Poly's Ponderings - Printable Version

Poly's Ponderings - Printable Version

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Poly's Ponderings - Polyedit2000 - 12-28-2024

This is just a topic of me pondering things, mainly seeing how things can be converted to roleplay stuff but mainly so I don't shut myself out. These are not reviews. Anyway, let's start rambling.

First up, Exit 8 and Cabin Factory. Exit 8 is a horror game that works on a "spot the difference" gameplay where the player has to go down a hallway and either get to the other side or turn back to hopefully get to the next area. The catch is that, while the hallway is technically repeating itself, there will be a slight difference that sharp-eyed players need to keep an eye out for, and while some are obvious to the point of getting a game over if you continue on, others require actually looking. If you flee on a normal hallway or somehow get through a cursed hallway, you'll end up to the "start" of the sequence.

Now, the problem with making this kind of game into a RP is the setting as it is part of the gameplay loop. For example, a scene starting with "posters on the left illuminated with the lights above, with a man walking down the hallway" will either have one of two results: Either the player notices the difference in the next iteration immediately or the player needs to inspect each element carefully, leading to two different paces of the RP.

There are also variants of this type of game, mainly ones where the player has to take a photo of the difference. This can promote the player to actually look around the scene, but it would make the RP lean towards the slower search, and the gameplay loop would be monotonous. And some games will put in other "modes" to mix up the gameplay; a game in a train added in a red-light-green-light minigame as well as a chase with shifting chairs. Still, the issue remains that the setting other than the difference will always be the same and that the player can usually turn around after finding the difference...

Cabin Factory makes a significant change. The setting is that you have to go inside and inspect "haunted houses" with wax dummies, ringing a button on the console to rule if the cabin is truly haunted or not. The thing is, hauntings only count for elements that are actually moving. This means that dummies and decorations that seem out of place or are turned on don't count as hauntings unless they actually move or pull a Weeping Angel. This also guarantees two of their minigames can count as hauntings: Being chased by ghosts is obvious while finding a diorama with moving pieces means evading invisible patrols on the way out.

I may be biased, but the Cabin Factory makes it so that investigating each cabin means that the player can't just depend on the scenery to make a judgement and that any actual differences you can confirm will scare you will why they are so obvious in the first place.

Example anomalies/not-anomalies from Cabin Factory:
-Family standing together.
-Son peeking over the stairs.
-Stuffed toys.
-Family having a meal.
-The mother standing outside the cabin.
-Daughter blocking the front door.

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The gameplay loop for these games:

The base setting is the same. Generally, the first "level" is what the safe version should look like. Players must either confirm or reject the scene using the confirmed exit method. Players move one level closer to the exit when getting a right answer. In addition, there are some elements that can cause a game over if you make contact with them. Players will be sent back to the "first level" if they get a wrong answer. Players generally need 8 correct answers in a row to win the game. After that, the game tasks you with finding the rest of the differences.

Cabin Factory version: The base setting is the same. However, elements can be placed differently and it won't be counted as dangerous. It is only counted as danger if you see things move when it shouldn't.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Flashlight237 - 12-28-2024

Looking through these ramblings, it seems that horror is the thing here, and quite frankly, I wouldn't mind a horror session at some point. Even some spooky writing will keep me on my toes.

Of course it goes without saying that a jumpscare wouldn't exactly work in writing, as they typically involve movement and audio. Take Five Nights at Freddy's for example. While jumpscares in games go as far back as Slender or even Uninvited for the NES if you really want to go there (and yes, I've played that), Five Nights at Freddy's is a series infamous for its jumpscares, which worked well since they combined the shock factor of the animatronics getting to you with the atmosphere serving both as a tense reminder of the helplessness of your situation and warning signs of where the animatronics are at any time thanks to vents and security cameras. Of course we did do two Five Nights at Freddy's-styled RPs; one back when this forum used phpBB, and one with Webby's, the older one being between Sister Location and Security Breach in terms of how it played, and the one with Webby being more like Security Breach. Yes, I used Security Breach as a reference because that's was the only main-series title that had free-roaming as an element whereas Sister Location was on-rails, plus Security Breach leans more towards the atmospheric part than the jumpscare part.

