New Contest Type Brainstorming Session

[Seven Shikami]

I've got a "Contest Expansion Pack" in the works right now, which will be an L$500 kit that includes AquaDash (arcade action + fish pets), Bounty Hunts (catch a specified fish, win a trophy), and Wheel of Fish (a fish beauty contest; compare your fish against others).

I'd like to add a 4th contest to this pack, but I'm not sure what. So I figured I'd throw it open to the floor.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WORK WITH: These are the stats that can be plied into some sort of contest format. Anything not on this list is not being tracked and we can't build a contest around it (for example, "Who has the most complete collection of fish" can't be a contest).

* Listening for fish catches worth 1-5 points during live fishing (misses are not tracked)
* Listening for specific official fish caught (not customs) and whether they were targeted or not
* Stats built into each pet fish (1-3 rating for beauty, speed, size, outgoingness, and a few others)
* XP totals

Admittedly we've kinda come up with one contest for each of those already (points, specific catches, fish stats) and thus have covered the bases, which is why I'm coming up dry for ideas, but maybe someone will see an aspect of the data I haven't considered. What do you think? What else could be a fun way to compete using these stats?

[Seven Shikami]

Whaddya know. In a late night Social Chat session we came up with the mysterious Contest #4.

It's going to be a Local Hall of Fame, letting fishers log their "boast" XP levels in a special ongoing contest board. These HoFs can be set public, private (only predeclared fishers can boast into them) or group (only group members can use them).

This is not a running tally of all XP earned only at one local fishing area, but global XP levels for the participants. Good to compare your friends scores!

[Jen Shikami]

The boast-to-able boards sound great. There must be a lot of different ways people can use them.

As for other contest ideas, I've been trying to see if I could think of anything else... I did have one idea but of course feel free to shoot it down; it's TOTALLY up to you whether it's interesting and doable enough to implement! Whether it'd be fun or not is beside the point of whether it's possible or reasonable to pull it off.

I know you were pondering a Melee Maidens style thing a while back... Here's what I'm pondering. How about a "fish fight" type game, as follows:

Two players, head to head. Each player picks out 3 fish as their team and loads them into the game, aquarium-style as usual.

Then you can use the stats to work various things out... like, size could be how easy they are to hit (bigger = easier)

To avoid it being just math after that point, you can let the players take turns. On each turn you can serve the player randomly with two different attack types to choose from (kinda like Melee Maidens, here...) If they're lucky then one of the attacks they get is something their team of fish is good at ("Pretty Piscine Power Punch", "Fast Times at Fishmont High"...?) with a keyword so they get what the attack emphasizes.

You could let the other player pick a defense if you want along those same lines, but I'm not sure that part would even be necessary.

So if they pick the more effective attack, the other team loses X hitpoints (hitpoints being a combo of their 3 fish's toughness. Knock out the weakest fish first. Or don't ever knock a fish out, just have it be collective HP; depends if you want the team's stat balance to change after one fish is KOd.)

So then it becomes a bit of a game of skill in that you assemble your fish team, hopefully having some sense of their stats, and as a result you can learn which attacks might succeed the most.

Whaddya think, way too complex? (Maybe it's SO complex that it should be separate from the contest pack?)

And on a related note... would these games only work with the official fish? What happens if a community member makes a fish that's got top ratings in everything? I guess you'd have to make sure that a top rating isn't always an advantage. (Like maybe a "pretty" or "ugly" attack affects pretty fish more...?)

[Seven Shikami]

A good idea, and one I've pondered. Definitely not for the contest expansion set, which is focused on fishing and not really games; AquaDash is mostly a bonus item.

The difficulty is in game balance and stats, to ensure there isn't one super duper combo and nothing else is useful. Very important since community fish also have stats now. For instance, for every stat you can jack to the roof, have good benefits for lower stats too -- smaller fish have less HP but better evasion, for instance, so if someone made a Speedy Huge fish, it'd still have lower defenses than a Speedy Small fish. And so on.

I'm sure I could come up with something, but since this'd probably be an Insert Coin Arcade release primarily, it'll have to wait until the 7Seas projects are handled.

[Jen Shikami]

[Calberd Ofarrel]

I think that kinda game would be awesome! Could hold like round-robin competitions for final prize! My thoughts on this are as follow:

- Would it be possible to say level up these fish after successful fights that would make it tougher or gain extra powers. Could make it where can't fight a fish 2 levels below or 2 levels higher to make it fair for both parties. I was thinking though that if it loses it would then lose a level. This way it'd be hard to see a level 100 uber fish! To make it real interesting could make it where the fish would have to win 2 or 3 consecutive matches before leveling but only lose one match to lower the level

- We could buy "buffs" to help our fish in the competition. IE reinforced gills for stamina boost. Could make it where they only work x amount of rounds before vanishing. Wouldn't need to be that expensive and could even have it where certain items only work on certain fish and/or X level and above. Another suggestion is slot spots for buffs. As it levels it gains more slots or certain class of fish has more slots but weaker without buffs vs a low slot fish without buffs. This would also help in increase revenue similar to bait does with 7seas

- Could do a solo (team of fish) or team (1 fish per player of team). This way could even start leagues kinda like bowling leagues and such. Get team shirts and such

I think this would be an AWESOME stand alone game but utilizing 7seas fish! Some of the buffs could be even fished out of the waters! Just thinking of this game makes me tingly and hope something like it comes down the line! I would buy it with one or more of the features above. Oh who I kidden I'd buy it anyway! I hope something does come out of it!

[Adam Exonar]

I agree with Calberd. that would be pretty awesome. a few mods i would make to it though:
-instead of losing levels, how about lose XP, but cant go below your current level. most RPGs do that, so it is not too difficult to level-up.
-i think the buffs shouldn't last a time limit. how about that they either raise the max stat points, regenerate stat points, or add points temporarily to a stat(each extra point cannot be regenerated)
-also, like above, use a stat point and level point system. stat points are for stats, like stamina, speed, etc. you gain level points when your fish goes up a level, and you can spend them on your fish to raise stats.

I'll add more as i think of them.
I think this would be a great game, but a little hard to make into an insert coin arcade game (just by using the openarcade kit). anyways, i would love to help work on this, if it goes into development. i was going to make a game similar to this(before i was in 7seas fishing), and still kinda want to.

Sorry for my bad grammar and spelling. not very good

[Seven Shikami]

I definitely think this is a good idea, and worth pursuing. I've wanted to do an RPG style game for awhile now, since it's the best style for SL... turn-based, simple inputs, no need for intensely synced and timed action game systems.

The actual nuts and bolts I'll have to decide on once I start to tackle it. There's a lot to take into consideration here -- do we use existing fish and work around the community's ability to hack the stats to be awesome? Special fish that are uniquely compatible with the game and pre-balanced? What are the buff and debuff mechanics and the actual math for each turn? Etc, etc, etc.

On the whole, my approach to game design is Keep It Simple. Having fifteen layers of buffs, debuffs, boosts, armors, weapons, HP modifiers, turn-rules, etc. just serve to confuse the hell out of new players -- and in SL, if you don't get the point across on the first play, they'll likely never play your game again. (A lot of my games have this problem, especially since SL's interface for action games is just terrible, with users being totally confused by control overriding and such.) Likely I'd keep it to a very bare bones RPG mechanic with one or two strategic choice elements and that's it. Just enough to be fun without requiring a lot of work.

Feel free to post your ideas, but I'll be smelting them all down into a good, clean game mechanic once I get around to this. Other projects have to take priority -- I think on the whole people would want the Contest Expansion Pack first, for instance!