Current Events > do you like games within games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

the game I'm making has arcade games that can be played. so far planning on just two of them (twin stick shooter type game, crazy taxi type of game).

then also it'll have a home console that can get unlocked near the end of the game, which will play a GTA clone type of game (super basic, like gta for ps1 but even less complex)

but yeah, is that something that'd make you say "wow! cool" or "ew. lame"? it still needs a bit of work, so the imgur video below is just an in-progress sort of thing, so ignore the alligator guy's texture map as the default screen for the arcade (and also the fact that the arcade machine is partially in the ground)

https://imgur.com/a/vNWnP0X

Depends on the game. Stuff like a fishing mini-game or a card game, sure. Stuff like the example, not really.

ellis123 posted...

Depends on the game. Stuff like a fishing mini-game or a card game, sure. Stuff like the example, not really.

there's a fishing mini-game in the game as well + a few other mini games, just not mentioned since they aren't like standalone arcade machines or anything.

also it's blurry on the video, due to setting the unity editor render size to a bit below 480p. actual game is locked 1080p 24fps (i know most ppl want 60fps or higher but there's a reason for the 24fps)

is it just in general you don't like game type games inside of games, or just twin stick shooters you dislike?

There's a game within Catherine i liked somewhat. I seem to recall shenmue having some arcade games too.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4a7b6f4a.jpg

SauI_Goodman posted...

I seem to recall shenmue having some arcade games too.

lol shenmue and yakuza were two of the games that inspired me to make levels riddled with things to do.
it's way too much since I'm making the game by myself, so it's a much, much scaled back version of that. so now it's closer in scale to the mini-games in other games like JazzPunk or Sludge Life.

I do want to do a card game inside a game eventually, but for right now it's too complex and is something that'd set this project back way too far if it got added

I wouldn't mind if it went even further and you could get more cartridges for the console; maybe you could complete some sidequests or something and collect home versions of a lot of the arcade games later.

Loved the original animal crossing with the collectible nes carts.

I like the idea generally, but it can get annoying when I'm trying to 100% a game and then it has games within it that I also feel like I need to 100% to consider the game fully 100%ed.

Kirby is all about this on the switch

No! Leave GAMES out of GAMING!

We don't need your GAMES in order to game.

Iyami posted...

I wouldn't mind if it went even further and you could get more cartridges for the console; maybe you could complete some sidequests or something and collect home versions of a lot of the arcade games later.

Loved the original animal crossing with the collectible nes carts.

I'll prob end up doing something like that tbh, like how in stardew valley you can unlock the two arcade games by getting certain scores.

I do really want to add more games, at one point I was thinking of a full arcade area w/ 15-20 games... but it's too much to do at the moment. maybe once the game's finished/released more arcade machines can be added through updates/patches

but also, tbh, it's the first game I'm actually gonna release and I wanna only charge like $5-7 for it, and I don't wanna overwork myself in case the game doesn't sell very well

Are these like, modes of play for the game youre making which iirc is itself an open world driving game?

or is this like a minigame within the regular play mode?

for me the latter feels like scope creep. If these are ideas you have that could be full games in their own right why not wait and give them the attention they deserve? If they cant hold up on their own then what play value do they really add to the game?

I guess what Im saying is more often than not games within games just feel like filler/padding

Only if its not mandatory like blitz ball

depends on the game

It's a new project, I ported that driving game into this one (now it's one of the arcade machines lol)

but yeah, it's kinda scope creep but kinda not, cus the ones I'm adding are from mostly done projects I've made over the last few years, so most of it's just refactoring to work within this one.
only one that requires a lot of work is the GTA clone so I'm 50/50 on adding it (cus that's the only one that uses cinemachine, which this project does not use)

it's 100% padding lol. it's not gonna be like in your face about it, just a little thing of "oh if you walk up to an arcade machine and try to interact with it... it's playable!" type of thing.
cus tbh the game is 90% an exploration game, so I wanna add some little things to add a bit of variety in some of the areas.
I know generally that'll make games seem unfocused and not sure what they wanna be, but the main goal of this project is more as an art project w/ shaders and rendering stuff than it is a game.

are you still working on your sloth game, btw? i remember you were making devlog topics for a while but i haven't seen them recently

BucketCat posted...

I'll prob end up doing something like that tbh, like how in stardew valley you can unlock the two arcade games by getting certain scores.

I do really want to add more games, at one point I was thinking of a full arcade area w/ 15-20 games... but it's too much to do at the moment. maybe once the game's finished/released more arcade machines can be added through updates/patches

but also, tbh, it's the first game I'm actually gonna release and I wanna only charge like $5-7 for it, and I don't wanna overwork myself in case the game doesn't sell very well

You could always add "more fun stuff to do" docs in general includingpre games and other stuff if it does well, yeah, let us know when it comes out, I will be sure to give it a look.

BucketCat posted...

It's a new project, I ported that driving game into this one (now it's one of the arcade machines lol)

but yeah, it's kinda scope creep but kinda not, cus the ones I'm adding are from mostly done projects I've made over the last few years, so most of it's just refactoring to work within this one.
only one that requires a lot of work is the GTA clone so I'm 50/50 on adding it (cus that's the only one that uses cinemachine, which this project does not use)

it's 100% padding lol. it's not gonna be like in your face about it, just a little thing of "oh if you walk up to an arcade machine and try to interact with it... it's playable!" type of thing.
cus tbh the game is 90% an exploration game, so I wanna add some little things to add a bit of variety in some of the areas.
I know generally that'll make games seem unfocused and not sure what they wanna be, but the main goal of this project is more as an art project w/ shaders and rendering stuff than it is a game.

That makes sense. I think in an exploration game this sort of thing works. I was thinking that this was like, and addition to your crazy taxi game, not the other way around

are you still working on your sloth game, btw? i remember you were making devlog topics for a while but i haven't seen them recently

Yes, but kind of slow recently, since things have been busy with our 9-month-old, so the topic got purged and I didnt make a new one. Its been mostly modeling in blender but Ive been slowly importing stuff into Unity.

I was planning on making another topic soon now as baby is starting to sleep better and Ive been having more time to work on it

The old Donkey Kong arcade game gatekept me from beating DK64 for a long time.

I think it's cool that this is a thing people put in games sometimes but I've never really cared for it personally

I'm all for it if it's optional.