That being said, atmospheric horror, which Exit 8 and Cabin Factory can be summed up to, is something I personally think writing can handle very effectively even with the fairly simple gameplay loops described. Personally, I think a little flowery language might help kick up the atmospheric horror part a bit more. Of course there are some horror settings where you need to be more active, like the Roblox game Doors. But then there belies the question... How active do you want the players to be in regards to interaction? Do you want them to keep going and going like with certain games such as Finding Frankie (the game show-themed horror game that thinks it can one-up Total Drama and Mario Party in terms of how deadly it is), or would you want them to be more explorative and more interactive with the environment such as what is written down here for Exit 8 and Cabin Factory, along with another game called Amanda the Adventurer? I think that might be the most important part about all this.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Polyedit2000 - 12-28-2024

The rambling was less on the horror and more on the environment and gameplay loop, to ponder on taking one "room" and using that again and again for the whole RP. Other games that experimented with the one room include This Is The Only Level (with different rules), FNAF (increasing difficulty as the game progresses) and Ultimate Chicken Horse (other players add obstacles).

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So next topic, Duos. I don't mean the number of OCs a person can come up with but identifying the two characters that appear together or within the same context. While twins would be the easiest way to make this context, some people can pair up different characters on the same team or even from different creators. So how does this pairing work?

First, how do personalities mesh together? The quickest way is the "hivemind" where multiple character share the same opinion, though this is more common for supporting characters to a leader. The next type is "leader and servant" where the second character supports the first regardless of their actions; duos like Burns and Smithers to Robotnik and Stone illustrate bad men and the ones that love them.

But let's take a look at more equal or balanced personalities. The leader and servant idea can morph into master and slave where one is a dom (Robomaid and Nabby) and the other is a target of their antics (Mallory and Abby) rarely with the duo enacting the opposite. This also translates to how two people can react to the same situation like Creamgag's Grace and Clary, one that hates most antics and the other that clearly enjoys them. Of course, contrasting personalities like Asuka and Rei or Starfire and Raven are more common in the safer circle.

There are also duos that are based more on similarities rather than differences. The easiest way to do this is with twins or people sharing the same interests, though it's more common to select two people that appear in the same show or game like Tifa and Aerith. However, similarity pairings can easily work by selecting the same feature even if everything else is different, ranging from Peach being a princess like Daisy or being a female lead like Amy Rose. Sometimes, these similarities can branch out in unexpected directions like Raven and Gwen (two mages in a teenage team despite the different tones of the show).

So how does one play as two? Well, one may think that having two reactions to one situation can be easily played with similar or opposing actions but it also boils down to how each character can react when separated. Sometimes, two characters can simply act without each other, but there may be cases where one or both characters will be focused on searching for or protecting the other.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Flashlight237 - 12-28-2024

I've played my fair share of duos, namely Emma and Kitty. I think a large part of it has to do with the duo's dynamic. In their case, Emma is a serious competitor (at least until the whole Noah thing) who focused on the race while Kitty is more about having fun, being cute, and seeing the world. The way they played into each other is Kitty's more explorative ideals covered Emma's more shortsighted aspect, as shown when Kitty spoke an Icelandish sentence to get one of the travel tips. When Emma made Kitty not help her out with choosing the spices for a curry in the Morocco episode, Emma wound up picking out junk due to her shortsightedness. At the same time, Emma's serious nature helps her keep track of Kitty.

There is also a student-and-master duo. An example of this would be Chowder and Mung Daal, who both work in a catering company which the latter runs. As an apprentice, Chowder's part in the duo is to learn how to cook and cater to customers like Mung Daal. Granted, Chowder isn't the brightest bulb in the shed, but still.

That's a cool thing about duos if done right: two characters can cover each other's weaknesses when need be.

