Reincarnation, a RPG where dying doesn't matter
- Frédéric Hatanian
- Feb 7, 2017
- 11 min read
I was watching a YouTube video from Mark Brown (Game Maker’s Toolkit) that was discussing the different ways damage and death are handled in games and how the experience of dying has been the same since the beginning of gaming. I really enjoyed what he had to say and it also made me reflect on the fact that the death of your character is the main reason for losing in many games, but why? In real life, we are constantly reminded that our lives will end at some point, so why do game producers insist on adding that feature in pretty much every action game?
I decided to create this little Game Design of a game where dying is not only unavoidable but also in some cases can help the player to progress in the game.
General characteristics
Play style: single
Game type: action/adventure, 3rd person
Monetization: one time fee
Platforms: consoles and PC
Mid to hard core
Background
Story
Nelfir is one of the last of the Theoricians, a group of religious mages that discovered how to live forever by transfering their own soul into another body. With his brother Zelion, also a Theorician, he lives secluded in a forest far away from the rest of the civilization. More than 1000 years ago, a dispute between the two main factions in the Theoricians order resulted in a war that lasted 25 years and caused its extinction as well as the lost of most of its knowledge. (later the player will find out that this war was caused by one of the two brothers because he did not want to spread the Theoricians’ knowledge while the other faction - his brother was part of it - wanted to put their power to a commercial use, in the end only the richest could have benefited from their services by stealing the bodies of less wealthy people).
After that the brothers decided never to speak of this again and retreat to the mountains where they could hide and let their secrets rest in peace.
The adventure start with Nelfir going to the forest to find some ingredients for his research (time for a tutorial) before coming back to the house and finding out that zelion is missing. Nelfir will then go on a quest to find out what happened to his brother.
Main characters
Nelfir: Even though he can change body as often as he wants to, his entire time is focused on his studies and he does not take care of himself at all, his actual body is one of an old man.
Zelion: he likes taking care of himself and is very much into every pleasure that life can bring to him. He goes to the town from time to time to indulge himself into any debauchery that comes his way or when he wants to find a new body. His actual body is one of a young nobleman. He is older than his brother by a few years.
Narinda: she is Zelion’s lover and Nelfir’s friend, she was born a slave but managed to free herself after killing her mistress and changing her identity. Her hair is white because one day her former mistress caught her husband looking at Narinda. This resulted in forcing her bleach her hair to make her look older and less attractive.
Zinref: he is a Theorician, all of his family and friends died during the war and he now seeks his personal justice by hunting the last of the Theoricians in order to avoid another war to happen again. He is not a very powerful Theorician but he managed to find a way to track souls and contain them inside their body.
World
Reincarnation takes place in the universe of Gorinya, it is a medieval fantastic world populated by humans and animal as well as some monstrosities that were created during the Theoricians war. Even though few people can practice magic, it is present in the daily lives of the commoners as it is used to power most of the big mechanisms: operating elevators, opening doors, raising bridges, creating light (magic is the equivalent of electricity in Gorinya).
Gameplay
Main game mechanisms
The player will be able to play in 3 different forms:
Human: in human form, the player can interact with other humans, sneak, fight and collect goods.
Animal: in animal form the player can sneak and fight.
Soul: in soul form the player can only move around and look for another living animal or human body to transfer in. The player can only survive a limited amount of time in soul form.
In each form the player will be able to move on the ground, but when in soul form the player will also be able to get some altitude and fly around.
Interaction between the player and other humans, animals or objects
1. Humans:
As a human: talk, fight, bargain
As an animal: fight
As a soul: transfer into
2. Animals:
As a human: fight
As an animal: fight, make allies
As a soul: transfer into
3. Objects:
As a human: manipulate (open/close…), steal, sell
As an animal: manipulate
As a soul: go through if is wooden made, the soul cannot go through stone or metal.
Soul transfer
In order to proceed to a soul transfer the player must first eject his soul out of his current body, this can be done by choice or by death of the current body.
When the player chooses to eject his soul from his body then he will simply take control of his soul form and his former body will stop living. He then has a limited amount of time to find another body to transfer his soul into, any living body can be used as a recipient (later in the game some of the enemies will be immuned to that).
When the player is killed, the same thing happens except that the time to find another body is significantly shorter, this is due to the fact that Nelfir did not have time to prepare himself before the ejection of his soul out of the body.
1: this represents the player
2: the body dies because of an enemy or because the player ejected his soul
3: the player takes control of the soul
4: the player chooses an NPC character (or another player in case of multiplayer)
5: the player has to wrestle in order to take control of the NPC’s body (see system below)
6: if successful, the player takes control of that new body, otherwise, back to step 3
Taking possession of another body will require the player to perform a certain anchoring ritual. Once the player has chosen the body he wants to possess, he needs to attach the soul to the 3 main body points. They will consist of 3 bright light that the player has to aim at for a certain amount of time to attach to, then a tentacle of light coming from the soul will attach to it. The amount of time and the speed of these lights will depend on the skill level of the player (soul) and the difficulty level of the body he tries to attach to.
At first, taking control of another body will be easy for the player but it will get increasingly harder as the player meets stronger and stronger opponents as well as enemies that can hunt him in his soul form.
In addition to that there will be an assimilation time needed for the soul to get used to its new body. During this assimilation time, some of the limbs of the body might not respond correctly to the player, for example, an arm might stop its gesture in the middle of an attack. To visualize this I will introduce an assimilation indicator.
UI
The appearance of the UI will change depending on which type of body the player transfers into.
