Rather than making the shrines only half the game you could leave them as the full game but have no set order like the old Megaman games.
Depending on how the elements combo, doing things in a different order could give the game a bit more replayability, particularly if it had an effect on the story as well.
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I was thinking about that, actually. The only reason I decided against putting it in was because I don’t know how puzzle-focused the game would be. If it’s mostly just combat, taking on the Shrines in any order works fine, but if the Shrines are filled with puzzles then it’d be better to make the order more strict, so puzzles could incorporate multiple elements. One other possible solution is to remove Soul as a basic element, and turn it into a fusion element instead. Then you could begin the game taking on the 3 basic Shrines linearly, and then have a selection of Shrines based on the Fusion Elements which you can take on in any order.
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It'd take some extra work but you could have variants of each shrine, so they change depending on what elements you have unlocked so far. Mathematically speaking it works out to 8 variants of each shrine or 32 in total. If you kept the game relatively short (say, around 4 hours), that would still give the player 32 hours of content if they wanted to see everything.
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My gut reaction is to say that sounds like an amazing idea! Like one of those hidden mechanics that you learn about and are just like [i]”Whaaaaaaat!?”[/i]. However, if what was keeping the dungeon count to five (Shrines + Final Dungeon) was design constraints, I feel like dungeon variants kinda defeat the point, as those same resources could just go to making some post-Shrine dungeons. :p
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Kinda depends. In a way it'd be faster/easier because the layouts could be set, only the puzzles would vary, so you're "building" 5 and then tweaking three first 4. Conversely, if you did procedurally generated dungeons, you'd only the 8 stages of unlocked elements and could then use the same algorithm with minor tweaks like palette swaps.
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That’s true. I am building it in Project Spark, where I don’t need to worry about making assets. In PS, making a puzzle pretty much is making the dungeon, since the assets are all in game, but if I did make the assets myself, building a whole new dungeon would probably be more taxing. I’d definitely steer clear of the procedural generation. As fun as it can be, the whole market’s flooded with Roguelikes & whatnot. Would much like a break from that. (not that it matters, because I’m not actually making this :p)
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[quote]I’d definitely steer clear of the procedural generation. As fun as it can be, the whole market’s flooded with Roguelikes & whatnot.[/quote]Fair enough. Variety is the spice of life.
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On another note, if you’re interested; https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/260933854/0/0/1
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Not bad. How much did you create and how much was built in?
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Edited by The First Aifos: 4/14/2022 4:03:10 PMAll of the assets—the models, terrain, music, animation, etc.—were all made by the game, though I did customize most of the characters with the in-game character editor. All of the programming was done by me. Without my hand, everything in there would just sit still doing nothing. Though, that said, Project Spark does use a simplified programming system called Koding. It can still get pretty complex (I should screenshot Leine’s brain, it’s super complicated), but it is easier than actual programming. [spoiler]Ex: Cast’s Kode When: [A][and][not][Y][and][not][attacking] -When: [Countdown timer][0.7] Do: [create][Cast Ring][at position][me][left foot] —Do: [Play FX][Creation Sparks][at position][weapon] —Do: [Highlight][weapon] When: [Created Objects][count][greater than][0] -When: [Left stick] Do: [Created Objects][move] When: [A][released] -When: [Created objects][detect] —When: [it][not equal to][me] Do: [damage][them][15] —Do: [destroy][created objects][with FX][Beserk start] (or something akin to that anyway; I’m not home so I can’t check the actual Kode)[/spoiler]
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Block programming,or coding?
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I think it’s block coding. Though, take that with a grain of salt, as my familiarity with the term only extends to a quick Google search I did a couple minutes ago. If not, then something similar. Some simplified version of coding. Every time I get into Project Spark, though, it always makes me want to learn how to actually code. Making games is so fun!
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There's always Unity. It's free and there are a ton of tutorials. It CAN be kind of daunting though. If I remember correctly, [url=https://www.tynker.com/]Tynker[/url] allows you to toggle between block and python. I think [url=https://www.brainpad.com/arcade/]Brainpad[/url] does too. They're both good places to start if you want to learn coding.
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Wait, Unity is [i]free[/i]? I didn’t know that! Maybe I should see if I can get it to work on my old Mac! I can already tell you where I’ll run into a huge roadblock, though. Even if I manage to wrap my head around coding, once I need to actually make animations & such, I doubt I’ll get far. :p
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They have an asset store. There might be some free ones on it. Yeah, Unity is free to use but you need to pay for a license to publish or something like that.
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I suppose it would depend how deep I went into the project, then. If I got really into it, I’d definitely want my own assets, but if I were just messing around I probably wouldn’t mind. And a fee to publish wouldn’t be bad. If I ever got to the point I could get something published I could maybe go to Kickstarter or something. Though that’s assuming I would ever get that far, which I get the feeling I wouldn’t. :p
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Bah, money's great but doing it for the passion is more rewarding.
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Agreed! I’d want to get published not for the [url=https://onestepfromeden.gamepedia.com/Money]Money[/url] (though the [url=https://onestepfromeden.gamepedia.com/Money]Money[/url] does sound nice), but simply to share my work! And to brag about being a game developer. Because being able to say I published a game would be pretty nifty!