I do think what is said about duos also applies to groups, BUT the thing is rather than a dynamic, groups are mainly formed from a shared goal or ideal. As an example, I have Team Infidel's admins (Pyrope, Garnet, Pyrite, Jade, Tanzanite, and Amethyst). They are grouped together under the goal of kidnapping women as a means to get to the top of their region's Pokemon League. They are also the region's pop/idol group. Of course they have differing personalities, but the fact that they share the same goal allows them to mesh really well.

The whole goal ideal can also apply to small groups, such as the aforementioned duos and hero-and-sidekick duos like Batman and Robin (Gotham City's crime fighters) and Blue Falcon and Dynomutt (yeah, I went there); as well as large groups such as the Power Rangers, the Ginyu Force, and the Justice League.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Polyedit2000 - 01-04-2025

Nice analysis.

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So let's see...Skills Legends Royale is an auto battler against other players in an 8-player lobby, though you buy skills instead of minions. This does mean that it's one hero launching attacks against another, but is this a good way to have an arena-type RP without minions?

First, let's look at the Skills. The shop will usually show 3 Skills of the same branch and rerolls after buying a skill. There are also the ability to reroll for a small price or to grab a random skill. Skills can be bought again to increase their effectiveness by a point (with the last upgrade doubling the value of the previous upgrade). In addition, buying enough skills from the same branch not only increases the stats related to that branch but also unlocks the rare and even mythic skills of those branches. Each lobby is limited to 8 types of skills and there are currently 12 in the game, with this as the starting list:
-Attack: Most of these will proc an effect for each attack.
-HP: These increase the hero's HP or trigger an effect that becomes stronger the more HP is lost.
-Crit: Sometimes, an attack will deal more damage.
-Dodge: Sometimes, an attack is avoided.
-Regen: Recovers HP periodically and gain effects when that happens.
-Poison: Deals some damage periodically.
-Freeze: Slows down the opponent's attacks.

-Ultimate: Increases the speed that the Ultimate shows up and also gain additional effects when that happens.

Each hero has a Passive and an Ultimate. The Passive is usually linked to one or two Branches of skills and the Ultimate is a Limit Break after a gauge fills up (the damage is usually constant for most heroes, sometimes not affected by Crit). If the Branch is not in the game, that hero will not appear in that game. Here are some examples of the Attack heroes:
-Venom Sorcerer: This starter hero gains more Attack each battle and his Ultimate's damage is affected by how much Attack he has.
-Tiger Rider: This combo hero has more attack speed briefly after each Ultimate, though each Ultimate is instant and stacks more Attack when activated.
-Glacial Sprite: This combo hero adds Freeze for each Attack that lands, and their Ultimate doubles their attack speed for a number of hits.

In addition, trinkets are given on the first, fifth and tenth rounds that provides various effects ranging from additional gold and skills to recovering the player's own health.

So onto the game. Animation-wise, both players are launch their attacks at each other, occasionally throwing their Ultimate around or trigging an effect like Poison and Rage. There is also a timer in the battle: After it passes once the battle will speed up, and when the timer passes a second time, the player with the higher remaining HP percentage is the winner. Players also gain levels based on how many times they upgraded their branches. It seem that the damage that one player does to another after the battle increases after each victory, the cap increasing as the game progresses. Also, odd-numbered players might face a duplicate of a living player.

===

Of course, I skimmed over other stuff like stats, but this is how I imagine the RP will go like:

-The player chooses one or two of the Branches defined in the RP, gaining their abilities. They will also choose from a randomized list of trinkets.
-The player heads to their next match, swinging by a few places and spending Time Points. Let's say that each event uses an Hour and that skipping the place takes a few minutes (initially all players have 3 Hours to spend). Even though some players may have more hours later in the game, there is "prep time" at the arena to ensure battles occur at the same time.
-In battle, players will RP against each other with the GM narrating the actions, hinting at what skills are about to happen. Generally, the skills would affect whoever is the winner though the GM is allowed to give leeway based on how the players interact.
-The winner of the bout will gain a medal and have their fun with the loser. Let's say that the "mental damage" based on how many medals they have is the number of "after hours" they get to spend with the loser. And, well, those that lose all their mentality are out of the game.
-There may be "fans" that emulate some of the fighters when there are an odd number of fighters so that no one has a free pass.
-The top four are given price money, though players should continue to aim for first place.

