Journal Part 2

I continued to make temple themed sprites, ranging from gems, skulls to patterned hoops. Patterns were often used as decorations by civilisations that built temples; Mayans, Aztecs etc. So I made a simple triangle zig-zag patterned hoop with vines dangling out of it and a skull on a pedastal to reflect sacrificial rites. I also thought gems could be used as a collectible as it suits the theme better than a coin would.

I wanted to keep a relatively harmonious colour palette with the games visual design, during the beginning the area is dominated by shades of green and brown. When I want the player to take particular notice the colours will reflect this, an example being red lava, or the purple gem in the skull. I want to ease the player into the game colourwise and gameplaywise.

The gems will primarily act as breadcrumbs for the player, they will lead them over what would otherwise look like an unsafe jump for example. I didn't want the gems to act as a measure of score, or part of a lives system because I don't find score systems enjoyable unless that score is a form of currency i.e. the Souls in Dark Souls. As for games that use lives, they typically only offer a false sense of punishment, I feel it is a system that carried over from arcade games where lives made sense. In Super Mario 3D World for example the purpose of lives is to deter the player from making mistakes, but the only way it deters the player is by threatening them to start the level from the beginning. If your game was fun in the first place this shouldn't feel like that much of a punishment at all, as such the lives in Super Mario 3D World felt irrelevent.

Instead I plan to work the gems into a stamina system that links with a dash, each time the player dashes a chunk of stamina is used up, the player does slowly regain stamina but collecting gems speeds this up. So the gems act as an incentive for the player as well as a path to follow. Perhaps during a boss fight, each hit on the boss releases a number of gems allowing the player to quickly combo into a series of dashes.