As a continuation of my previous "Design Features I Like" article, I'll present three more game mechanics/features that have appeared in existing games that I have a strong inclination towards. Really, this particular type of update is to record the kind of thing I'd love to use in my own game someday, or at least be able to suggest it for a game I'm working on professionally.
As a Junior Games Designer, it was my job to document (and later implement, once I'd received approval from the Lead Designer on the project) how parts of the game would work. This mostly involves talking over ideas for whatever part needed dealing with (such as how missions are given out, how the multiplayer would work, how the inventory/status page would be set out, what monsters to use, what items to use, etc.) with the other designers in the team and write up a concise design document to reflect what the group decided on, filling in any blanks as necessary. As I suspect I'll be tied down to that sort of position for a while before having the seniority of actually being allowed to come up with the game concept myself, I tend to look at features and mechanics (how parts of the game work as opposed to the game as a whole) for my inspiration, which is what this update is about.
#1: Information Databases: OK, this is sort of a nerdy thing I like about some games, since it requires a lot of often-unnecessary reading. By information databases, I'm not referring to any of the coding of a game, but rather the in-game encyclopedia that you can refer to as a glossary should something come up in the game that you're not familiar with.
I'll now state three notable examples of how a game has used these databases in the past:
civilization - Civ used a lot of real-life inspiration for all its inventions, areas of the world and, of course, the eponymous civilizations themselves. By reading up on actual history and how inventions and ways of thinking begat other inventions and ways of thinking, not only would you understand how to progress through the game better but you'd also gain an appreciation of the true world's history. Civ prided itself on being just as entertaining with its strategy gameplay as it was educational with its historical accuracy, which is no doubt why it became as popular as it did.
Star Ocean 3: Til the End of Time - Because the Star Ocean world is so massive (being almost an entire galaxy), the third title in this series allowed you to read up on key information garnered in the series so far concerning planets, famous characters, alien races, technology and organizations and federations of the galaxy. If you met a new character or learned something new in the game, the information database would update with that entry. This way, you could always refer to the guide for background information if needed. Even if several articles had little relevance to the game, it was at the very least an entertaining read into a highly realized universe, sort of like reading the descriptions on unique items in the Baldur's Gate series for various anecdotes behind that item's creation and how it featured in the vast history of that world.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - This is just an example of many adventure games over the years that have allowed the player to build up a vocabulary of terms (such as place names and people) to interrogate NPCs about as they investigate whatever needs solving. In this game in particular, you had a catalog of evidence and people involved with the trial on file to examine for clues to help win your case. Frequently, you'd be asked to present evidence you've found or things you've learned about the case to proceed. Practically every adventure game requires you to carry around items for when they're needed, but there's also many that allow you to keep abstract things like information for the same reason. When games got as complex as Phoenix Wright in the past it was expected of the player to write down clues as they found them, but now with games as efficient as they are the information is categorized for you to view whenever you need it (for another example, consider how often a map is drawn for you by modern games instead of expecting the player to be aware of their surroundings with a pen and paper).
So in conclusion, these databases can a) have real-life educational benefits, b) can give you plenty of optional reading material for whatever game world you're playing in and c) can keep ahold of vital clues and information you've gathered in-game so you don't have to write it down if you don't have paper handy. I appreciate the second point the most, since going to all that trouble to provide more information than some people are willing to read (these are the same people that tend to skip cutscenes with vital information) is a mark of a determined designer.
#2: Character Generation Using Storage Media: Back when I was little, I was absolutely entranced with the concept of the Barcode Battler. For anyone over 12 it would have been recognized as the gimmicky piece of technology it was, but for me I was hypnotized by the almost endless possibilities you could find in using easily obtained barcodes from absolutely anything to generate characters, monsters, items, whatever.
Of course, the actual Barcode Battler (or at least its first incarnation) turned out to be disappointing. Characters were little more than two numbers, who would fight other characters comprised of two numbers in mindless repetitive duels. The manual took the time to give all these arbitrary numbers faces and names, but I didn't care about the pre-generated guys. I wanted my Heinz Baked Beans Warrior to fight The Thing From The Cornflakes Packet in full glorious graphics (though even then I knew the game wouldn't be sophisticated enough to know where each barcode came from).
After this disappointment, I couldn't see anything that could give me what I wanted in terms of generated-off-mundane-objects mayhem until I found the Monster Rancher series for PS1. The game had several hundred monster types based on making hybrids of the dozen or so original monster classes and interbreeding them to make new forms that share the powers of both parents. While you could do this slowly with the small stock of creatures available to you from the game's marketplace, the true way to get all the strong monsters was to generate them off "disc stones", the quaint in-game explanation of using CDs (either music or game discs) to generate the monsters.
Again, though the game was disappointing (it was like a really bad version of Pokemon that moved at a snail's pace and kept killing off your monster as soon as it got good), the CD generation was what I adored right off the bat. It allowed for all sorts of humorous observations about what monsters came from which music discs (something from Mariah Carey would no doubt be hideous) but best of all CDs are a plentiful source for anyone who likes music or lives with a music-lover who doesn't keep their room locked, so the possibilities of using everyday objects to find really strong or rare monsters were again plentiful.
It's my wish to one day make a game that not only uses CD character-generation (though it would also have to include DVDs at this point) but also doesn't suck, since I'm 2-2 on the "great idea, pity the game is crap" front with these games thus far. One of the game ideas I've mentioned on the blog may actually end up using this system (the Superhero SRPG from the Strategy RPG "Design Genre" article) which would allow me to finally provide that annoying younger me with the game he always wanted.
#3: This is going on way too long again, so I'll end on a short one: Triggers. Triggers are a mechanic in regular console RPGs that allow the player to use their timing to affect the amount of damage done with an attack. The Final Fantasy series started throwing them around number 7 as a novelty but several other RPGs took them to heart and made them a significant part of their battle system. Probably the most important of these "other RPGs" is the Shadow Hearts series.
Shadow Hearts (which now has two sequels, the second of which I'm very eager to see a PAL release of) uses "the Judgement Ring" system to deal damage, which is basically a clockface with a spinning dial that the player taps a button for whenever it enters a damage zone. Providing the player hits the button for each damage zone on the ring, they can attack several times in one round. If they're accurate enough to get the thin red damage zone at the end of the regular orange areas then they have scored a critical hit and can do more damage. Seeing as how the ring is so important for landing blows, there are several statuses your character can incur to make the damage zones harder to hit. These involve shrinking the ring, shrinking the damage zones, removing the critical zones, speeding up the dial that spins around and making all the damage zones vanish all together (they're still there though, so you have to use your memory to remember they are).
Since I'll probably be talking about Shadow Hearts again in a new update, that'll be all for today. Both Monster Rancher's CD Generation and Shadow Hearts' Judgement Ring are features that tie in to what I mentioned in my last update about features being so unique and integral to the games they're in that they become the most important thing about those games beyond even the story or graphical style. As such, any other game using these features would be seen immediately as plagiarism impertinent to whether or not the new game is actually as good (or better) than the game that originally used them.
It's therefore somewhat depressing for me that the CD generation mechanic will never be covered by a game better than the Monster Rancher series. But then again, I'm pretty used to things not always going my way.
