Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Upside-Down RPG

I was playing Eternal Sonata last week, and I realized I was just tired of the entire concept of leveling.

The RPG formula: start out weak, kill some rats, add some skill points, kill bigger rats, add more skill points, kill wolves, etc. until I am bored to tears.

I enjoy that mechanic in some games, at least for a while, but even in excellent games it starts to get tired at some point.

So why doesn't someone turn this tired old mechanic on its head?

Here's the general concept. In the beginning of the game, your character is all-powerful. Absolutely nothing can stop him, even though he's battling powerful characters right from the start.

In every potential battle scenario, there are several ways to handle the situation, only one of which involves combat. Stealth (physical), or setting traps (mental), for example, could be used instead. And there would be situations where you might start out using stealth, then need to fight because you're detected, or the traps you've set aren't entirely effective, and you have to go in to finish someone off.

Why shouldn't you just bash through the game with your god-like character? Because every time you use your combat abilities, your character weakens. He doesn't gain levels from fighting--he loses them. By the end of the game, he's as weak as a child, but he still has to find a way to defeat Foozle.

Just think of the possibilities. In the beginning of the game, you're a god fighting other gods. By the end, though, you're as fragile physically as balsa wood, and you might well be battling something that would normally be entirely insignificant.

This could be a game that plays in one setting, maybe two or three hours long, so if you make mistakes in terms of using your combat abilities too often, it would be easy to restart. And I know that balancing the gameplay would be a nightmare, but the idea of turning convention upside-down is extremely interesting to me.

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