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Post by WitchRolina on Nov 5, 2018 15:36:22 GMT
It's come to my attention that we need a place to store the ideas for puzzle mechanics until puzzle design becomes relevant. This way, the ideas don't get lost in the discussion. Use this thread to get your ideas out as you have them.
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Post by eternaldream on Nov 5, 2018 17:36:20 GMT
Oooh, time to post all my ideas so far.
Something I must say though is that if any puzzle uses a newly designed Psynergy, that there should be other uses for the skill throughout the game. Don't create a Spinner a la Zelda Twilight Princess.
"Collapsing Floor"
Type : Skill / Speed
Psynergy Used : Haste (Think Zelda Boots of Hermes or Metroid Speed Booster)
Concept : A maze with many tiles that will quickly crumble beneath a player if they try to walk over them at regular speed; the only way through is by using a special psynergy that greatly enhances your movement speed - mess up the path and it's down to a floor below!
Bonus : Falling down in specific spots on purpose leads to chests or other hidden items
Extra uses for "Haste" psynergy : Overworld movement, timed door challenges, crossing larger gaps than 1 block apart etc.
"Drought and Flood"
Type : Environmental
Psynergy Used : Douse, Parch/Arid Heat, Whirlwind/Gale
Concept : A large central room that contains various platforms reaching up to the ceiling. Various smaller rooms surrounding it contain a miniature version of the room, that a player is able to cast Douse or Parch/Arid Heat on. Under the Douse effect, water will fill the room to your current height, along with platforms that float around and can be pushed along with Whirlwind/Gale. Under the Parch/Arid Heat effect, all water currently in the room will dry up entirely, and the room will have large sand deposits scattered around, creating new "hills" to traverse - unless a platform from the water version is where the hill would be! Finding the right room to cast either of the psynergy skills on to reach the top is the goal.
Bonus : Naturally, many entrances or chests can be dotted around the central room only accessible under specific conditions.
"Divide and Conquer"
Type : Planning / Mixed
Concept : A "super"-type of puzzle, as it can by default contain many other simpler puzzles - nothing incredibly unique here: the party is split in two, and both halves must work together to clear separate sections of the dungeon - whatever one half does also affects the other part, so figuring out which side is needed to progress is the main gimmick. Perhaps a waterfall blocks one party's way, but the other half can freeze it in the room above, after a pillar is raised from below by the initial party.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2018 21:39:28 GMT
A jumping puzzle where the pillars available to stand on & jump between change periodically, which could potentially cause the player to fall if they stand in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
A puzzle room comprised of many fairly simple puzzles, but every time the player uses a psynergy the room mimicks that psynergy; eg. if the player uses pound in the wrong spot, the room pounds them through the floor. Or when the player uses move on a rock, the room moves a different rock which could potentially trap the player.
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Post by firedjinn on Nov 10, 2018 19:13:40 GMT
"Midnight Door" (??)
Psynergy used: Move(?), possibly others like Growth for climbing
The sign by the gate reads, "Doors open only at twelve." The clock by the gate is broken, stuck at six o'clock (or some other incorrect time.) Those doors are shut, and the space, impassable. The solution would be to climb up to the clock face and manually move the hands to twelve o'clock, which will trigger some internal mechanism to open the gate.
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Post by sylvanelite on Nov 14, 2018 7:17:04 GMT
I personally think we should be putting a lot more effort into puzzles. Not just coming up with ideas, but trying to see how ideas interact with each other, and designing puzzles around that.
For me, these are a fairly small subset of skills that we can use:
- "earth" on earth terrain - creates a block that can be "moved" (to differentiate from GS, we can remove the "move" blocks initially, but create them on the fly for functionally similar puzzles)
- "water" on metal terrain - creates a puddle that can be frozen into a slippery block (if you jump on you'll slide off the edge, can clear exactly 1 gap) block can't be "moved" but can be used to raise objects or break metal/cage doors
- "air" on water - freezes 1 square based on the amount of surrounding water to make a jumping platform (e.g. 4 surrounding = breaks instantly, 3 surrounding = can be jumped on once, 2 surrounding= can be jumped on twice, 1 or none surrounding= lasts indefinitely)
- "fire" on water - creates a puff of steam (cloud) and pushes it towards a target (can be used to blind targets, or deposit water at a distance like "douse" from GS)
We could then theme dungeons based on a combination of earth caves, metal rooms, flowing water, etc.
Other mechanics could be things like using "move" while on ice, to recoil the player rather than move a target (e.g. swing around a block in a sliding puzzle)
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Post by WitchRolina on Nov 14, 2018 14:00:33 GMT
Gonna put this here for now - twelve different field spells based on basic spells:  |
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Post by firedjinn on Nov 17, 2018 20:45:00 GMT
"Dropdown"? Psynergy used: Acid/Burst/some other psynergy with similar functions Similar to a collapsing floor puzzle, but you've got to damage the tiles yourself with Acid in order to drop through to a lower level (maybe to flip a switch or reach another room.) Tiles stay broken once you damage them (maybe you have to leave the entire dungeon to make them reset, or they never reset), so you have to choose carefully which tiles to destroy first to reach all the important locations. The player might be able to view or visit the lower level separately (but not reach the locations/items), allowing the player to form a strategy based on where they think things are.