((There's also another auto battler called Bazaar that may become Open Beta this week and it might be easier to RP since it's an item-collecting with PVE and PVP elements, though I'll have to wait and see.))

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Flashlight237 - 01-05-2025

Auto-battlers, huh? The only one I ever played is Super Auto Pets, a free-to-play PVP Auto-Battler where you fight with animals. Super Auto Pets didn't exactly have the bells and whistles in the base mechanics unlike with Skills Legends Royale; in fact, the mechanics are pretty much just what you'd expect out of an auto-battler. Some animals do have some interesting tricks, although it's a bit of a chore to get the right team.

In that game, basically the animals ARE the minions. Yeah, you don't fight as yourself there. Basically you watch as the animals fight and you just see who wins. It's been a long time since I played the game, so I can't really remember how the animals themselves played in good detail.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Polyedit2000 - 02-11-2025

So, I played the Wander Stars demo. The game draws inspiration from Dragonball with its visuals and world, though what I want to point out is its word-based battle system.

The words in the battle system is divided into three categories: Actions, Elements, and Modifiers. The player is required to include an action like Punch or Kick, but they do very little damage and you can only include one Action in a Move. Elements add more damage and may include status effects, but only one can be used at a time. Modifiers will change the Action in various ways and multiple Modifiers can be placed during one move, imparting effects from multiplying damage to reducing the cooldown of words. For example, it is possible to put in Super Fire Punch that deals more damage than a regular Punch with a chance to inflict Burn.

So what keeps the player from spamming the same Moves over and over again? Well, each word has a number of Slots and Cooldown with it. Words can take up 1 to 3 Slots and runs can start with 3 slots but can have up to 7 slots in a battle, and the slots will be used up until the next Turn or if SP is used to free up a slot. Cooldowns means the words can't be placed in those slots again until a number of Moves and Turns are used up, carried between battles and turns. It is possible to use multiple Moves per turn. Words can be acquired from enemies and the map.

When fighting enemies, they will use the same word system and they also possess Weaknesses and Resistances to certain Actions and Elements. If you can hit those words, you can gain SP which is used to open up a slot, which is nice to squeeze in an extra Block or Item. Enemies will also have a low HP threshold where they can be Peace'd instead of defeated, which allows those enemies to give you additional benefits like halving the chance of getting a status effect when equipped. Bosses, on the other hand, have multiple thresholds where they can unleash additional effects if they are within certain HP ranges, which would require the players to plan their attacks well to avoid some nasty counterattacks.

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So, a word-based battle system in a forum, how would that work? Well, it may be ideal for the GM to keep track of the word lists but essentially, when the player uses those words in a Post, the GM figures out not only the potential damage but also whether those words are valid. That is to say, the "effectiveness" of the attack may be weaker than what the player thinks by excluding words on cooldown or are longer than the slot allotment.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Flashlight237 - 02-12-2025

(02-11-2025, 12:42 PM)Polyedit2000 Wrote: So, I played the Wander Stars demo. The game draws inspiration from Dragonball with its visuals and world, though what I want to point out is its word-based battle system.

The words in the battle system is divided into three categories: Actions, Elements, and Modifiers. The player is required to include an action like Punch or Kick, but they do very little damage and you can only include one Action in a Move. Elements add more damage and may include status effects, but only one can be used at a time. Modifiers will change the Action in various ways and multiple Modifiers can be placed during one move, imparting effects from multiplying damage to reducing the cooldown of words. For example, it is possible to put in Super Fire Punch that deals more damage than a regular Punch with a chance to inflict Burn.

So what keeps the player from spamming the same Moves over and over again? Well, each word has a number of Slots and Cooldown with it. Words can take up 1 to 3 Slots and runs can start with 3 slots but can have up to 7 slots in a battle, and the slots will be used up until the next Turn or if SP is used to free up a slot. Cooldowns means the words can't be placed in those slots again until a number of Moves and Turns are used up, carried between battles and turns. It is possible to use multiple Moves per turn. Words can be acquired from enemies and the map.

