Tool Graveyard: The Scrapped Tools of Project Fight Club

I'm sure there are some people reading my blog, and there has to be at least a small handful who liked my game Project Fight Club. While I haven't really touched the game in a while, nor have I republished the game as of this writing, I want to take the time to discuss what tools were tested but did not make the cut. The purpose of this post is to focus on my design philosophy on making games and how designing something practical may take some time; you learn more from your mistakes since they help you grow so I'd like to use this time to see how far I've come since then.

Jetpack

The idea of the Jetpack came from when I was contemplating more movement options. The concept was simple: you fly around but your use is limited. Rather than using a cooldown, it used a fuel mechanic that allowed you to relocate yourself with ease. Now, in theory, this weapon would've been alright, who wouldn't want to be able to quickly travel, even if the fuel took a while to regenerate? The problem I came across, however, was that it was way too good compared to the other movement options; you had no reason to pick any other movement option other than Jetpack (except maybe blink dagger). 

If I were to redesign how the Jetpack worked, maybe I would've made it cooldown based and it'd go on cooldown if you were attacked recently. I can't make the Jetpack give you a sudden boost forwards because Rogue Dagger currently does that and items shouldn't make another redundant. Personally, I don't think this tool could ever be in the game with its current theme.

Warp Point

My search for alternative movement options continued with the Warp Point. This tool was inspired by my love for the original gear it's taken from, the Telewarp. The Telewarp gear allows the player to leave a beacon behind after arming the tool. Once the beacon is on the ground, you were free to teleport to the point. The Telewarp is destroyed if someone walks over it. I was so inspired by the design that I wanted the tool to be in the game.

I wanted the tool to be used for juking players or to safely retreat. The tool would've taken time to arm, then drop to the ground. You were then given a button to allow you to teleport to the beacon, putting the tool on cooldown. This seemed fine at first but the tool proved to be too overpowered. Firstly, the ability to teleport across the map was way too strong; you shouldn't be able to disengage from someone and immediately travel a long distance from a single action. Secondly, if it were to be rebalanced, no matter how much you try, Blink Dagger made the tool redundant. The beauty of PFC is that each tool serves its own purpose where no other tool can take its place and this tool just didn't follow that philosophy, it was either useless or made something else useless. This tool just didn't have a place, no matter how I look at it, it won't ever work.

Fire Golem

Now, this is an ugly guy. Wow! He's really ugly!

Anyways, this one spawned from my love for Dota and the hat this guy is wearing, Lava Reactor. The idea behind this one was that it'd work like Warlock's Chaotic Offering from Dota where he summons a golem to fight for him. You would've summoned the large Fire Golem to fight for you. He would have run around and smash people as he pleased. I never really made this one but it was always in the back of my head at the time to make him and the reason I never went through with it should be clear: it's not worth the time to make it. Fire Golem was supposed to be summoned from some Ultimate tool and his duration would depend on many kills you had. The problem, though, is that any AI controlled Ultimate would be utterly useless in this game. Not only that, but this guy is huge! You wouldn't even be able to use him indoors or go through arches, let alone be able to navigate using ROBLOX's pathfinding at the time. It would've been work for something nobody was going to use. The idea of an Ultimate summoning an AI was always in my head but I don't think it would've ever worked. Rely on some AI to do damage and get kills? No thank you.

Falchion

Ignore the stupid thumbnail, I never made one.

This was probably among the last weapons made for PFC. This one had a pretty cool, albeit stolen, mechanic: the tip of the sword dealt critical hits. The sword would reward the player with proper spacing and its weakness was pressure. Testing this weapon was fun and all but it suffered utility. Balancing the Falchion was impossible, you couldn't get a good balance between the tipper damage and the sword damage. 

If I tried to make the tip do high damage and the regular sword low, its inconsistency was beaten out by any other weapon. While in theory, someone could practice landing the tipper and memorize the spacing, they wouldn't always be in a situation that allows you to have the right amount of space. Not only that but, with how the swords worked at the time, the animations that played per swing weren't consistent enough to make the tipper mechanic reliable. Plus, you could just pick up Mr. Slice and have a chance to crit; you had a better chance of landing a crit with Mr. Slice than a tipper with the Falchion. 

