circumstances of a particular element.

This structure takes the form of a network of elemental "nodes", which determine the structure and textures of the creature.

Perhaps the player's primary tool is the ability to "probe" nodes, which will give information on other nodes (but not the probed node itself), much as one questions characters in Whodunnit. This may take the form of a separate ability, or might be achieved by casting simple spells experimentally (spell-casting is described below); I'm currently more attracted to the former, I think.

Since the creature's network determines its form, the player can use to some degree the creature's appearance as a source of clues, albeit probably not often giving the complete structure.

Another source of clues is for the player to simply wait and observe the creature's attacks. If I were using the classical four elements, for example, an explosive orange ball might imply the presence of at least one fire node, the power of the attack might perhaps hint at the number of nodes, and the origin might indicate to some degree the location of the node or nodes.

The network of nodes is also envisaged as having rules of some sort. A particular node type might not be allowed to be adjacent to a node of another particular type, or might require that all adjacent nodes are of the same type, for example. On the other hand, certain patterns might have certain effects: again, if I were using the four classical elements, fire surrounded by air might produce explosive fireballs instead of streams of flame, or a string of four earth nodes might produce an "arm".

Finally, there might be some rules of form and symmetry governing the patterns.

As indicated earlier, I'm not yet certain of whether the player is supposed to figure out the entire pattern, or just locate a specific "mind" node, and perhaps its neighbours, but in the end the player is intended to take the various clues and infer from them the desired information.

At the moment I imagine this section of "combat" being fairly separate from the next. The player would probably, on correctly indicating the desired information, be allowed to see it superimposed on the creature for reference in the next section.

The next section, as already mentioned, involves constructing a "spell" - also a network of nodes, although whether these include a variety of elements or rely simply on form I'm not yet sure - to destroy the foe. The rules for this I'm afraid that I'm very uncertain about, although the current idea involves using some set of rules of interaction to destroy nodes (for example, again using the classical elements as an example, fire might be destroyed by being completely surrounded, earth by having a spell-node on either side, etc.), or perhaps similarly to sever connections,

I currently imagine the creatures being modular in design, similar to the "bosses" in Warning Forever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_Forever); the various parts may or may not be separately destructible - I haven't decided on that yet, although I don't think so.

Afflict
10-07-2008, 04:50 AM
Sounds awesome, I think that you can actually build a pretty neat game around this. It could be an interesting and refreshing change to the normal bash your head in type games. Could easily be part of a larger game where this "style" of attack is assigned to a specific class.

Kudos nice idea.

Thaumaturge
10-07-2008, 05:04 AM
Thank you very much. ^_^

Once I have a more complete concept I may well do something with this - I do like it. The problem is coming up with a more complete concept, specifically in terms of the rules involved. ^^;

Hmm... Making it part of a larger game in which other forms of combat are available could well work, but I fear that, the presence of each risks diluting the other (especially since effort would be split between them). I think that, at least in a first implementation, I'll probably stick to using this as the only combat system, but have other, non-combat gameplay elements, such as basic exploration or conversation.

Come to think of it, this might make for an interesting combat mechanic in an adventure game, where players might not want a pure action mechanic.

Gazza_N
10-07-2008, 07:38 AM
Sounds interesting, although, as you've mentioned, the trick is to build up a logical system for defining creatures and spells.

What? What are you still reading this for? Get cracking! :P

Thaumaturge
11-07-2008, 04:41 AM
What? What are you still reading this for? Get cracking! :P

Sir yes sir! :P

Heh, I am working on it, in scattered periods of thought, but thus far I'm still pretty stuck. I'm honestly not sure of where to start on coming up with such a set or sets of rules, but I intend to keep thinking about it.

Afflict
11-07-2008, 04:06 PM
I would suggest trying to sketch it out on paper sorta, shouldn't take to long and take it from there.

Thaumaturge
12-07-2008, 05:17 AM
Well, I haven't done quite that, but your advice does seem to have provided some inspiration - thank you. ^_^

I've been laying out images in my mind, and trying to decide on what I want from them. That has provided some ideas, and sitting down and typing out various ideas seems to have helped further.

I think, however, that I'll wait until I (hopefully) come up with something a little less inchoate than I have at the moment (which is perhaps a page in disorganised note-form, and currently lacks decision on a number of points) before posting further additions.