Dev.log Violet

I've had much time to think about what the difference is between copying and paying homage to something. There is that fine line that can differ a game that's a clone versus a game that's an evolution and/or a spiritual successor to a franchise and/or genre. I was delving into the Souls-like genre of games, a sub genre of RPGs inspired by Dark Souls, and I came across one by the same publisher and decided to give it a try. Code Vein to me was very familiar, for better and for worse.

One of the aspects I felt were done was the weight of the combat, that every swing of your weapon felt important and impactful. The next aspect was the world building with the characters, locations, themes and bosses; you felt important, the characters were crafted fantastically and the environments were bleak and dire, which is a plus in this universe. The final aspect that was executed well was the execution: game ran smoothly, little to no bugs, and the graphics were fantastic, given the anime aesthetic. While all these aspects are great strengths to the game, I feel these are also the biggest weaknesses of the game; some more than others though. Some parts of the game feel copy and pasted with minor tweaks such as connected world structure, stamina meter and usage, telegraphed attacks, drop in and drop out multiplayer, losing currency which is also your experience points, etc. It's great for me because I feel like I'm playing another entry of Dark Souls, which I love. It's bad because of that: it feels way to much like Dark Souls.

If I have any takeaways from my assessment, it would be to try and innovate, even just a little bit. That's not to say that Code Vein didn't have any. One example is that the game's "classes" are called "blood codes" that are vast in quantity and have varied stats, some more suitable for other situations for others. You can't affect these however, and the level scaling and stats are not changeable, so it's a double edge sword. There's also things like auto parries, an AI companion, and detailed character customization. Those factors alone don't change how 80% of the game still feels like a copy, a high quality copy at that. Hollow Knight took inspiration from Dark Souls for example where if you died, your experience points/currency would drop at that exact location. Instead of just going back there and picking it up, you would instead have to fight a shadow of yourself, a weak one though. It's familiar but different; pays homage while innovating. It's instances like these that make me consider how tightly I wear an inspiration on my sleeve just right or too tight.

Pick one of these activities: snowball fight; staring in a school play; working at a theme park;> Now, brainstorm a game that could create this experience. List the parts of your experience are essential. List the aspects of your experience can be dropped from the game. Describe a game or list the key features of a game that would create this experience.

When thinking of ideas for this topic, I immediately went for the snowball fight. It has a clear objective, is a Red vs Blue type of game, and is exciting. I then tried thinking of several scenarios that would recreate the experience, most of which got erased from the drawing board. Then I finally figured out how to implement the ideas, and this is what I came up with.

I thought of different but similar experiences like food fights, throwing paper balls, dodge balls, etc. I knew I wanted some type of layout where there's a big environment and there's materials scattered around for players to make their own projectiles. The next thing I considered was how often and how much players would be able to gain projectiles. Should they be able to get a few at a time with no delay, grab 1 material and form a projectile at a time, grab and make a few projectiles for a few seconds, etc. I didn't have a clear answer for that as repeated testing wasn't possible in my case. Next was the arena. How should it be set up? I was thinking a mainly open field with some barriers and passages to allow combatants to flow around. The final element was incentive to get people to actively try to hunt people instead of camping. So I figured your points, awards, etc. would multiply for every enemy hit without getting hit themselves. Other elements like power ups, time elements and teams were dropped for the moment.

In the end, I felt like I had a good template. If I were to ever make a multiplayer game, a more casual one at that, I might use this setup and finite the structure. There's always room for improvement and right now, it feels a little to basic for my taste. I may want to incorporate more wacky elements like a third party there just to mess with teams or a boss character or sorts. Something that breaks the traditional mold of red vs blue and give it a more fun and casual feel to it, like playing a match of Splatoon as compared to Call of Duty. In the end, I feel satisfied with what I came up with and how I tackled the topic.