VIDEO GAME IDEA: 2D Game Like Dark Cloud/Dark Chronicle
After catching up on a couple episodes of The Completionist recently, I was reminded of two things: the first being Level-5′s games Dark Cloud and Dark Cloud 2 (Dark Chronicle), and the second being the cool isometric camera angle of games like Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories and Mega Man Battle Network. I’ve always wanted to make a game like Dark Cloud, but since making a 3D game like those would be really intensive, time consuming, and almost impossible for a small group of people (or me alone), I thought of instead designing a 2D version.
There are three main elements that need to carry over for the game to have that Dark Cloud feel: city building, gear/weapon progression, and random dungeon layouts. The main appeal of the Dark Cloud games was that you could actually Sims-style build cities for people to live in. More than other RPGs that do this, though, Dark Cloud let you control which buildings to build, place those buildings wherever, build other little things like trees or ponds that surround the area, and decide who lives where. You always had some restrictions for building, and the further you got into the game the more specific the limits got, but it was always still fun to try to put everyone’s house on a giant platform or put everyone in a circle or other random stuff.
In terms of the dungeon exploration, the two biggest unique features that Dark Cloud had were the level progression system and randomized floors. Instead of your character leveling up and growing stronger, your weapon(s) would get the experience from beaten monsters. Each level only gave your weapon a small boost in stats, but also the ability to gain larger stat boosts from consumable items. This meant that the only way to get stronger was to spend time looking for the parts to upgrade you swords or whatever. Your character themselves could only get stat boosts from eating rare items like potato casserole or strawberry shortcake.
The dungeon crawling never got too boring, though, because the randomness helped to keep things fresh. All each level needed to have was a map of the level, a “compass” to locate the other items, (generally) a Keystone which let you build new things or tell you what to build for the plot, and an exit that you needed the key to open.
The city building aspect wouldn’t be too hard to implement, but buildings should only be put facing a certain way or else things could get obstructed. I would imagine putting in roads/rocks will also keep players from ever putting everything too close together. The biggest issue is determining how large to make the building area: it has to be big enough that players have space, but small enough that walking isn’t a chore. Or maybe just make a system where the player doesn’t have to run around at all to get around.
The weapon system is the easiest aspect, as that’s just how most collection+evolution RPGs work. The randomized dungeons also aren’t too hard once you have all the assets and told the program how to make them. But it might also be easier to just make standard layouts instead. The hardest part of designing the dungeons comes from figuring out combat: should it be all on the main map like in the originals, or should over-world sprites initiate battles (like in KH:CoM). Because it’s kinda easier, I’m more in favor of the latter option.
Anyways, thanks for listening to me ramble. One day I’ll have the time/resources to sit down and actually make a video game. One day.
