New Game: Havoc

Game Ideas
#1

Figured I’d hop on the new game train this week with another small idea I’ve been playing around with :slight_smile:

Havoc is a simple party/action game (loosely) inspired by the practice of “Egg Jarping”. Players each take control of a single blink (their “Knight”), choosing between 3 weapons to use in their fight against other knights. Once their weapon is chosen, players enter their knights into a “free for all”, trying to stab/slash/cleave the other knights in a fight to be the last knight standing. Once a knight takes 3 hits, they’re knocked out of the round.

Can be played with 2+ blinks and 2+ players (the more the merrier, within quarantine guidelines of course).

Code and full instructions may be found here:

Notes:

  • This is very much an experimental work in progress. The game plays best when all players use the “Axe” weapon, but I wanted to give players additional options to see how they change up the game. Let me know your experiences with different weapons! For example, try having 1 player play with the chakram, and let 3 others can take them on using only swords!
  • I’m using this as a chance to improve graphics programming. Most of the visuals you’ll see will hopefully see improvement over time.
3 Likes
#2

@jrcwest I absolutely love the concept of this game! It seems like it would be a ton of fun, and I’m also a sucker for a good “battle royale” style game. I do have one idea which might potentially help balance the weapon types. Have you considered giving each weapon a different amount of starting health? The sword could start with 5 health, the axe with 4 health, and the Chakram with 3 health. I think this might help balance the gameplay and give players more incentive to choose the weapon types with less attack faces. The non-attack side lights could even be used to keep track of health and decrease after each hit taken. I think this methodology might also make it so you could add two additional weapons: one with 4 attack sides and 2 health (perhaps a Mace?) and another with 5 attack faces and one health (maybe a War Hammer?). Just a thought. I honestly think the game is awesome as is too!

1 Like
#3

Thats a pretty solid idea to help balance the weapons out some more. The issue I was kind of running into when testing the different weapons is how difficult it can be to keep track of where your faces are pointing (hence why I suggested the axe as a good starting point).

I left them as-is though because I wanted to see if they would make useful handicaps - if someone isn’t as quick as quick or skilled at the game as another player, the better player could take the sword, or let the weaker player go to the chakram to give them fewer openings. I havent really been able to play test with enough people though to determine if a handicap feature is really worth keeping or not. I’ll definitely try playing with different heath levels and see how it feels.

1 Like
#4

I can definitely see how it could be hard to keep track of where the blink faces are pointing, especially when crashing them together with other player’s blinks. I think that is one of the reasons that this game could actually have a surprising amount of strategy involved. Play testing will probably really be key to balancing the weapon types if you decide to go that route. The ability to implement handicaps to level player ability is also a cool idea as well though. I’m really excited to see what you come up with and to eventually try it out when I can!

1 Like
#5

I’m taking a spot in this topic and also some popcorns to watch how it evolves! :crazy_face: (Who knows, maybe it becomes the most comented post of the month like “Nothing”)

As always, a great idea from @jrcwest !!!

Actually, reading your idea, and the amazing 2+ blinks needed, just came to my mind a new game that I want to develop for 3 blinks and infinite players :grin:

As @TheGoodSire said, the face topic should be playtested to find a good balance with the weapons. Waiting for my blinks to try this amazing new games and give you some feedback!

2 Likes
#6

Thanks for the feedback @Confus3d! I really hope other people get a curve to try it and let me know how it plays. I only have one other person to test with at home and our experience was a little hit and miss.

And I think I’m starting to favor making games that scale from at least two to a mass amount of players :slight_smile: looking forward to seeing what idea you came up with!