Hello, I’ve been working on a game for a bit, but I don’t know if it’d actually be good. The game’s based on Lobotomy Corporation and Wonderlab, both amazing pieces of media. The problem is, I don’t know if it’d be fun once completed.
First Idea
The main gameplay loop I have thought out right now is working (a minigame style system is what I’m thinking of right now) on abnormalities, extracting E.G.O (Equipment) and leveling up to work on and suppress higher-ranking abnormalities. Working on abnormalities gives you energy to finish the day, and you could use teamwork with other players to fight bosses (strong abnormalities) or do core suppression (challenges/limitations). You could also do research for upgrades.
How would I try and make it fun? It honestly sounds boring to me, and I wonder how it’d sound to other developers. Could I improve the concept and gameplay loop? Or is the whole idea bad?
Second Idea
Edit: I come back with an improved idea; A 20 day roguelike, with 5 employees. At the end of the 20 days, employees have to face the core suppression of that department, before moving onto the next. Employees can choose titles and perks before their run to improve their stats and certain E.G.O. Bosses also have a 100% chance to appear on day 10. Don’t hesitate to criticize the idea, I know it’s probably bad lolll
Third Idea
Second Edit: Too lazy to re-explain it, so here’s the concept copied directly from my notes, like the last edit: A 20-day roguelike, with 5 employees. At the end of the 20 days, employees have to face the core suppression of that department, before moving on to the next. E.G.O. Bosses also have a 100% chance to appear on day 10, but can appear after it if voted by the employees. On day 15, employees have to face a rabbit protocol. Every 2 days, employees vote on a department upgrade.
Employees who die during the day only revive at the end. Each department will have 3 starting upgrades, and specific stat boosts. Employees can choose primary titles before their run to improve their stats and get special effects with certain titles. On level 4 employees can evolve their primary title to one of two choices per title.
Fourth Idea
Copied from my notes again. Thanks for reading! A 10-day roguelike, with 5 employees. At the end of the 10 days, employees have to face the core suppression of that department, before moving on to the next. On day 5, employees have to face a rabbit protocol. Every day, employees vote on a department upgrade.
Employees who die during the day only revive at the end. Each department will have 3 starting upgrades, and specific stat boosts. Employees can choose primary titles before their run to improve their stats and get special effects with certain titles. When reaching level 4, employees can evolve their primary title to one of two choices per title.
IMO the issue with a game like Robotomy Corporation is that it follows the gameplay style of Lobotomy Corporation too closely. Not only is it repetitive if you’ve played the original, it’s just a straight downgrade since you have less agency.
I’m not sure how drastic of a change this would be to your concept, but I think a roguelike-style of gameplay would work the best.
Instead of a huge server managing the facility over 50 days, a team of up to five manages a department for 10 days. And only a department, nothing more. This makes individual input matter a lot more and thus keeps players more invested.
To add to the roguelike aspect, you could also extract a special ability from each abnormality (like an attack or mobility move) as well as random items related to the abnormality, sort of like Risk of Rain. As a side note, the combat would also have to be somewhat engaging, at least more interesting than what it is than in Robotomy.
The final day of a run would be the Core Suppression of the respective department, and finishing that day unlocks the next department, featuring harder ordeals and abnormalities to manage.
You’ve been helping me with my ideas a ton, thanks a lot lolll. Anyways, I was thinking kind of a game like SCP Roleplay, but the roguelike 5 player co-op idea sounds pretty good.
I’ve started on the combat, it’s alright so far, but I’d probably need to improve it like you suggested, maybe something like combat warriors.
I also agree that Robotomy Corporation follows lobcorp too close for what it is, and I’ve been mainly trying to avoid keeping it too close.
Sounds great, only thing I’m not sure about is the amount of days. I’d aim for about 30-45 minute runs, but with 20 days that means every day is super short, or the runs are super long. 3 minutes per day is still an hour-long run, and a more comfortable 7 minute day would make a run last over 2 hours!
Now I would imagine some of the early days would be shorter, but it would still be around those run times. Cutting down the days to 7-10 means there’s a lot more time per day to deal with abnormalities and ordeals, without having super-long runs.
Then again, maybe the 20 days would have no intermissions and the players just constantly work and fight throughout the days, which would actually make 3-minute days plausible.
Yeah, maybe shorter 3 minute days for the first 5, and going to longer. I also thought out the idea a bit more, and there’d be time every 2 days to get an upgrade. Maybe I should shorten it, but day 5 for a boss like wn just doesn’t sound right to me. I’ll update the original post right now.
Maybe bosses like WN would only be fought during certain core supressions? Like, Hokma’s gimmick doesn’t translate well to a real-time action game so having to fight WN there would be a good alternative.
Another idea I had was a certain abnormalities would breach at the end of each day/every few days, sort of like a boss battle. This would replace abnormalities breaking out of containment from bad work/guideline stuff, but also means the mistake of one person wouldn’t cause a catastrophic breach that affect the whole team.
Maybe every few days, a higher level abnormality would breach without fail at the end of the day if the employees manage the abnormalities well enough, and wn and ab could be moved to core suppressions, gives good players a challenge, even if they’re managing abnos well. It could also fit within the lore, as Angela sometimes releases abnos if not enough people die. Rabbit protocol could also be moved to day 5.