An MLP Game idea

[CameoShadowness 251]

If an MLP game let you gt a cutie mark over the course of the game how you implement it?

 

I would have a system of completion. If you complete all the main tasks, you get the cutie mark.
Completing other tasks determines what your cutie mark will be.
Like if you do a lot of tasks on weather- you'd get a weather based cutie mark.
If you do a lot of tasks on selling- you'd get a selling based cutie mark.

 

What do you think?

[CameoShadowness 251]

@Bakugou is my Man

Okay, sorry about that.

[StormyVenture 31]

That seems like a good basic foundation, but I think it's important to somehow ensure that everyone gets a unique mark or as unique as can be managed within reason. Even at one hundred (100) options, after 1000 people have played there's a pretty good chance that at least 10 people got the same one.

Also as far as the show goes it would seem that a cutie mark might represents what you're actually good at/talented with, not necessarily what you want to/end up doing. Those two thing may not even have a clear, direct correlation  Consider that the mane six have the following cutie marks: Twilight Sparkle (six pointed purple/magenta star with little white stars around it), Rainbow Dash (a cloud with a tri-color lightning bolt), Fluttershy (a trio of pink butterflies), Rarity (trio of purple diamonds), Pinkie Pie (trio of balloons in yellow and blue), and Applejack (trio of red apples). What do these mean exactly? We associate them with the matching elements of harmony, but that could be entirely incidental. Which defines Dash more: loyalty, competitiveness, speed, or being able to do a sonic rainboom? Or how about Rarity? Do the gems symbolize her gem finding talent, an eye for beauty, an ability to make pretty clothes, or generosity?

One way to make this really interesting would be to use some hidden statistics about the character and a way of assessing them. So playing the game becomes a voyage of discovery rather than "I think a weather cutie mark would be awesome, I'll just focus on weather". E.g. let the player be the conscious decision making part, but not necessarily in charge of who the character is intrinsically.

Alternatively you might want to add as many different things for the player to do as are practicable so that they can express themselves.

[Jesse Terrence 2,968]

I think a hidden score system would help with giving the cutiemark. Let's say you have your mini games, and depending on the player's skill for said minigames the player might end up getting its mark. It could also serve to determine secondary mark characteristics.

Taking the gardening example, let's say you have a set if minigames related to gardening, but each one evaluates different aspects, like prunning, watering, soil and seed selection and so. If the player aces those mini games over any other ones from different talents (let's say you make musical ones too and weather control ones), the game could trigger the cutiemark adquisition event and then evaluate which of the aspects was the stronger for the player (let's say the player got the highest score of the gardening mini games at the seeds one, and his second best was prunning), and then the game generates the cutiemark based on said scores. In my example, the foreground could be a number of seeds and a prunning tool as the background. You'd need several designs of each element to let the game pick randomly each so cutiemarks have some variety and less players get the exact same cutiemark.

[Splashee 28,564]

9 hours ago, Jesse Terrence said:

I think a hidden score system would help with giving the cutiemark.

That is a pro game designer idea. Just remember to let the player see the progress somewhere, even if it is also a secret hidden thing. Without any guidance for making progress, players get bored and give up

[CameoShadowness 251]

On 8/10/2020 at 7:02 AM, StormyVenture said:

One way to make this really interesting would be to use some hidden statistics about the character and a way of assessing them. So playing the game becomes a voyage of discovery rather than "I think a weather cutie mark would be awesome, I'll just focus on weather". E.g. let the player be the conscious decision making part, but not necessarily in charge of who the character is intrinsically.

Alternatively you might want to add as many different things for the player to do as are practicable so that they can express themselves.

 

On 8/10/2020 at 7:20 AM, Jesse Terrence said:

I think a hidden score system would help with giving the cutiemark. Let's say you have your mini games, and depending on the player's skill for said minigames the player might end up getting its mark. It could also serve to determine secondary mark characteristics.

Taking the gardening example, let's say you have a set if minigames related to gardening, but each one evaluates different aspects, like prunning, watering, soil and seed selection and so. If the player aces those mini games over any other ones from different talents (let's say you make musical ones too and weather control ones), the game could trigger the cutiemark adquisition event and then evaluate which of the aspects was the stronger for the player (let's say the player got the highest score of the gardening mini games at the seeds one, and his second best was prunning), and then the game generates the cutiemark based on said scores. In my example, the foreground could be a number of seeds and a prunning tool as the background. You'd need several designs of each element to let the game pick randomly each so cutiemarks have some variety and less players get the exact same cutiemark.

 

Honestly you guys covered it pretty well. While I wasn't gonna go into detail you guys had, I did have the idea of having things like what will determine how many repeats of your main mark there are, like if you deal with multiple people/games if the same topic you would have between 3-5 flowers/seeds and such.

 

On 8/10/2020 at 4:30 PM, Splashee® said:

That is a pro game designer idea. Just remember to let the player see the progress somewhere, even if it is also a secret hidden thing. Without any guidance for making progress, players get bored and give up

idk why I had this idea but maybe something along the line of "episodes" along with day/night to show progressions of various kinds. Like each episodes has specific events which introduces you to said minigames and such and the day and night cycle to keep track of in game time. Of course there are non "episodes" so you can do what ever you want and such but the episodes help guide you to doing different things and the final episode would be you getting your CM ending the series... Except that you really just get an extra "Season" so you can keep playing and enjoying yourself. :p

Like the first "episode" would be you going to Ponyville and setting in which introduces you to the characters and setting and such...

 

idfk this is just me throwing ideas. what do y'all think?

[CameoShadowness 251]

Not exactly what I would do for time keeping but one of the ideas I had. The middle symbol would slowly rotate from the sun to moon to show day and night (and slowly you change in color too)

Sybol found here

[CameoShadowness 251]

So here is an idea I had to match with this.

if you are an Earth Pony you will get flowers. Flowers have different meanings. Here are just SOME examples I could think of.

The flowers for beauty (so if you join beauty contests a lot)

-American Cowslip
-Poly colored Daisies (by default minimum of three)
-French Honey Suckle
-Glory Flower

Honest flowers (always choosing to be honest)

-Nightshade (May include fruits)
-white chrysanthemum (not possible if you get a white pony unless you get a secondary mark)
-Bittersweet (may include Nightshade)

Secondary marks maybe a heart (for love if its the only thing you do), a Sun (if only active in mornings/do those things in mornings only), A moon (same as the sun but added thing of time like day of the week for each phase) or lightening if you're fast.

 

For pegasus Weather marks will be a thing.

Speedsters will have things like Lightning, tornadoes, blasts of wind.
Those who can take it slow may have fluffy clouds.
 

idk this is just a tangent.