Related Concepts

I've felt that the best way to come up with ideas for gameplay and artwork is to pull ideas from existing games that work well. Starting with gameplay, I already know that I'd like to make a 2D platformer, though I know very little about I am going to develop from that idea. May game needs to have a more fundamental concept, or game mechanic.


Referring to tried and testing games that I have enjoyed in recent years, the following was brought to mind..




Super Meat Boy:

I played this game after it was bought for me by a friend and came to find it very addictive. The game challenges you to navigate through obstacles in order to reach an end point and progress to the next level. A key aspect of the game is trial and error. You are pretty much expected to fail at every first attempt of navigating through a new level. This does not stunt your attitude, however, as you respawn very quickly after death without even reloading the level. It almost feels like rapid prototyping obstacle approaches! I like this approach as you are not penalised for having multiple attempts at passing a level. The emphasis is not on how skilled you are at making it through the game, but more about how you adapt and learn to smooth out your control of 'meat boy'.


A second point I favour in this game is that you are the only living, moving character throughout. The 'mobs' that pose a risk to you are static or patrolling non-living entities. I feel I may go either way with this one and have just one and not the other.




Infectonator! World Dominator:

This is one of the 10 games I reviewed, as previously mentioned. It was brought to the front of my mind when I started to consider how my game may look. Something I am keen on doing from the start of my game is to design original textures, tiles and sprites. Keeping that in mind, I would like to go with a simplistic theme that's both easy to draw and easy to hide mistakes with. This game has a 90's feel aesthetic look as the designer has chosen to go with a pixel drawing; where each pixel is drawn with a solid block of colour.




Psi-Ops

Although this game is not a 2D game by any means, I would like to employ it's core concept as a possible game mechanic for my game. The basis of this game is the ability to be able to control people and objects with your mind. I would like to have my game use some sort mind-control element with which to manipulate objects on the screen in order to pass the level.