Spellcraft - 1 player RPG

Here's a premise for a map I randomly came up with:

• A single player RPG
• You control one hero (an apprentice mage) who is passing a test to become a true mage
• You cannot attack. At all.
• It's basically a series of puzzles
• As you progress through challenges, you get points to learn new spells (they only have one level), that are needed to get through the next challenge
• All spells are utility, and none of them actually kill anything. Examples include banish, mirror image, telekinesis, invisibility, blink, or minions that don't attack, but can stun, carry items, and have spell immunity.
• There are 4 schools of magic you can learn spells from: Illusion, Support, Summoning, and Control

Heres an example of one puzzle that can be figured out many ways:
You must go through a room with a unit that can kill you in one hit. You can banish him, or turn yourself invisible, or stun him, or make an illusion of yourself to distract him, or summon a minion to distract him.

Or, in another room you must grab a key surrounded by fire traps. You can either use telekinesis to grab it, or summon a magic immune minion to grab it.

In yet another room, you must stand on two platforms simultaneously. This can be done with a minion, illusion, or use telekinesis to move an object too heavy for you to lift yourself.

I just want to get feedback on this idea.

The "puzzles" sound quite good - if you managed to make up some more comlicated and difficult one, the would be really great.

I would choose another name for your map. There already is a map named Spellcraft.

PS: Why couldn't you include some coop levels for two (or more - you would need to make special levels for each player count though) players.

Yeah, I just chose an easy name. I'm more curious what people think of this idea before I put any effort into it.


Well another idea, would be facing a boss who kills you in two hits. The catch is that there are levers that activate traps, so you have to find a way to hold him stationary while you trigger the trap. You can either use immobilizing spells, use a minion or illusion to distract him, or start leading his movement and blink to the lever quickly.

Other ones would be facing two opponents who both can kill you in one hit. You get to have a rod of lightning for this challenge (casts lightning shield). You must kill both of them to pass the test. The challenge is that if one dies while the other is alive, then he will be stunned for 5 seconds, and if either one is alive at the end of the stun, then the dead one will be revived. Possible strategies are casting the shield on yourself, then turning invisible, or putting it on a minion, or putting the shield on enemy 1 then once enemy 2 dies, cast the shield on yourself before he revives his friend.


That would be interesting.

I see one main advantage in this concept - it should be easy and quick to code some starting levels to show the concept. Do it ;)

I like it. It reminds me of Golden Sun, Lufia, and ICO all over again.

I hope there is a "Restart" Ability that resets the entire scenario. Unless you are going to add Continues or something.

Looks very interesting. Will it be a puzzle game, or a proper RPG with proper characters in it?

I'm intrigued, another idea is where you have to sneak through a hallway full of guards and if your seen you lose. Use your magic to sneak.

I'm still trying to think about how to approach the gameplay atm. Heres some things I know I want for sure

• As you complete puzzles, you learn more spells, and the puzzles require more and more complexity as well as using more than one spell per puzzle
• Puzzles will have more than one solution, as mentioned in my previous post
• Boss puzzles where you must defeat a thinking enemy using your environment or the boss's own spells
• @IgnitedStar: I want it to be fun, not frustrating. So I will probably make it so you ressurrect at the beginning of the challenge, but you only get 5 ressurrects.
• The different spells will be there so you will never learn all of them in one session. That way, you could beat the game, and have a completely different experience by choosing different spells.

Here's some things I'm trying to figure out how to approach

• Will all spells be availible, or will it be a tech tree type thing?
• If all spells are not immediately availible, what about choosing 1 of 4 classes, who can only cast spells from one of the 4 schools? The advantage of this would be that puzzles would be easier to design if I had a set progression. If players can choose what spell they learn first, they may gloss over that one spell you need to solve the puzzle.
• I don't know if the spells should cost mana or not. Definitely they will have a cooldown, but I'm thinking about how having a mana cost would affect puzzles, limiting options of the player.

@Griffen:I'm leaning more towards puzzle at heart, but using RPG elements. The spell system is RPG, but the focus will be solving the puzzles.

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Alright, heres some ideas for what spells go in which schools.
Illusion:

• Mirror Image: Image can be used to distract enemies, use levers, or activate switches
• Invisibility: Can be used to bypass enemies, but beware, not all enemies are so easily fooled
• Smoke Cloud: Prevents enemies from attacking or casting spells. Good for survival

Supression

• Arcane Snare: Immobilizes an opponent for 5 seconds. They can still attack, but it is useful for keeping them put
• Telekinesis: Pick up or move objects from a distance, or activate levers
• Purge: Removes all buffs from a unit. Good for cancelling enemy spells that may hinder you or help them

Support

• Temporal Shift: Slows an enemy movement speed to half, or increases your movement speed by half. May only affect one unit at a time. Good for helping put enemies right where you want them.
• Ward: You become invulnerable for 3 seconds. Useful for negating debuffs, bypassing dangerous traps, or just panic.

