Chadius:Rhythm Action
Core idea
A hybrid of rhythm and action games. It gives a cue when you should attack, but it allows enough flexibility to avoid completely degenerating into a pure rhythm game. The music would be dynamic, allowing you to make up your own music.
The story would be a tongue-in-cheek parody of action games. Cerb, a devil-may-care swordsman, is cursed. And everything seems to be after him: The Empire, Forces of Nature, and even his family.
Player Behavior
Attack with proper timing to a beat (usually a song of some sort)
It is extremely important that the player doesn't just mash buttons. The attacks must be done with a certain tempo. The attacks should generate the background music of some sort.
Dash around freely between targets
The user should be able to move, a lot. And it shouldn't be constrained by many factors. Maybe a timer/distance meter would suffice. And don't worry about gravity.
Only use the mouse to control your character and his actions.
Simpler controls are better. Also, the imprecision of mice lends itself to more fluid movement, which is perfect for a loud game like this.
A power boost that costs some resource, but boosts your damage output for a while
To help the action game portion, the player has a stat boost of some kind. It should also change the music, or give a much better margin for error. Finally, it should cost a resource of some sort. Maybe limited uses, or it costs life.
Game Encouragements
This is what goes on behind the scenes to help the player understand and adapt to the gameplay.
Dynamic music generation
The player should make the song for the game. The game shouldn't just playback a song and expect the user to fill in the blanks. The player's direct actions should create music. Attacks, dodges, and taunts could be used to make music.
Scaling difficulty
It is important to keep the player interested, and not to overwhelm them with an impossible difficulty. It is also important not to bore them with a trivial difficulty. Vary the difficulty during gameplay, at least until the first time they get through it. Resident Evil 4 had a good idea: to (66% chance) decrease the difficulty if the player died.
Reward streaks.
The player should play music continuously, to help into the groove. The game should reward continuous streaks. A damage bonus, score bonus, or extra enemy stun are good examples.
Background that reacts with the player
It is important that the scene reacts in tune with the player. Backgrounds can light up with well-timed attacks, or particles can move with the player. Or the scene can erupt with life when attacks are properly timed. Basically, add more shineys when the player is doing well.
Cut out the backtracking; skip straight to the action
Nothing's worse than downtime in an action game. Keep the interludes inbetween fights small. This also allows the song to maintain itself without entering an absurdly long interlude.
UI issues
Mouse Control
People want to use only one mouse button
People are comfortable using the one mouse button to do stuff. Adding another button increases the difficulty to learning the game, and increases the chance they'll ignore the game.
I can use mouse motion to move, Left button to attack. I can use spacebar (or rmb?) to activate the alternate mode.
Basically, have the player follow the mouse, and move the mouse with the player. If you move the mouse slightly to the right, have the character look right. Have the player move right if you move the mouse way to the right.
Need good cues
I need to indicate good timing during a fight.
I recently thought about trailing arrows that use opacity and direction to indicate timing. They become opaque when you should hit the button. The direction that it moves indicates whether you should attack or parry. I guess if no arrow appears, you should dodge it.
Seems like a plan.
