A Simple Game

[Tranxiety]

So I'm working on this new..."less is more" paradigm where an incredibly fun game can be made from a very simple concept instead of being bogged down by tons of triggers and units and features(That isn't to say I didn't add frills, like colors and whatnot just for the heck of it).

So here's my first prototype.
Its a 4v4 on a 20x64 map(Don't worry you can play it even if you haven't played any game beforehand).
Basically you get a defiler, a dark templar, and a floating engineering bay. Its in installation so you can't land. Anyways, you have to keep your defiler and Engineering bay alive.

So the main things you can do are:
Move around your building
Kill your enemy defiler with your dark templar
plague your enemy dark templar with your defiler
Kill your enemy dark templar with your dark templar
Plague your enemy Engineering Bay

Its governed by 3 triggers.
1. Building dies, you die
2. Defiler dies, you die
3. Your opponents are all dead, you win.


So what do you guys think? I've done minor tweaking with mana and hit points but for the most part, and I think it works the way I wanted.

[Frums-smurF]

Seems quite simple even a noob could play....

[SuiCidAl-KiSmEt]

Ya, little to easy, it requiers a little micro though. Try adding more difficult things to make the game better, like adding walls for cover and stuff.

[MidnightGladius]

Maybe you could set up a round system, where winning would give you disadvantages? IE, the losers get faster mana regen, perhaps a one-time-use heal, or something to that nature?

[Frums-smurF]

That would be quite cool, a game with couple rounds and winner get's a disadvantage... I like it!

[Tranxiety]

Well making things more difficult doesn't exactly fit in with my plan of "keeping it simple". I'll try to incorporate some things to block vision maybe some terrain alterations but I don't want to add too much or make it complex. I'm trying to keep it around the complexity of pong/checkers/tictactoe rather than Galaga/chess/tetris.

Something even a newbie could pick up and start playing, while at the same time, allowing for microing and other skills to develop and even team strategies. I'm thinkin of increasing the plague mana cost so its somewhat practical to just plague enough until their building starts burning on their own. A kinda of degrading, inevitability towards death, yet allow them to kill their enemy's defiler if they can to avoid defeat.

I think each variation in the number of players alters the gameplay a little. Playing a 1v1 requires a different strategy from 2v2 and even more different from 4v4. They're subtle but I think it maintains a bit of elegance to it.