If I tried to make the tipper bonus minimal and the sword damage decent, you had no reason to pick up the Falchion, even the Doppelblade would be a better choice than the Falchion. If its unique attribute is to deal bonus damage under a specific condition that's semi-controllable, you'd want that bonus to be worth the setup, otherwise, you'd just frustrate its user.

As a closing statement, I want to say that Blink Dagger has probably ruined most movement options. In hindsight, its inclusion made most of the other movement options redundant. They all had their niches but being able to teleport is just too versatile to give up. In the redux of PFC, I had patched Blink Dagger by cutting its teleportation range in half and increasing its cooldown. It's just silly how the coils don't work when others are near but Blink Dagger does. In all fairness, it was among the first three tools in the game so I felt obligated to keep it. Plus, it was made by my friend GearTitan so why wouldn't I keep it?

PFC was never really a game to start with, I simply put a bunch of weapons in a place and watched everyone beat each other up with them. I didn't expect to have to balance the original tools and it crippled the game's development. Despite this, I think I did a pretty decent job on making each tool unique and, at the very least, situational. Sure, some tools see more use than others, but I always loved how everyone had their own personal favorite tools and load outs.

Although I don't really work on this game anymore, it taught me a lot about game design and dominant strategy and I hope this article taught you something as well.

Unclean Endeavors Completed At a Bargain

Before I continue writing, I want to advise that the following article is a spoiler for the manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run. If you are anticipating reading the manga or plan on waiting until the anime adaptation is curated, you may want to skip this article. For those who have already read the manga, or if you don't plan to, feel free to continue reading. It's important to know that my game does contain these tools and you are susceptible to spoilers. It's also important to note that the spoilers are mostly Stand abilities; there are very few spoilers in terms of plot.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run Spoilers follow!

Back in the Rhythm

It's been quite a while. It really has. I haven't really been anywhere, I just wasn't as active in the ROBLOX community. After all that had happened, I believed it to be best to not be so involved in the social space of others so now I prefer to keep to myself and immediate communities I'm personally involved in. In addition, I haven't really had a need to develop or create small projects so I  tried to make a game myself (which I didn't complete, but that's for another time). Being a core part of the MeepCity development team, I didn't have an urgency to produce a new game so I decided to slowly work on my own larger projects.

After several months, maybe even years, I've decided to go back to my roots and have made a testing playground for me to display all my new creations. At the moment, there is only one tool based on a stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which I've been really into for the past 3 years. I will most likely be recreating a lot of stands from JoJo but in my own style. When developers recreate the abilities of stands from JoJo, it's often for the sake of a combat oriented game and not for the purpose of faithfully recreating the power. Considering this new place is simply a sandbox, I don't have to worry too much about making each stand viable since not all stands in JoJo are equal; I don't see how I could make Catch The Rainbow be on the same level as Star Platinum or White Album but I don't want people running around one shotting people with Purple Haze.

I brought them back!

Another topic I would like to address is the Project Fight Club remake. It's finished, sorta. There's a lot of behind the scenes technicalities that need to be addressed to be considered complete. There's also no proper map rotation despite there being 4 maps and of course probably a hurricane of bugs to deal with along with hastily made item descriptions riddled with grammatical errors. Despite all the obstacles, however, I will most likely publish the game in its current state as is until I decided to complete it. I'll address any overwhelming changes that need to be made to the game like an update breaking the game or something in the game completely ruining the experience. In terms of new content: don't expect it often. I might work on it every month or so but that's the most I'll do for now. The new version of PFC has a new sword but that's all I can recall. There are several unfinished weapons in the game's files but they're not in a playable state. The game has revamped effects, animations, and some sound changes along with a new UI so there's that as well.

Looked pretty good before I stopped.

As this post comes to an end, I want to reiterate that I'm not really working on anything big right now in terms of personal projects, my primary work is, and always will be, MeepCity. Despite that, I will always have a hunger for creating tools, models, and scripts and I have the desire to satiate my starvation. Hope to see you soon.