The challenge I put in front of the community was to write about which two genres should fit. It’s a fun thing to think about and a challenge since there were so many genre mixes already made. It’s hard to think of one that was already done and possibly harder than I anticipated; it basically made me do September’s challenge instead, mixing two games together. Well, I hope the challenge goes well with you guys, so here’s mine for the time being. It took me a while to brainstorm this, but when I was with a friend showing her the wonderful Co-op of Portal, we began to race the puzzles like as if we were on a timer. We both had the same idea and she asked if there was a puzzle race mode. There wasn’t, but that got me thinking, were there any puzzle racing games? Would that be fun with friends and people around the globe to test their mindful skills of puzzle solving? I actually had to scroll through the internet if that existed and nothing but fastest 10,000+ piece puzzle record! So I brainstormed what the game would be like. Hello and Welcome to this Game-Making Challenge!
Rough Idea
Basically the game would have four players start with a top view of a room with a basic puzzle in it like matching images up with three petistoles. Once the players finish the puzzle, they will proceed to a randomly generated room with a graduated number of puzzles. Of course, the game won’t have you start with something easy and they throw you right in the mix of the expert puzzles. The point is that no two players will have the same puzzle room. And to not make the player feel claustrophobic, the room will be in random sizes and shapes to mildly confuse the player. The puzzles themselves, however, have to be mildly simple, but still challenging. It requires focus to do them and it’s easy for someone to do that, but being distracted will put you off from the game. This is just to make the racing part fun instead of the usual frustration most people have. I want this game be playable to almost everyone, including kids.
I would love to play this game both Locally and Online, it’s something I want to see people gather for and enjoy as a party game. The ideal platforms for the game would have to be both console and PC, because it’s a great family game and perfect for friends and PC would make a great platform for people to Modify the game to their creative thinking. That would actually make it really open to a large community… Hmm… Never thought that would a thing I’d think about.
Modes of Interest
The game would have different modes to explore, having the simple ones being Casual, Ranked and Custom. Casual and Ranked would be a chance to challenge yourself with random people, Custom having people of different variety of skill, while Ranked will be the ideal place to test your skills from your rank. Obviously. The other points of interest on the modes would be Puzzle Attack.
Puzzle Attack would be like a mixture of Mario-Kart and Tetris Attack, as you go through the rooms of puzzles, players will find special puzzles marked in either red or blue. They would be hard and in a time limit, but if you finished it in time, you would be able to stump your friend with added puzzles to finish the room. There is no end to the rooms you finish, so the winner would be determined with the amount of rooms he finished in a 5 minute period. Another would be Finish Line, where you can select the amount of rooms to race in, and finish those twenty or ten or so rooms to finish the round. There would be no time limit, but special puzzles can be used to stump players, although that could be disabled. Then there’s Marathon, a mode where the last man standing wins. Each player is given an individual time limit which starts at two minutes. The player can gain time by finishing the room within 10 or less second and finishing special puzzles (which don’t affect other players) giving them at least 15 seconds. Each puzzle solved can stack the time earned by five seconds, but can only stack up to a minute. The player with the lasting time limit wins the match.
Leveling-Up
Leveling would be mostly a cosmetic thing, a badge to show your friends, but going beyond certain levels would have player get cosmetic items like hats, suits or characters that reference other puzzle games out there as well as map design. Other than that, Leveling would also determine who you would play with in Ranked Matches. I hate the idea of Lootboxes, so this would help give the player some cosmetics and maps to design.
Beside the players leveling up, there would be Courses as well. The courses will all have it’s own look to it, like being in a Temple from Egypt or an Alien Spaceship. And as you go through each course, each one would be more difficult than the last. The player would unlock these course as he levels, having each one carry more puzzles or harder to solve puzzles in each one.
Well this is my challenge entry for this month. I hope you liked it and tell anything you think I need to fix. I wish you a late Thanksgiving and I hope you had a great a great one. I really don’t know what will happen to the next challenge seeing it’s the holidays where you have to spend time with family and friends, so I’ll make sure this next challenge ends short. Again, I hope you liked this entry and ‘til next time…
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