Summoning

• Helper Golem: Can carry one item. Useful for activating triggers, levers, or transporting items
• Shackles: Immobilizes the caster and a target for 5 seconds. Good to use while your minion does other things

Now here's an example of how only being able to cast spells from 1 of 4 schools could be used to defeat a boss.
The boss is a goblin techie that throws bombs. You can see when he is "grabbing" a bomb, the key is to counter what he does, and he will end up holding the bomb too long and blowing himself up.

An Illusion mage can cast invisibility on himself as he's charging to interrupt it act it.
A suppression mage can immobilize him, then get out of his range
A support mage can just pop a ward as he's charging up, or slow him down and get out of his range
A summoning mage can shackle him as he's charging up

Since these spells will not be spammable (moderate cooldown), you still have to spend time dodging the bombs he throws. Also, some spell schools will be better for some puzzles, but it will even out. For that reason, you can face the same boss and have completely different gameplay.

I think that having the game work for two players also would be cool. Say maybe a scenario like this:

For some reason you need to get down a narrow path that is surrounded with fire. By simply running down the path, you will die. You have a spell that you can cast on yourself that will negate the effects of the fire for a short period, but the path is just long enough that you can't make it all the way to the end without the fire shield expiring.

One possible solution would be to have your partner cast banish on you and then activate your fire shield. If you are banished the shield will last long enough to make it to the other side.

Or maybe you could have the fire shield spell have a cooldown of 4 seconds; then have it last 3 seconds if you are not banished and 4.5 if you are. Now say that banish lasts 8 seconds. Both players could make it down the path by alternatively leap-frogging each other whilst banishing each other and casting fire shield at the appropriate points.


Maybe I have a bad example, but I really do think that two players would be cool.
Oh, and I like the idea for this map in general. :D

There could be more sorts of creatures to summon.

Helper golem (maybe stone golem model) - slow, vulnerable, can handle one item, can trigger levers - used for briging items through hostile environment, triggering platforms etc.
Iron golem - slow, durable (can survive several hits, nothing owned by player should be able to damage the creeps though, so it cannot attack) - user for distracting enemies for a moment or stepping into traps instead of player (i mean straps like dart traps, spikes etc.).
Tiny golem (underscaled infernal, lol) - fast, vulnerable, can blink at very short distances (250 points?) - used for luring out enemies, getting to otherwise unaccessible places etc.

You can have only one at once, of course

@Pyro: I would make 2 player missions have players depend on each other. One possibility is to have both characters have fire shield and banish. Problem is that banish has a 10 sec cooldown, so you can only cast it on one person. It's not a bad idea but the puzzle is highly similar to how a single player would do it (cast banish on self, then shield) so it would feel more like doing missions side by side rather than together. Here's how I would use that idea:
You start with two items, one makes you fire immune and one makes you ice immune. The narrow hallway has ice and fire traps constantly going, and the only spell you have is a transportation spell that moves you to your ally. The key would be in the design of the hallway w/traps. It would make it so you would have to constantly trade off the items. Oh yeah, the teleport spell would have a short range so that you can't give one guy both items, run across, then teleport. Good idea though.

@CommanderZ: not bad ideas. How about this? A golem can swap locations with you. Imagine a raised cliff with the exit at the top, but the door is triggered by a platform at the bottom. You can't teleport above the cliff, but you can summon your golem there, swap places, and have him step on the switch while you walk through the gate.

Alright, I've decided I'm going to start working on a demo of this just to see how it goes. I'll probably just have 5 simple puzzles with a boss, and 4 classes that only get 2 abilities. If people like how I executed it, I'll start writing out some puzzles on paper.

I like the concept immensley. Reminds me of Dalaran University, only cooler.

Only probelm is that all of your puzzles sound easy.

@PenguinEmperor: I have to start somewhere. Also, I'm telling you the solutions, which may not be so easy to figure out. Especially my one about facing two enemies with nothing but your spells and a rod of lightning.

Wouldn't you just need to lure them together and then chain lightning them with your rod?

Lightning shield, not chain lightning. My fault for not being specific.