Human:
While in a human body the player will be able to see 3 different UI elements:
the map on the top right corner
the 2 weapons he can equip on the bottom left corner
the assimilation indicator on the top left corner
The assimilation will work in the same kind of way as a body damage indicator, when the player transfers into a new body, it will be completely red at first, then with time it will become more and more white meaning that the soul is getting used to its new body. Any limb marked in red is susceptible to produce some failures.
b) Animal:
While in an animal body the player will see 3 UI elements:
the map
the scent gauge in the bottom left corner
an image of the animal related to the scent
The scent gauge is a way for the player to find animals located close to him and try to make them join him with a wild roar. Instead of showing the potential friendly animals on the map, the player will have to look around to find the scent of an animal (the type of animal associated to that scent will be shown on the right in the image location). The gauge will fill up as the scent gets stronger and the player gets closer to the other animal and it will empty if the player goes the wrong way.
c) Soul:
While in soul mode, the only UI element that the player will see is the maps. In addition to that the game will appear to be in a foggy atmosphere (other dimension) apart from the soul itself and the anchoring points that will fly around the NPCs (3 per NPC).
Different ways of playing
To better explain the different ways to play in order to progress in the game, let’s take the example of a mission where the player has to still a valuable paper inside of a manor house.
Fighting: the player can choose to take control of a warrior or bear for example and simply storm the place and kill everything that is on his way.
Sneaking: by choosing to take control over the right human or animal, a player can infiltrate an otherwise unreachable place. For example, he can take control of a servant of the manor in order to gain entry, or he could also choose to transfer his soul in a rabbit that will later be killed by the cook of that same house and then transfer his soul inside one of the present human.
Bargaining: the player can also use his money and sociability to obtain information and have people perform services for him, for example stealing a key to enter the manor.
Soul projection: the player can choose to eject his soul (then hide the body) and go through a door to transfer into another body behind it. The soul can go through wooden doors as it used to be organic but not through stone or metal.
Evolution system
Unlike his brother Zelion, Nelfir did not practice soul transfer very much as he disapproved of it and only did it when his current body was about to die. Therefore the player won’t be able to transfer his soul in all the bodies right from the beginning of the game. While playing and transferring his soul more frequently, the player will gain knowledge points that he can use in three different branches: human, animal and soul. Each one of these branches will be divided into three competences.
Human: sociability, strength and accuracy, sneaking
Animal: strength, speed, wild call (animals around come and help you to fight)
Soul: faster transfer (capturing anchoring time), longer time as soul, shorter adaptation time
Body system and area restrictions
The player will be able to influence his efficiency with the knowledge points but the type of body that he is commanding will also influence his competences. For example, if the player possess the body of a thief, then his sneak ability will increase but his sociability will decrease as most people will avoid talking to him.
We could also invent some special quests when this would actually be reversed and the player would need to transfer into a kid’s body in order to gain some information.
In addition to that, some special places in the game will require to be in control of a certain body or your sneak or sociability or other competence will drop. For example even if a warrior is less sociable than a peasant, inside a garnison it will be the opposite so all other bodies will get for example -5 in sociability while warrior get +10
Saving system
At the beginning of the game, the game will only save automatically at different checkpoints and if the player loses his soul, he will have to restart from that checkpoint. Later during the game (see the important moments section) the player will find a way to save the game whenever he wants, but he will only be able to do that in his soul form, which means that he will have to abandon the body he is possessing before being able to save the game.
Game economy
The player will have to travel to different kingdoms during his adventures, some of them using different currencies. Upon arriving to a new kingdom if the player wants to buy something, he will have to either exchange some of his coins for a fee in order to get some of the new currency or do some smaller quests to get the money needed. The player can also try to buy what he wants with another currency but the price might be higher or if he is in a rival kingdom then people might take him for a spy and call the guard (which can also be a good way to go to prison if needed).
Use for the gold:
pay characters for a service to make a quest easier: hiring mercenary or having someone open a door at night to get somewhere otherwise unreachable
travel to other territories: in order to reach other kingdoms, the player will have to pay for transport
bribe characters for information: if the sociability level of the player is high enough, some characters will give him information for free, but that won’t always be the case...
buy costumes to enter certain areas: for example, getting inside a castle is i,possible without a proper attire so the player can either try to find one of the courtesan and transfer his soul inside of him or he can buy some expensive clothing and jewellery.
Ways of getting gold:
as a reward from a quest
on dead bodies
in certain places by stealing
Environment and storyline
Weapon types
Sword
Axe
Knife
Stick
Hay fork
Bow
Crossbow
Shield
Each type of weapon will be found in different shapes and sizes, inflicting more or less damages. The player can only carry one melee weapon and one long range weapon at the same time.
Important moments (chapters)
Nefir come back home and finds it ravaged; no traces of his brother, only a piece of tissue with a mark on it.
Nelfir finds the former body of his brother that was clearly tortured and doesn't understand why he let them do that instead of ejecting from his body.
Nelfir finds out that some magicians are strong enough to forbid a Theorician from ejecting his soul from his body.
Nelfir reunites with his brother that will explain to him he found a way to hibernate his soul in order to let time pass in a safe way (saving system). He also tells him about Zinref and his quest to get rid of the last Theoricians.
Nelfir has to choose between taking possession of the body of a women he has affection for (his brother loves her) and therefore kill her or take possession of his brother’s body and therefore let him make the choice again. The brother can choose to retake possession of his body and then the player will either fight him/win and force him to take possession of the girl’s body or lose and have to take possession of the girl’s body. The cycle can repeat several times until only 2 of the 3 characters presents are alive. to decide which event will happen, a 33% chance rule will be applied
After that scene the scenario will differ depending on what the player did:
if Zelion is dead then the player will go hunting for Zinref on his own.
if Zelion is alive but he had to kill Narinda, then he will decide to retreat in the woods and mourn his love. He will later reappear in the game in order to help the player.
if Zelion is alive but the player killed Narinda, then he will come and help to hunt Zinref, but at some point he will turn against Nelfir.
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