Requesting Ideas To Update Game

[happyjustbecause]

Hey everybody!

I've recently been completely neglecting Night Knight, the game I've been working on for quite some time now, and I really want to keep pushing through, but I'm not sure what to add. I don't really have any ideas at the moment. I'm hoping that you guys could help with that.

This video shows where the game basically stands, just skip around if you don't want to hear me blabbing:



I need to update the combat so it's more fluid, complex, interesting.

I need some ideas for more enemy types, appearance wise and how they fight. I'd like some more damaging obstacles like spikes/mines. More platforming obstacles. Ideas for weapons and tools and powers.

Really, just anything that you think I could add to the game. Some kind of motivation and inspiration to jump back into the game developing world. Please contribute some help, I just think if I had some more direction to where the game should go, I'll be more able to work on it.

[Jagmaster]

I've had the same exact problems. It's often difficult to see what your game needs, or what's wrong with it, and you find yourself banging your head against the wall trying to figure it out.
I'll see if I can help those head juices flow...

In it's current state, I think the strongest element your game has right now is the background stories, namely for the antagonists, as they are the most interesting.

If you want to add some element of satire, I'd say you take the name "Night Knight" and thematically add any comical element that has to due with "bedtime" to his persona. All the stereotypical kid stuff like blankets, pajamas, teddy bears, night lights. Make him sort of a dufus. Maybe he sort of "thinks" he has "superpowers", but doesn't, resulting him to be laughed at and not taken seriously by his foes, sort of the underdog effect. Maybe no one takes him seriously, and he has to prove himself. I know it's been done a lot, but cliches are okay sometimes. They're even better if you're poking fun at them. That's why spaceballs was so funny.

Another route would be adding some kind of animal theme to his character. A lot of comic books do this because it's so easy. To apply animal behavior to something is so easy, it just comes natural to little kids (they pretend to be animals all the time). You could take a variety of nocturnal animals and apply their associated "powers" to Night Knight. Bats have echolocation, possums can hang from their tails, skunks, well, yeah. Heh, even owls can eat whole flipping mice and puke up their flipping bones - but I digress.

Why do I suggest this? Because even though Night Knight is a very interesting character, his gameplay mechanics need a little something, it needs that special kind of hook. You can easily add some "Power" or even some "Quirk" to his character and reflect it in the gameplay. If you look at most successful games they have that little gameplay element that no other game has, or they take an existing element and make it better than anything previously delivered. Even if it isn't new, it needs to feel new. What can Night Knight do that no-one else can? What can he do better than anyone else?

Night Knight's current background story is quite tragic, and is probably inspired by Batman's background, I imagine. Batman takes the element of tragedy, and makes a stone-cold, gritty, and dark universe. Well, at least that's the story now, it wasn't so in the 60's. I haven't played the "Arkham Asylum" series but I can tell from footage that played heavily on that dark grittiness (and did so very well I presume). And that grittiness was probably reflected in the gameplay.

You already have some neat mechanics, I especially like the hologram ability. The moon shards are neat too, but at first glance I can't really tell what they are. They would be the first thing I would try to improve on, as they seem to be your core mechanic. It's really hard for me to say, as I really don't know how it feels without playing it. I'm usually dry on ideas in this department when it comes to my projects, which is often why they get pushed under the rug. I have the personal novelty of "bringing life" to a character, but when that wears off, you have well, a guy that can walk and jump.

I'd recommend reading The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses not because it will make you the perfect designer (no book can do that), but because it does have a lot of useful information. I've just finished it myself and learned a lot of neat stuff. Alternately you could use the Deck of lenses to "debug" your design, and to see where you should start improving your design.

I'm sorry if this post got a bit rambly or incoherent. I hope it could at least be a little bit of help, especially since I often feel your pain.

[happyjustbecause]

Yeah Night Knight needs more character, right now he's kind of just a blank superhero without much uniqueness. I know what you mean by the crescents, or moon shards being hard to even see what it is. I need to add some more power like things, whether there by technology or just powers, I'm just not sure what to add.

