As my main focus for this project, it is essential that the game’s mechanics match up to the game’s overall feel, themes and design. As an action-adventure game, the mechanics should be combat-centred yet also coincide with the underlying message of the game’s story.
Death System
Due to the Knight being the toy of a young child, it wouldn’t make sense for “death” to effect him, as the world he exists in is simply the imagination of the boy. However, it would make sense for his death to effect the boy’s perception of the Knight. By this I mean – due to the boy’s frustration over his toy “dying”- he could provide the Knight with unrealistic “god-like” abilities.
These abilities can only be taken from enemies that the player has defeated, as the boy would affectively be stealing abilities of these enemies in order to give to the Knight. This would also encourage the player to think about what areas they explore after unlocking certain abilities.
However, this would incentivise players to keep dying in order to gain abilities. In order to prevent this, each death also hinders the player as the line between imagination and reality becomes thinner and thinner. After every death the player character becomes more and more stiff – slower/more rigid animations and less responsive inputs. After x amount of deaths the Knight becomes completely stiff and the player reaches the bad ending, the Knight realises he is only a toy and the boy is left to lay silently on his bed.