AS HARSH AS IT GETS
Mario Kart re-designed as a Survival RPG
Last year, I was asked to redesign Mario Kart as a survival RPG in vein of a Souls game for a job test. This was the result
MUSHROOM FOREST
(Mario kart 8 reimagined as a third person soulslike co-op RPG with a versus mechanic)
Note: When I think of Mario Kart, I imagine a vs co-op with friends instead of a collaborative
co-op and as such, I have designed the game to be competitive between players with other
players acting as serious opposition. The game can, of course, be played online with the exact same rules.
Choose from among 9 damned souls cursed to work against each other's final goals in the
Mushroom Forest. The characters will be twisted versions of the drivers in Mario Kart to match the flavor and theme. The final goal of the first level is to defeat Lakitu The Stormrider, who lives on the checkered patch. 4-8 players can play this game. Other iconic Mario villains will form bosses for future levels.
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Answer 2: Design Brief
1. The game is a third person RPG with the camera locked to the over the shoulder view of the character.
2. Each level is intended to last between 10-15 minutes, with it ending after killing the level boss.
3. The core loop of the game is a little different as the co-op in this game works against other players in an attempt to stop them leveling up by summoning powerful curses. These manifest as a monster attacking the cursed player immediately after being cast.
4. There will always be a meter to the right of the screen indicating the current level progression of all players scaled.
5. These curses are summoned out of the same XP pool that is used for upgrading skills
and buffing offensive. This will give the player a real choice between upgrading or stopping another player from getting to the final boss.
6. To gain XP, the player can kill environmental enemies or other players
7. Curses are multiplied the lower a player is on the power meter. Like Mario Kart that gives drops of more powerful items to the players in the back.
8. Curses can’t be cast down to players more than a few positions below you. This is to stop an already struggling player from being made a punching bag.
9. The game does not restore health automatically and the player must craft potions from environmental collectables. Time spent healing is time spent not gaining XP, thus allowing for other players a chance to overtake. In a very direct way, curses halt progress.
10. The Combat functions on player response as the game needs to play in realtime. When engaged in combat, the player can inflict damage upon the opponent with a faster press of required control combo.
11. The combination is the direction the screen overlay moves in + they associated key for the color of overlay
12. Each key of the xbox controller is associated with a color. Y for Yellow, X for Blue, B for Red and A for Green
Yellow overlay moves in from the right with a prompt for left move and Y key for yellow
If the player presses that combination of two keys first, they will inflict damage and vice versa
13. All four colors can appear from all four directions and both the left joystick and the D pad can be used as the directional combo input, based on preference.
14. This combat pattern is the same weather you are fighting NPCs or other players
15. The player who kills the level boss is the winner.
16. If a player gets killed, they will be regenerated with low health at the nearest checkpoint. Checkpoints will be places at roughly equal distances in the map
17. Curse received by a player has a cooldown, ie. the player can’t be cursed twice simultaneously. This will allow the top player to not be cursed by everyone else and its effects compounded.
Answer 3
Mechanic 1 - alchemy is not tied to the leveling system. This mechanic is intended to reward exploration as recipes for more powerful potions intended to both heal and attack will automatically unlock when the player collects all its necessary components. This is shuffled from level to level and every game to keep it fresh. The player who collects most is therefore rewarded the most by this mechanic.
Mechanic 2 - The total XP gained is what allows the player to level up when they reach a certain
amount. Leveling up adds an overall additive offensive bonus to the character. Essentially, all
their damage is increased by a multiple directly proportional to the current level of the player. If each level up were to offer a multiple of 1.1 to total damage, the formula would be Lx1.1=D where L is the current level of the player and D is the overall damage.
Mechanic 3 - The total XP meter only records the total amount of XP gained by the player. This XP can be spent on either perks, like faster movement or slightly higher health, or can be used to summon curses directly aimed at other players.
Curses become more powerful the higher overall level that the player has. This system allows
for the player to make a choice to slow down another player who may be much further ahead.
More powerful curses cost higher XP and can offer significant challenges to the player upon which they are cast.