This project isn't dead guys, I've been re-evaluating it. More to the point recent games I've seen lately have become slightly disappointing. So I've been playing with new game mechanics for two genres, RPG and FPS RPG.
RPG's have become dull, running off 10 year old game mechanics that are popular in shiny new engines. So why not add something new that could change the game incredibly. Youe probably saying 'No Sasuke! Don't give away your deep dark secrets'. Well I don't care, as long as I get the idea out of there, I hope I can infuence people to rethink what their doing in their games and get some fresh ideas in to them.
From an RPG I want combat to be fun and more tactical. Oblivion's sucky enemy sees you and run's directly towards you even though you've got a arrow loaded bow pointing directly at it's head is dull, is just plain boring. I want to be stalked, I want to be hunted. I want to be attacked from all sides and most importantly, not know where my enemy is. That alone is the selling feature.
Just think, your walking down the road and you get a sense that something is going to hit you from the left, so you react by putting up a water sphere shield, your primal element (this is an RPG remember). Not knowing what is going to attack you, a rock, a dagger, an arrow or a massive ball of fire this is a risky move. Luckily the enemy throw a dagger and your shield was strong enough to stop it. But heres where the tatical fun beings. I've just shown my enemy my primal element or what is believed as my primal element at that time. Meaning my emeny now knows my weakness 'Earth' and was just assessing my ablities by throwing that dagger. So I can only switch to defence and only hope his(her) element is not Earth because of it's advantage over Water and that he's got the drop on me. So I wait for one of my senses to kick in then it's my turn to attack the unknown.
A game like that would be awesome. So why has it not been done I wonder. Who knows? Maybe there not as smart as me
So how can we make a game like that, or basically the combat of Naruto in a Oblivion-esque world. I introduce Radial Visual Sense (RVS). Danger being the sense I'm talking about for the moment.
Game Mechanic - Radial Visual Sense (RVS)
RVS works like this, the screen is split up into two areas, inner radial view and outer radial view. Both views work similar, they just outline the direction your being attacked from. The outer view being around you, up/down/left/right. The inner view being behind you. When you about to be attack a part of the view lights up telling you where it's coming from, this gives you a split second to react to this, your choice being evade, defend, reflect or whatever. At first, your sense aren't that sharp, so the whole outer or inner view lights up telling you your about to be hit by something. As your senses improve, the lit part narrows to the direction of where it's coming from. When mastered, it's like a blade on a clock so you know exactly where it's coming from.
RVS also picks up disturbances, so if something like an explosion went off or something moved suddenly but wasn't directed at you the RVS would flash quickly. RVS also has magnitude, magnitude being the magnitude of the danger. The higher the magnitude, the greater the area lit up. If it's a massive attack, you don't want to be dumb and stand there trying to stop it, you want to get the hell out of there.
There's Radial Accuracy (how accuracy it lights up on the radial views), Radial Magnitude (strength of the danger) and Detection Accuarcy (I've come up with about 100+ RVS features/stats, but you don't need that many), meaning if the attacker is at a higher level his attack might be to fast or to strong/weak to detect. Which means we've got to be extra careful round certain enemies. This also add semi enemy types, like traps. Like most games where your walking through a tomb, there's a section of the floor that has a crack in it, a hint that it will collaspe if you stand on it.
Using RVS we can get rid of all these annoying aspects to games, make truly hidden traps and rely on are senses to guide us through ruins or dungeons. We step on a platform triggering hidden rocks to fall down, a quick flash of are RVS above us tells us that something just moved above, meaning we can respond by looking up, evading the unknown or trying to counter it.
The main advantage of the game mechanic is it introduces realtime tactics, hundreds if not thousands of new AI possibilities and ways to navigate through a world. Also RVS can be used for tons of things, one being sound. I'm putting this into action and will hopefully showcasing it soon and something called CPS in an experimental RPG i'm making (which has combat of Naruto set in an Oblivion-esque world). CPS is going to be something like RVS, massively changing the way magic/techniques combat is handled in RPG's.
I've got big things planned for both games, so look out for my updates (videos and pics) in the coming week.