"Charger" Psynergy used: Bolt Some ancient devices need electrical charge to open a door/ trigger something, but only holds the charge very briefly, creating a timed puzzle where several different devices need to be activated in quick succession to work. Only one or two sequences are fast enough to make sure all devices are working simultaneously. If Jupiterlad is in the party from the beginning, maybe this could be in the tutorial, to help show the player how to run?
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daiset
Artist
I'll probably be working on the project between Monday and Wednesday every afternoon.
Posts: 17
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Post by daiset on Nov 26, 2018 14:24:54 GMT
Welp, a simple puzzle that's kind of interesting (i think) because it can help to make the player having to understand a dungeon. The puzzle needs 3 rooms to be completed and the understanding of the diferent layers of the dungeon itself. Also, it needs only very basic mechanics, so it could be a begining of the game puzzle. This puzzle came out as a basic idea when i saw Sundae's column sprite. It's pretty zelda-dungeon-like, but, well... i love zelda, so, i'll let it here guys...    Tried to explain the puzzle on the images, if it's not very clear, please, let me know so i can edit the last with a more detailed explanation... but the objective is to be able to jump to the south side of the second floor |
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Post by WitchRolina on Dec 16, 2018 22:17:55 GMT
Same as above table, but with the official 16 aspects:  |
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Post by WitchRolina on Dec 16, 2018 22:48:10 GMT
So, doing some brain storming, we came up with some ideas:
Three Field Spell Categories:
1: Elemental
2: Kinetic
3: Convenience
Elemental spells are the spells you get in the class system, the ones listed above. That's 16 different spells by default.
Kinetic spells are the hand spells - Move, Lift, etc. All of these are non-elemental.
Convenience spells are there to keep things convenient for the player - Retreat, Avoid, etc. All of these are non-elemental.
If we give the characters 1 Kinetic and 1 Convenience spell each, this gives us 20 spells to use in puzzles and 4 spells that grant quality of life features. What is currently suggested is:
Talia: Avoid, Pound
JupiterLad: Retreat, Move
VenusGuy: Lure/Track/Hunt, Grip
MarsGal: ??, Lift
Using L1, L2, R1, and R2 found on all modern consoles and controllers, this gives us a shortcut button for all four characters. If we assign the innate Convenience, Kinetic, and their current class' Field Spell to different face buttons, as well as a cancel button, this covers all field spellcasting without the need to enter any menus.
Not sure what the MarsGal's QoL spell would be, but I'm sure we'll figure it out in time.
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PK_Water
Writer
Already Half Xehanort
Posts: 27 
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Post by PK_Water on Dec 18, 2018 15:22:39 GMT
Not sure what the MarsGal's QoL spell would be, but I'm sure we'll figure it out in time. Teleport? Or at least teleport to the most convenient healing location in a town? |
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Post by WitchRolina on Dec 19, 2018 19:42:15 GMT
Not sure what the MarsGal's QoL spell would be, but I'm sure we'll figure it out in time. Teleport? Or at least teleport to the most convenient healing location in a town? Redundant if this exists: project-flint.boards.net/thread/22/fast-travel-traversing-world-earlyAnd I'm gonna be honest... I really like that idea. No point in solving a problem that's already solved, right? That was our first thought in the Designer's Meeting too, until we remembered that. We'll probably want to look up commonly levied complaints about jRPGs that can be solved via QoL spells, or if nothing else there's always the option for a flavor/utility spell like how Mind Read worked. I don't suggest it just be Mind Read, though. If we have a utility like that, I think it should have a different flavor to it. For instance, what if: Venus = Body Mars = Heart Jupiter = Mind Mercury = Spirit/Soul (Mercury healing spells are Pray and Wish, which have religious/spiritual themes, so it fits). Maybe instead of reading minds, she could sense emotions or something. Might be a way of identifying quest givers or something, who knows. |
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PK_Water
Writer
Already Half Xehanort
Posts: 27
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Post by PK_Water on Dec 20, 2018 10:33:16 GMT
I mean, the one costs money and the other PP, one has stationary locations and the other can be accessed anywhere, one appears at random but brings you where you want and the other's more reliable to access but has a set destination, one's slower but with more flavor while the other is quicker but without interaction. I'd say it balances pretty well. And if Marslady is religious, it'd make sense for her to be able to travel to the religious healing places. But if that's the unpopular opinion, so be it.
Also I forgot Mind Read existed. That'd be a good thing to still have.
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Post by WitchRolina on Dec 20, 2018 13:08:01 GMT
It's not an issue of popular/unpopular, but rather one of redundancy. We already have a fast travel system, so having a second one has no purpose, especially if getting full teleportation a third of the way through the game invalidates all future upgrades to the other method. No matter how popular an idea is, if it's bad design, it shouldn't be done.
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Post by WitchRolina on Jan 12, 2019 0:24:32 GMT
Okay, so we know what our 20 puzzle solving spells are going to be - but what we don't know are what those spells are going to do. So let's start coming up with objects to interact with for these spells in different ways. The idea here isn't to create "same effect, different sprite", but rather to try and come up with different ways of using the same spell. I'll be editing in some ideas in a bit, I just need to make visual aids for them. Edit: Visuals made! Growth Spell: Quake Spell: Pound Spell: Grip Spell: |
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