Eventually, I hope to make a new video game. (PEACH)

[enderlord99]

You know how the movie Inception has a "dream within a dream" as one of the plot points? Well, that's this game's ENTIRE PREMISE. More specifically, it will be similar to classic "mystery dungeon" games (such as "Fate"), except that the levels are layers of the protagonist's dream, and smaller numbers are actually closer to the goal (a rarity in the video game industry, but not completely unheard of). When you find the exit of a level, the character wakes up from that dream... and into the next. You win this game when your character wakes up completely. Also, some traps, monster attacks, and similar can make the character go asleep one layer further. If he dies in his dream, he also dies in real life the game overall (though there will be multiple lives, and occasional 1-ups, the lives remain the same regardless of which layer he is in).

What does everyone think?

[Comet]

It's a fine enough idea. Altough it basically sounds like a basic dungeon crawler with the word "dungeon" replaced by the word "dream". You go down levels, there are certain monsters that can force you backtrack to an earlier level of the dungeon and so on. In the end it's just a repaint of any dungeon scheme, though admittedly a pretty cool one.

So, yeah, sounds good to me. A lot of the games' quality is going to be in the execution, naturally, not just the high concept. If you can get the narrative and/or game mechanics honed into an enjoyable and addicting experience, I can see a game like this being very cool indeed.

[enderlord99]

The main difference here is that when the game starts, you're already several levels in, and trying to get out. There are still infinite levels, but you don't want to explore "deeper," because it's actually FURTHER from the goal.

[GloatingSwine]

That's an entirely cosmetic difference though. You decrement level numbers rather than incrementing them.

Can you make the concept that you start deep in the dungeon and are progressively escaping mean something in gameplay? (I reckon I could, but am keeping the idea because I am selfish and might write a board game with it).

[enderlord99]

That's an entirely cosmetic difference though. You decrement level numbers rather than incrementing them.

Can you make the concept that you start deep in the dungeon and are progressively escaping mean something in gameplay? (I reckon I could, but am keeping the idea because I am selfish and might write a board game with it).

Yes, it does mean something. From the start of the game, the goal is a finite distance away, but you can go backwards indefinitely.

[GloatingSwine]

So, what exists to make the player want to go backwards?

If going backwards is merely a penalty, all you'll do is annoy people and make them not want to play your game, because you've simply come up with something even more annoying than being stuck at a particular point.

You need to find a balance between two disparate objectives, go forwards to "win", go backwards to "X", where X is something that makes you win more, but makes winning harder. But then all you've really done is make a standard random generated mysterious dungeon game where the player starts in the middle.

(I've thought of another idea that makes this a workable game, which I think is even better for a boardgame, which is what I'm likely to make, so now you can have my first one.)

The player's level is tied to the floor they are on. The player starts at the bottom of the dungeon/deepest layer of dream, and thus they are level 1. As they climb towards escape they progressively level up, and the denizens of the dungeon increase in power, however they will occasionally find ways back down. If the player goes down, their level goes down, but they must still contend with enemies scaled to the highest floor they have reached. They have to balance the increased risk of going down, and therefore being a lower level, with the rewards that investigating these subfloors give.

As with all Mysterious Dungeon games, the player is kicked out of the dungeon on death and loses everything.

[enderlord99]

So, what exists to make the player want to go backwards?

Nothing. What exists to make a player want to lose lives in Mario games?

[flare X2]

this sounds simmular to catherin, this gives you the excuse to have randomly generated dungeons because of a unstable mind. this would also let you create lovecraftian creatures to realy ceep people out.:smallbiggrin:
or meaby i should just make that myself

[enderlord99]

this sounds simmular to catherin, this gives you the excuse to have randomly generated dungeons because of a unstable mind. this would also let you create lovecraftian creatures to realy ceep people out.:smallbiggrin:
or meaby i should just make that myself

{{scrubbed}}

[flare X2]

1.simmiler (is that right?)
2.weired japanese game
3.lovecaft

[Comet]

{{scrubbed}}

He meant similar, Catherine (the recent videogame about dreams and human relationships. It's brilliant!) and creep. Felt like clarifying that mainly because it gave me a chance to bring up Catherine without feeling terribly off-topic.

Anyway, I just wanted to post that I now understand what you meant with the world being infinite backwards but finite towards the goal. In fact, it sounds like a pretty great idea! I'm willing to bet you could make a great game around that, though of course it won't be anything special by itself. Good luck, anyway!

[enderlord99]

1.simmiler (is that right?)
No, but it's slightly closer:smallsmile:

2.weired japanese gameGot it. {{scrubbed}}

3.lovecaft
Clever.

[GloatingSwine]

Nothing. What exists to make a player want to lose lives in Mario games?

So you're only using it as a penalty for the player?

How does this penalty interact with the game's difficulty curve? Is the player booted back to a comparitive noob zone, making the penalty merely dull whilst the player hacks through things they aren't really challenged by, or does the difficulty remain flat or increase as the player is forced back, opening them up to the possibility of encountering further setbacks until they simply decide it isn't worth it and restart, or more likely wander off to play something else.

Neither inspire confidence.

Look at the penalties in actual Mysterious Dungeon games. Sure, they're often harsh, but once they've happened they've happened and are over with, they're not the start of a downward spiral of frustration because when you go back into the dungeon without your +100 sword of smiting that you lost when you died you're fighting trash mobs at even odds again and you can build yourself back up, but the game is still an interesting balanced challenge.

It's not a good thing when your central concept for a new game is just how you kick the player in the ass for failing.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Sounds like you could benefit from some of the ideas out of this game (http://insideastarfilledsky.net/). It relates the "levels within" and the "levels without" to one another. So say you go inside an enemy, to the level within the enemy. You change some things, and then you zoom back out of the enemy. But the enemy's different now, because you changed it. Things like that.