Hi Devs,
I’m currently making a small third person parkour game and it’s developing pretty well (I’m not sending screenshots yet, I’m not sending “leaks” before release). I noticed that I currently have created some maps that you can speedrun or finish without a time limit. They also have different modes (lava mode (lava chases you, etc). The problem is that I have no ideas how to keep players in the game. I need something like a unique system to keep the maps fun. Similar to the epic minigames, I want to create an in-game store, but I don’t have a plan for what to put in there… Basically, I’m currently looking for ideas for a parcour game and some marketing strategies. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a lot in advance.
A monster that chases you, and depending on how fast you escape from it, the amount of points you earn. I think also using rounds would work. You could put several players in each round and they all have to run and get chased by the monster while parkouring.
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Do note that a lot of this is personal ideas- as I treat game design with my own perspective.
"…a unique system to keep the maps fun…"
I’d recommend creating reskins of the same maps (similar to how Epic Minigames does it).
Another good idea would be to create it so that maps have different paths that can either save time or give a reward in turn for the difficulty of traversing it.
You could also make it so that maps are randomly generated to some extent- whether thats moving just a few parts, or entire sections of the map.
"I want to create an in-game store, but I don’t have a plan for what to put in there…"
The store can have the classic things such as trails, titles, or other fun items. If you are looking to keep players though. Then I’d recommend putting in different skills or items that can be used in round to alter the gameplay!
Think of the Roblox game “Parkour”. As you play the game and progress- you can unlock items such as grapple hooks that allow you to play the game in a different way!
If you want, you can add as many of these types of items as you want. You could even make it a skill tree or stat system that allows you to upgrade certain things. For example- your jump height, how fast you accelerate to top run speed, how far you could wallrun, etc.!
That’s all I have for now!
I hope this gives you some new ideas or helps you out some. I don’t know exactly what style you are going for in your game, but I hope some of this applies!
If you have any other questions or need any other ideas I’ll be glad to help! Have a good day :]
Wow, I’m speechless… all these ideas you’ve given me here are worth their weight in gold. The jumppower upgrade idea (you get points after each run that you can spend on trails and other cosmetics, BUT you can also buy useful things. For example you can upgrade speed, jumping power and something else like in an upgrade tree. The stronger you are, the harder, higher or longer the parkoure will be. Also, you can choose different styles of cards). I put all this together now from your really awesome ideas! Thank you so much!!! I actually have one last question. Do you guys have any ideas on how I can bring different styles of cards into the difficulty? (My basic idea would be that you can unlock maps after certain levels. The only problem would be that you could play through the game (until the last map) and then eventually there would be an end. Any idea how I can create (like epic minigames) a system that there is never a real ending. (For example rebirths as an option). Thanks for your great ideas, I really appreciate it! (For the random maps I would need to brush up on my scripting skills to understand procedural writing) 
Glad it was of some help!
As for your new problem…
"The only problem would be that you could play through the game (until the last map) and then eventually there would be an end."
Sadly there is no real way to fix this problem unless you integrate something like procedural maps (at least not that I can think of).
There is ways though that you can try to keep players engaged so that they’ll reach the end of the game slower!
I’d recommend adding different challenges to maps! Such as complete the map in XX:XX time, jump less than X amount of times, complete the map using only X powerup / item.
These are easy to add onto existing maps and give it replay value!
You could also try to make a sort of B-side for the game- so once you’ve finished the entire game. You can then swap to the B-side that will have the same maps- but with extra difficulty / new challenges. You could even make it so that B-side maps only unlock after the previous B-side map’s challenges have been completed!
Hope this helps you again!
Sadly I don’t think you can make a truly infinite game without procedural generation. You can definitely do things to increase the life expectancy of the current game though.
(By the way, rebirths are a prefectly fine idea- so if you want to do that it’s fine. This is me personally, but I’d try to avoid them as they encourage just repetitive play- not engaging play)
Hey there, sorry for the late reply. Thank you for your ideas again, they are really helpful! Challenges is actually a great way to solve this. Making daily challenges + maybe some daily race maps, where you can race against real players (players would be set to transparency 0.5 so you don’t loose overview in racing). Maybe also a global leaderboard with players with most points or strongest ones. In addition, maybe (for a map) theres 3 different difficulties. Just brainstorming ideas right now but I with your help I see the whole game system in the future lol
Good! Glad it was of some help! I said this a lot but just to remind- a lot of this is my perspective on how I would do things.
I highly recommend you also reach out to other people, or do what you are doing and just use what I’ve said as a baseline to build upon!
Once you have some sort of finished project- the DevForum is also a great place to post your creation for feedback! Though it may be harsh at times, it will be good criticism!
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