Week 4: Making Players Want To Swap Characters

One of the main mechanics in PartyQuest is the ability to swap between different playable characters that have different attributes and abilities.

A constraint in our current design is that it must be possible to complete any given section of level with any character- if all your ranged heroes are dead, you still need to be able to progress using a melee hero! Otherwise there would be a lot of frustration.

An example of why levels must be beatable with all hero types. Excuse the stickmen!

Some of the most important feedback from Laz in Week 2 is that players may become attached to a single hero, and only feel the need to use that one. This leads to a situation where other heroes go unused, and if/when the favoured hero dies, there is no reason to continue playing.

Thanks to my new group members, we were able to come up with a solution at today's meeting!

The Damage Triangle

Each character will have one of three "damage types". Certain damage types will be super-effective against certain enemies! This rewards players for swapping to the correct character, and encourages keeping all characters alive. If a player was to lose one of their characters in combat, they wouldn't be too harshly punished, either. We're confident that, if executed properly, this is a great solution to our problem.