My attempt at creating a new type of gaming

[speaks]

I’m looking to see if people will be interested in a form of platform gaming relying on dice rolls for deciding opportunity, obstacles, luck, choices etc. You start with an introduction to a story, since it relies on dice where you end up is unknown. While playing a story is built during gameplay.
What do you think? Do you think people will show any willingness?

[Kami]

This isn't my type of game, personally, but food for thought from a development perspective (please note that none of this is intended to be a discouragement, these are literally just game development questions since I am a game dev with big-studio experience).

Overall, forum-based game players are no different from video game / TTRPG / LARP / etc players: if you want to break away from the developed forms of games, there's so much you need to consider, if you're looking to develop a game that is appealing to others.

Many, many game-based forums (whether narrative or not) wind up dying out because of lack of participation: the factors to these are usually for the reasons I've listed below:

- Gameplay Execution: You mention "dice rolls" but how are these dice rolls accomplished? Who rolls the dice, the player or the game master or something else? Who decides what the outcomes are per dice rolls? Who decides the scenarios in which dice rolls would be needed? How do players progress in terms of continuous gameplay (in other words, do they need to wait for someone to tell them what happens next / what their next scenario is? or do you plan on building self-sustaining automation / a proc gen engine that spits out new scenarios / choices / outcomes per choice? How will you deal with branching narration?)

- Player Investment: What is the driving force that keeps players invested? It's usually not enough to just have a story / random chance, players need to feel that their time and effort investment is paying off. Why should people play this game, as opposed to a text-based RPG with more player agency or an actual video game?

- Sustainability: Games with narrative elements tend to stagnate because there are only so many scenarios that players can encounter without elements starting to repeat. So how will your narrative be sustainable? Is there a definitive end? How do you intend to keep things fresh?

- Sustainability Part 2: Similarly, how will you prevent player burnout? Rolling dice to determine your every move is often tedious and repetitive. Repetitive gameplay is one of the biggest sources of player pain across multiple game genres. What other gameplay variations do you have planned, if any?

- The problems with branching narrative & choices: within the game community as a whole (whether professionally in video games, in visual novels, or in forum-based games), branching narrative and choices are one of the biggest sources of issues game developers have to tackle. Players love a variety of choice and random opportunity, but the more choices and opportunity you have, the more branching paths increase exponentially. How would you handle this, especially if you create a game that allows for multiple players simultaneously?

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For what it's worth, I fully support your exploration into game development here! I love it, hence my choice of career But it's definitely not easy, if you're looking to create a game that gets active participation, versus a game you're playing with friends you know will commit to participating as a group activity. I want to encourage you down this path, not discourage it, so I hope my questions serve as a way to broaden the scope of your thinking.

[speaks]

Thank you I never tried to design a game before. I left a message on Facebook to see if I can get some more help with the mechanics of it.
It’s pretty much the opposite of a traditional role play. Hopefully I can get some people interested in a new genre 😊
One thing I could change is how often the dice is rolled. Someone could make a few moves but big decisions can use the dice.

[Kami]

Good luck! Honestly don't stress too much about it — if you're doing this as a hobby, just make what you think is fun and others will come (:

[speaks]

Thank you. It is a hobby, I love to create things. When I got the mechanics figured out could I create a thread game here in the support board? See if people want to do this.

[Kami]

Aug 14, 2021 15:55:28 GMT -8 speaks said:

Thank you. It is a hobby, I love to create things. When I got the mechanics figured out could I create a thread game here in the support board? See if people want to do this.

I don't know — I think there's a games subboard in general talk, but I don't go there so I'm not certain. If you're in doubt you can ask one of the forum mods to make sure (:

[speaks]

The use of the tarot works offline very well but it’s hard to do that online. I thought I could take on a project turning RPGs into platform reveals. With their consent of course.

[speaks]

Luckily someone gave me a link to an online tarot generator. People who don’t have a deck are not left out.
I learned so far that it’s best to set a long term goal and a few smaller tasks.
Create an opening scene with a sense of urgency for example introducing us to the villain first and his intentions.

[speaks]

If someone has a failing role play that they would like me to make into a platform reveal let me know 🙂