Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Theorycraft: Game on! zap, zap, Zap Happy!

You know, I've been spending more and more "non-spiral" time at KI Free games. You know, "Free W101 codes for playing mini games"? Yeah, them.

Free W101 codes for gaming
(I'm rather fond of Dueling Diego, myself).

However, (and isn't there *always* a 'however', with me?), I was thinking: we need to 'invigorate' the KI Free Games 'midway'. Every midway should have some sort of shooting gallery, in my probably-less-than-quiet opinion.
Since we're talking KI, W101,and kid-friendly, we can *easily* forget the firearms, 'cause "This....is...Spirallia!..uh, , I mean 'The Spiral'..." So, here's my idea:

Kind of an update of the old "Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces" game, but W101-themed, of course. Let's call it "Zap Happy", for now. I'm no "Flash Coder", so I'll describe it as best I can. Please bear with me, here.

Horror-ble game, seriously
So, 'mechanically', I'd like to see something along the lines of the Playstation Home Midway:

 Note the 'theme changes' each level- Replace with W101 worlds for 'theme'.

If you notice, it's not a 'crosshairs' style shooter, it's "left/right slide" only. Also, there are 'blocking' items, to prevent hits, (and add difficulty, as levels progress). Second, let's replace the firearm with a wand, because we *are* talking W101, after all. Wizards have more than enough "Oomph", no reloading required.

We'll replace targets with appropriate, cartoonish W101 enemies, like fire elves, gobblers, golems, ect.
But this is where he 'twist' comes in. In addition to left/right, and "Zap", there's a "1-7", where each number key is assigned to a School,( Fire, Ice, Life, Death, ect,ect,ect.)

Each target has a 'school', and (unlike in-game 'resists') you get 'bonus points' for hitting target with *matching* school. Sure, you could 'bonus' opposites (Life hits Death, ect), but I think it over-complicates the game.
Each (Timed) and progressive level adds additional 'schools' into the mix, and the player needs to reach a 'minimum threshold' score to advance, within the time limit.
For *additional* challenge, the targets can "fire back", and a "shield" (which changes schools with the same 1-7) *has* to match, to "block" enemy fire, or else player loses 'pips' (lives).

Play ends once all pips are expended, either by enemy "Hits", or not meeting minimum level score. (Retry level until "pass" to next level) or "no pips"(game over). You could even have pet-centric "bonus levels". Lotta room for brainstorming, methinks.

Really rough, and lazy 'Concept Art', for "Zap Happy":


I Dunno... "Abort, retry, or fail "?
Be well.

4 comments:

horsegal4ever said...

Again, cool idea, Autumn! How on earth do you get so many ideas so detailed, with PICTURES (!) , so quickly??? I would definitely play a game like that. Do you ever enter your ideas directly to KI? You should ...

Xinaed said...

Interesting. I rarely go to KIfreegames any more, because well.. I'm not very good at them, and at my highest score I am lucky to get 120 gold. :/ So I just stopped going there. :D

Rebecca said...

That looks like a fun new game. Even my daughter (3 yrs) would have fun using the wand on the "bad boys."

bluelapis said...

Sounds like fun! If you get them to make it I would play it >:)