When fighting enemies, they will use the same word system and they also possess Weaknesses and Resistances to certain Actions and Elements. If you can hit those words, you can gain SP which is used to open up a slot, which is nice to squeeze in an extra Block or Item. Enemies will also have a low HP threshold where they can be Peace'd instead of defeated, which allows those enemies to give you additional benefits like halving the chance of getting a status effect when equipped. Bosses, on the other hand, have multiple thresholds where they can unleash additional effects if they are within certain HP ranges, which would require the players to plan their attacks well to avoid some nasty counterattacks.

---

So, a word-based battle system in a forum, how would that work? Well, it may be ideal for the GM to keep track of the word lists but essentially, when the player uses those words in a Post, the GM figures out not only the potential damage but also whether those words are valid. That is to say, the "effectiveness" of the attack may be weaker than what the player thinks by excluding words on cooldown or are longer than the slot allotment.

The question here is how would you go about it? Would it be like in Scrabble where there's a certain dictionary of words to follow? Or would there be things that would be a little outside the box (ex. Wrapture)?

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Polyedit2000 - 02-18-2025

As a simple example assuming the GM keeps track of things, the idea is that the player would use their post to perform one Attack. For example:

Super Fire Punch- The GM plays out the damage. This uses up 3 slots and the actions cannot be used.

Special Punch- Since Punch was used earlier, it can't be used on the next attack, so the GM plays this as a failure. A slot won't be spent.

Windy Ice Jab Kick- This breaks the 1 Action/Element rule so it's up to the GM how to play this. In this case, the GM plays it as avoiding one part of the combo but being surprised by the actual attack. Probably 2 slots.

Tackle- As this is a move that the player hasn't learned yet, the GM can count this as a miss.

Supreme Iron Fast Wide Knee - The GM notes that the player has reached 7 slots. Assuming no SP to recover slots, the GM determines that part of the attack is a feint.

At any time, the player can choose not to perform an Action, which allows the GM to unleash their own attacks.

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Since the game is a roguelike, new words are added through battle, events, and choosing an appropriate map exit. It is also possible to earn multiple of the same words for ease of use.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Flashlight237 - 02-18-2025

Hmm... That sounds like a pretty fun concept..!

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Polyedit2000 - 02-28-2025

Played a bit of Promise Mascot Agency. Thought it was going to be a Persona battle system but it's more of a mascot management and town sim. I'll be focusing on the mascot part.

So all plot aside, the mascot management is a simple yet interesting gameplay loop. First is the "setup" where we have to find the Mascot and Clients. When you find a mascot, you can offer them bonuses via cut of the paycheck and/or breaks, with more bonuses making them more likely to join. While it is possible to change these bonuses later, this can affect the Mascot's happiness.

After finding a Client, jobs from them will pop up from time to time. Jobs prefer certain mascots that know their stuff, and obviously the mascot needs to have enough stamina to perform the job. And if thing go well, the job is complete in a couple of in-game hours.

...But the mascot may encounter situations like tight doorways and malfunctions, and that's where Mascot Heroes (people willing to help Mascots) come in. If you choose to help the Mascot, they will do a bit of "damage" to the situation and then you have one turn to deal with the rest of the situation, normally with at least 2 Mascot Heroes helping out. Each Mascot Hero has 5 stats but one stat is used for the situation (mechanical, animal, etc) and may have extra actions like drawing another Mascot Hero. Dealing with this situation will mark the job as complete, and you will gain the job reward minus any faults (and Mascot bonus). It is also possible to feed the Mascot beforehand so they can avoid this situation.

RE: Poly's Ponderings - Flashlight237 - 05-14-2026

I commissioned something a little out of Poly's lore (though I acknowledged that Claire would not have worked with a Mother's Day deal) and this happened.
[Image: the_good_feel_ending_by_polyedit2000_dm1...0QTGoJXL1w]

[Image: the_good_feel_ending_by_polyedit2000_dm1...0QTGoJXL1w]