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Wednesday 20 February, 2008
Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
So starting where I left off yesterday (nobody had erased my game overnight!) I continued level two and eventually finished level three as well. I find that the more new things one discovers during the course of a game the better the game tends to be. Now this is not always applicable, but I found myself pleasantly surprised at the amount of complexity and depth in this ancient classic. I continued discovering new ways to approach level movement and enemy management. Although the way to kill bosses are basically all the same (you suck in what they throw at you and spit it out at them) I feel it didn't really detract from the overall feeling of surprising complexity.
One aspect of the game I really enjoyed were mini games between levels. Each level world has a few different mini games to play between stages that helped me get lives (which I was going through rather quickly). And this leads me to the life system. I found it so much more forgiving and friendly than Mario. You get five health bars, with health packs throughout the levels, lots of lives, and you can jump forever! It may be an illusion but I felt so much more like I was the one responsible for my own death rather than some cheap level design trick or unlucky slip.
DESIGN
So here is where things get interesting. Since my team is making a platform game with weapons, I paid very close attention to the game design. First and foremost: the weapons system. Normally Kirby can suck an enemy and spit them out, blow air at them while jumping, or perform a sliding kick across the ground. However, if you hit down while you have sucked in an enemy you receive their special powers (i.e. fire, lasers, swords, tornadoes, etc.). This makes the fighting aspect of the game very entertaining. The designers did a very good job at keeping relatively simple enemy battles engaging by providing a consistent reward system of seemingly endless different weapons. Once you kill a boss you can suck them in as well, providing you with insane super powers. If you lose a health bar, you lose your power up, so I found myself with a new power every couple rooms.
In my humble opinion this blows away Super Mario Brothers 3. There are endless possibilities and the design even goes so far as to incorporate small level puzzles based on powerups. For example, during level three there are some rooms where you must first have some sort of ranged power up (laser, ray beam etc.) to shoot a switch that then destroys bricks letting you pass. So this leads me to the level design. Very fun and varied backgrounds, as well as a fairly open feel concerning level design. Since you can swim and fly, there is a lot of vertical movement as well as horizontal, something that I feel is vital to any platform game. There are different ways to complete rooms and levels, and it certainly conveyed a sense of player control or "emergent" aspects, which is always helpful in a relatively linear genre.
Overall a stellar performance on design. Way more engaging, replayable, entertaining, and challenging than I first thought. So what have I learned? Design is everything. Well, almost.
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