I want some opinions for a game mechanic, my game is going to be a medieval adventure/obby game.
I might also add some basic combat, so the player also fight enemies along the way.
I’m not sure what the game system should be, here are my ideas:
You have a limited amount of lives, and once you run out you can restart the obby or buy a life.
Problems with this: restarting might be annoying, and I don’t want my game to look like a cash grab.
You have limited number of lives, but there are main checkpoints along the way. Once you use all of your lives you have the same choice as before, but you don’t completely restart.
Problems: might be too complicated?
infinite lives.
problems: less monetization, might be too easy.
My goal is to make a game that is kinda difficult. I’ll have badges to give, so I don’t want this to be too easy. I also would like to monetize my game.
This, along with checkpoints. Lives and checkpoints do not change the difficulty of the game, they just make it more frustrating because the player needs time and convenience to learn. Add checkpoints and don’t implement lives, instead you could:
Give a light punishment if the player dies (such as taking away 10 coins like in Super Mario Odyssey).
Give a bonus reward if the player can complete the level in few deaths. I highly recommend this because it rewards for doing what you want instead of punishing for doing what you don’t want.
Your game would be just as hard as it would be with lives and few checkpoints, it’s just much more forgiving to the player, which is what will keep them playing.
For monetization, you’ll have to be creative. Maybe add an extra reward if the player completes the level with few deaths and they have some sort of gamepass, or make the light punishment even lighter. Make a gamepass for something players would really want in your game, like extra currency for a shop.
I wouldn’t recommend sending players all the way back to the very beginning upon losing their lives. Instead, you could consider a more unique approach by having longer stages (which, for example, take approximately 4 minutes to complete) with checkpoints. If a player lost a single life they could respawn at the previous checkpoint they reached, whereas if they lose all their lives they could restart at the beginning of the stage with their lives replenished. I think this is fairly straightforward, but you could easily condense this information into a tutorial or onto an interface if necessary.
If you did increase the duration of each stage beyond the standard length of every ordinary obby, this would allow for much more exploration and immersion, and I’m fairly confident this would be of great benefit to your game overall.
Since you’re having enemies, infinite lives would remove the level risk players would feel whenever enemies are encountered since there’s no threat of dying or being set back, making them a little useless. Having enemies on an obby is a very interesting idea, so I believe infinite lives should be left out in order to maximise the impact enemies have on gameplay.
Giving users the chance to buy an extra life upon death would certainly be effective monetisation, but make sure you achieve a balanced level of difficulty in order to not discourage players from spending their money. Usually, overly challenging and difficult games tend to be received poorly by younger players, but if this is a fundamental aspect of your game then make sure the difficulty isn’t imbalanced or unfair to keep players happy.
You may also wish to consider selling different powerups for additional revenue. For example, items which would boost players’ combat abilities (such as extra health or strength) and items which would enhance players’ platforming abilities (such as reduced gravity).