MNEMONIC - SpeedStack (Mechanic Highlight)
How do you reward players for going out of their way to do something they normally may not do? What can be done to add more decision making to straightforward gameplay without making it too complicated?
These were questions that needed to be answered during our development of MNEMONIC. In previous blog posts I detail about MNEMONIC’s core game pillars and what makes the gameplay fast, fun, and unique.
MNEMONIC is a first-person parkour platformer roguelike featuring an important sacrifice the player must make, one between speed or exploration.
Prioritizing speed means the player is less likely to receive debuffs upon reaching a Gate, while more exploration will give the player more opportunities to find buffs and currency, that of which may cancel out any debuffs they do receive from Gates.
By allowing these 2 different playstyles to co-exist it allows for players to take interesting approaches to a level, but discourages them from trying something different or even punishes them for committing to a playstyle that may be less binary than those options.
When trying out different solutions, I prototyped and integrated a new simple mechanic into the game that fit each of our existing pillars.
SpeedStack was added as a way to incentivize players into defeating enemies as they made their way through the level. One of the common things that was found during playtests, especially for players that were trying to go as fast as possible was to ignore all of the enemies in the level.
By giving the player a reward, a bonus in the form of additional speed, it made the game not only faster paced for both playstyles, but added more ways to navigate the level and explore by giving the player momentum.
SpeedStack works similarly to combo systems that can be found in other games. For every enemy that is defeated in MNEMONIC the player’s SpeedStack is increased by 1, the player will then need to keep their combo going before it slowly diminishes.
Through the simple addition of SpeedStack we were able to make the game faster paced and blend our 2 existing playstyles if players decided to opt for an approach that was a mix of the 2.
SpeedStack did not come without its own demerits however. The implementation of SpeedStack meant more values to balance, as well as changes that would need to be made to both level and game design. Some of the specific changes included making enemies be defeated in 1~2 hits, giving SpeedStack through means other than just defeating enemies, and creating more paths throughout the level as some players may not be able to keep their SpeedStack active for the entire level.
When finishing the first level with the addition of SpeedStack the feedback we then received was very positive and gave everyone on the project a second wind. SpeedStack also opened up the possibility for making the “Stack” a customizable slot that the player can use to give them various buffs if they complete certain actions during gameplay.
To read more about other aspects of MNEMONIC please click here to go to the main page for the project.