Well, just for the heck of it, I've roughed out an early concept sketch of the tinkerer =) Still needs cleaning up and finishing off, but I quite like it.

Anyhoo, I'll try and post again later to respond to anything I've missed, back soon!!



Steve

If I may, I'll suggest some reading: Terry pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy. It's about... Gnomes. Creatures 6 inches tall and incredibly inventive. And the story is really funny, because it's Pratchett.

By the way, having the goblins meddle with Irish Gnomes and find some food round Human houses, like breadcrumbs, and milk saucers. Have twigs be used as stilts. Have rubberbands be used to catapult yourself between two trees.

Downsize it!!

I've thought of an interesting twist for this idea... we could treat inventions like spells created from components. Each component being used could have a wear and tear value (perhaps repairable) which means that machines eventually perish. Then we can place loads of items all over the place, so it is easy to make an item if you have the apropriate plans, but the gameplay will revolve around creating the best item from the set of components you have for the given situation, thus we can make it easy for a player to get past almost any situation, but the difficulty is instead in the degree of success the player has in choosing the right device for the situation.

Also, I like the Incredible Machine comparisons, I think an element of this gameplay would work well, but I'd like to retain a definite platformer overtone as I would like the game to have a story rather than be an endless succession of device building.

I'm also half wondering about the option of playing through the same game as a different character.... Inspired in part by Psychonauts, I wonder if a mage or psychic character could approach the same levels in a different manner... or maybe that's just overdoing it :P

Cheers,

Steve

I think I'm going to organize the game roughly as follows:


Player controls goblin tinkerer

Player must collect different categories of component
+ Optical components - Blue
+ Energon manipulation components - Orange
+ Mechanical components - Silver
+ Natural components - Green
+ Vortex components (chaotic element) - Black

Player fights robot incarnations of fantasy creatures

Robot creatures drop certain component types upon destruction

Player must collect plans for devices in order to have them available

Plans each require a set number of each component type to build the device (use components like mana)

Player has a separate screen activated by keyboard that displays potential devices given their current quota of components. Screen does not show devices that the player hasn't collected plans for yet.

Player can only use one invention at a time, devices may be disassembled to return components and allow use of another device.

Devices degrade in repair status over time, eventually failing catastrophically!

Player can also collect nuts n bolts from destroyed robots which can be used to repair and maintain devices.

The number of components you can collect is capped to stop players building up a huge reserve of equipment.

Player can return to maps after completion to discover bonus elements with their newly earned technology

Overhead RPG-style map, but possibly with some bonus levels hidden within other levels?

Favourite devices so far (plus some new ones!)
+ tinfoil hat
+ scuba device
+ shrink-ray
+ time travel device
+ a laser
+ springy shoes
+ mini mech Suit
+ jetpack
+ plasma launcher
+ spaceship
+ magnet shield
+ grappling hook
+ invisibility
+ small boat
+ extendable arms
+ teleporter

---------------------------------------------------------------

Do these game mechanics sound interesting or flawed in any way? I'm thinking of using robot opponents mainly to provide a nice constant supply of nuts, bolts and other components, but I'm not sure if they could be worked into the storyline convincingly, or if it sounds a bit tacky? It might help give the game a distinct theme though?

I'm straying away from the idea of players being able to build their own devices though, mainly because upon reflection, I think it would be very hard work to code such a system as an Indy developer. I'm hoping this idea keeps some of the character while retaining a simplistic design, and hopefully still being fun... but I worry that in simplifying the idea, I may have sucked it dry of the actual fun element... any opinions or improvements on this?

Cheers,

Steve

"The Incredible Machine" meets "Super Metroid"?

Could be fun to forget 'devices' constructed via cRPG-style crafting and instead go for actual machines that fling, convey, blow up, etc. =-)

Nintendo did this with Super Mario World for the SNES. If you can recall, one could complete the game one method, but with additional items and powerups (cape, colored blocks), one could complete some levels following slightly different routes. It made it challenging not to complete the levels, but to find all the secrets.

Excellent idea, I like it a lot.

[Edited by - MatrixCubed on September 11, 2006 3:12:17 PM]

Can anyone say Iron Kingdoms?

Goblins are named 'gobbers', and many of them are crazy mechaniks.

-brad