I've been trying to flesh out an idea that adds a puzzle element to equipping items for an RPG. For an example, see the catalyst system in Darkspore:



The catalysts were little gems that you picked up that would give stat bonuses. You placed them into a grid, and if you matched an entire row of the same color/type then they all got a bonus to their effect.

Now, in Darkspore, these were temporary items that only lasted for a part of a game session.

The idea I am working on involves equipping gems into some template to craft jewelry. Maybe the gems would have different shapes, and you have to fill the box tetris-style? Maybe the gems are in a grid and you have to match some aspect of them in a line? (Color, shape, etc)

The goal would be to make item choices more interesting than just picking the item with the best stats. Players may have to choose whether to use a weaker gem in order to better 'solve the puzzle' and get the puzzle bonus, etc.

Does anyone have any ideas besides gem-tetris and match-a-line?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

How about thinking of gems in terms of logic gates? Having four types of gems that correspond to logic gates which you can connect differently to get different results.

When I read this topic, I immediately thought of Final Fantasy 7's materia system. It's an old game available for PC and Playstation 1. Might be worth checking out. Well... Final Fantasy 7 is worth checking out regardless of what you are doing.

How about thinking of gems in terms of logic gates? Having four types of gems that correspond to logic gates which you can connect differently to get different results.

Interesting. I'll have to explore this idea, thanks!

When I read this topic, I immediately thought of Final Fantasy 7's materia system. It's an old game available for PC and Playstation 1. Might be worth checking out. Well... Final Fantasy 7 is worth checking out regardless of what you are doing.

Good one! It has been quite a while since I dusted off FF7. This will be good brush-up material.

Thanks, and the input is very helpful! Your take on complexity rings very true. It is a constant struggle to come up with something interesting with some depth and keeping it simple.

Thanks, that is a good take on the 'gem tetris' idea. Maybe when you filled the 'box' it would become permanently attached to the ring/item/jewelry piece and that is how you craft new items.

Reminds me a little of darkfall online's "enchanting" system.

In it, using the enchanting skill/tool, you have 3 slots for ingredients and 1 slot for a catalyst and 1 slot for the item to be enchanted. Then they have a dozen categories of enchanting ingredients with 5 levels to each type, and 3 types of catalysts. The hardest monsters in the game can skin for a lvl 5 ingredient. Different enchanting "recipe's" use different combinations of ingredients/catalyst type.

Then, say the recipe for adding damage to a weapon is 5 eyes, 5 tooth, 5 claw and 1 nith catalyst. If you use all level 5 ingredients, you will add 30% to the weapons base damage, but level 5 ingredients were really hard to get, so maybe you don't have 5 of each type. You can use any level of those same ingredients, but it will drop the effect of the enchant based on the average of all the ingredient levels. So level 1 ingredients across the board might be 5% damage increase, a combo of 1, 3, 5 would give a 10% increase.

I'm doing something kinda similar but just giving each "ingredient" a different value, then finding the sum of the values and activating a different "mod" based on that number. But there's more than 1 combination of ingredients that can activate the same mod, at the same time there's tons of combinations possible.