I'm never sure if I want to have a batman grim like backstory for Night Knight or a less serious one.

What can I do for the weapons that he uses, I'm not that attached to the idea of a crescent, I just don't know what else he can throw, or what I can edit about them. Batman's got batarangs, but he's got so many tools he uses, I don't know what to have as the main weapon though, especially since I spent a lot of time with the animations having N.K. hold the crescent.

I've thought about N.K. having a staff like thing for close quarters combat, which would help a lot. I'm also just not so good at programming, the whole game's questionable, I'm not so sure what stage I'll get to when I stop working on it.

Thanks for the feedback though, it's helped already.

[Jagmaster]

Welp, crap. I was writing a wall of text, then as I hit preview, my browser logged me out and I lost it all.

I'm too tired to re-write it. So I'll abridge it.
I thought of a couple ideas for your crescents.

One, instead of just a crecent, maybe it could go through a full "moon phase" and then transform into a disk in midair? That might be more visually interesting. They could bob up and down a little, like a ufo. Or, you could allow the player to control the upward force of the disk! The bombs could be disks too, only bigger, and flashier.

Two, Make the disks have multiple behaviors- sort of like the different angry birds have different behaviors. Split into three, thrust forward, boomerang backward, etc. Of course you'd want to come up with your own. (Or people would notice eventually)

Three, A new tool, take a portal gun, and combine it with a star trek transporter. You get transporter disks! Like the moon disks, you can throw them. They'd be flat, so you could throw them into hard to reach areas. Then plant one next to you, and "beam" yourself to the opposite disk. You could put a self destruct switch to them too, to make it more interesting.

I was going to give a soapbox speech about "game limbo" and how you should stick to your project and stuff. But really, you're the only one who can decide whether or not your project is worth pursuing. Sometimes it is better to file away some ideas for later for when you're ready for them. Like with building muscle, you have start with small weight and then work your way up, the same can be applied to game making. I wished I'd known that a long time ago (I'd have a lot more finished games to my name)

In the art world, I've heard people say "You have at least 500 bad drawings in you, so you might as well get them out of your system so you can move onto the good ones." It can loosely apply to game dev too, (I don't think anyone has made 500 games ever. If so, they were probably all horrible) but if You truly think the game is worth your time and hard work, you should definitely pursue it, make it great.
If not, finish it up, let it be done, or even leave it behind if you have to.

I for one want to see you finish this project, really badly. But it's all up to you. That's all there is to it.
I hope I don't come across as a negative knowitlall - I've been doing this for a few years and I'm still only an "Advanced Noob"

I forget the rest of what I wrote, I'll try to remember later.

[lcl]

I don't now have time to speak about your game, happy, but I will when I get some free time.

Sorry, now I have to go a little off-topic...

Welp, crap. I was writing a wall of text, then as I hit preview, my browser logged me out and I lost it all.

I know that feeling. It has never logged me out, but instead just cleared all the text from the field..
I've began to copy my whole messages into notepad before hitting that preview button (same for sending the message, unexplained things can happen there, too). This way I don't have to try to memorize it.

[Jagmaster]

I've began to copy my whole messages into notepad before hitting that preview button (same for sending the message, unexplained things can happen there, too). This way I don't have to try to memorize it.

I have been doing this as well, I guess I was too tired to remember last night xD
I think it happens when I switch browser tabs or something...

But yeas, back on track now,

[happyjustbecause]

Yeah, I need to work on some kind of gun or something that doesn't require an animation before hand. Some kind of laser gun or something is what I was thinking of. And it'd be nice to have an alternate method of transportation, not exactly a portal gun, but maybe a grappling hook, or a wall jump or something. Maybe a gliding move with his cape or something.

And some kind of animation that introduces the crescent to the air would be cool, visually a lot more interesting. And some kind of way to vary the crescents a lot more would help too.

I'll try to keep working on it, I recently added one small thing that's kind of cool, so at least I'm doing something with it.