I’ve had this idea for a game where you play as a wizard of some kind. It doesn’t have to actually be a wizard, but whatever explanation for all these mechanics, these are what I had in mind.
The format of the game
My current theory for the game is that you have some goal. I haven’t exactly worked out what the goal is yet, but I’m thinking it may have to do with exactly what ‘class’ of magic user you choose. Throughout the game, in accomplishing your goal, you go through different worlds(In a not-completely-linear but not-completely-nonlinear way) where each world is focused on the use of a particular kind of magic to progress, usually through some kind of puzzle.
The magic user types
1. The wizard
The wizard learns through study. Perhaps you’re slowly taught to decrypt and create different kinds of runes. Perhaps abilities are hinted at through books and other people. With this magic user type, maybe your goal is to be an ‘arch mage’, knower of all.
2. The Paladin
This, I’m thinking has to do with managing your relationship with the in-game gods. Whereas I’m considering that the ‘father of all gods’ will be unhappy with great injustice either way(Meaning this game could punish you for GTA style random acts of evil, which might sidestepping puzzles?), you have to learn about the gods, pick a patron god, and please them, without displeasing any too much. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make any particular god specialized in any one form of magic; perhaps the ‘grand god’, as I’ll call him, rewards you for your service to his children with power, and the children themselves do something else. I’m also thinking that your prayers have to be correct and specific; since gods have specialties, praying to a god of travel and freedom about the great wisdom learned by staying put and listening to your superiors is a bad idea. Even praying to water to this god, instead of to a water god(If you would have picked them) would be a bad idea.
The different kinds of magic
1. Trick magic
The idea behind trick magic was things that fall into either the category of being not very useful, or ones which are useful but don’t fit elsewhere. I imagined levitation would be here, as well as purely aesthetic spells.
2. Psychomancy
My idea here was to interface with the mind itself. I wanted to split this into two parts I’m thinking you can make inanimate objects conscious with this, although it requires imbuing a magical ‘mind’.
1. The conscious
What I had in mind here is being able to change the internal dialogue of the person, making them either hear voices or seem to ‘say’ things they didn’t purposefully say. However, I had another idea which is the ability to mess with their belief systems in one way or another. This is also an opportunity to show off how ‘organized’ and intelligent the person are. If a belief system is based on evidence, hierarchical, and organized, it should be harder to ‘mess with’. I imagine it as a node graph, although I’m not exactly sure how you’d “pick apart” a belief quite yet. Perhaps it has to do with looking for contradictions.
2. The unconscious
Since the body and mind are somewhat linked, there will be some physiological things here(Sweating, heart rate), but some other things I had in mind were:
- Feeding the subject ideas (Since new ideas come from the unconscious). These would enter into the ‘conscious mind’
- Directing the subject’s attention. Highlighting objects for them to show interest in, or causing them to ignore certain things
- modifying more fundamental, unknown axioms. Whereas the conscious mind deals with “What you believe”, the unconscious deals with “How you see the world”.
3. Corpomancy
My idea here was a more in-depth alteration of physiological functions. It would be done through small minigames, I’m thinking. Something rhythm-based for altering heartrate, for instance. Lots of biological things, and perhaps they should be tied together by the literal systems that support eachother; the vascular system, the lymphatic system, etc Can’t think of any obvious way to add difficulty while still keeping things in the form I want to, but that’s the idea.
Another idea is that you can make inanimate objects animate by giving it ‘magical substitutes’ for limbs, brain and a heart
4. Necromancy
This would be a combination of corpomancy and psychomancy used on a dead person. Just corpomancy, and you have a zombie. These are useful, as you can easily give them commands and they will follow. Since they have no consciousness to speak of, whatever you tell it to do from there, they will follow(This would either be in the form of games like dwarf fortress, or of instruction nodes with similar format to things like scratch) . Just psychomancy wouldn’t work as there’s no body to sustain a mind.
If you have many bodies at your disposal, I imagine you can deal with all of them as if they were one.
5. Technomancy
The ability to modify technology at will. I definitely want some programming and/or circuit gameplay. Probably going to be a zachtronics-like section where you’re dealing with the computers, and maaaybe a hack-and-slash like metaprogramming where you can change features of the game to fit your bidding. maybe
6. Chronomancy
The ability to time travel. I’m thinking this is in the form of slowing things down, speeding them up, or reversal in time(Perhaps, reversing yourself in time, and it’s like everything else reverses and you stay still). My idea is that this mostly works on an area(Whereas you follow an object with the area to continue reversing it) or an object.
7. Elemental magic
The ability to transmutate one element into another, and to move elements (Advanced levitation), and to destroy them. I imagine this would involve a rune or pattern for each kind of element, or perhaps something to do with tuning wavelengths?
Some basic aesthetic considerations
I imagine this game as a 2d sidescrolling platformer because it’s simple and that’s what I like. I also imagine you could have different shaders and outfits unlocked as you finish a world, themed around the world. Since trick magic is “Basic miscellaneous spells that don’t fit into a particular category, often useful but sometimes useless”, I’d probably have it be the classic blue background white star wizard outfit.