As I was looking for games to play during my bus rides, I realized the convenience of being able to play phone games one-handed, or just simply in portrait mode. It’s a lot more comfortable to hold, especially in tighter environments like a bus.
There’s lot’s of options for this but they mostly amount to puzzle games and such. Instead, I wanted something more actiony and rpg-like I could play in that format. Most action games are played in landscape as they tend to require more complex controls that aren’t condusive to the portrait play area. That’s fine and all but I just never was able to fully enjoy action games to that depth on a mobile format. Trying to fit complex inputs onto a touchscreen just isn’t that great of an experience so I tend to avoid playing them. Instead, what I want is an in-depth action, portrait-mode, mobile game with simple controls yet engaging gameplay. A big ask huh?
Post Knight
The best example I’ve come across so far is called Post Knight. It has a simple formula where you have a hero that’s training to be part of an organization known as the Post Knights, whom take on missions to deliver virtually anything. Deliveries are often through dangerous territories infested with monsters which is where the knight part comes in.
Simple Yet Extensive Gamplay and Controls
Fighting through these monsters to make deliveries the main bulk of the game. The inputs are simple. You have 3 buttons which are attack, defend, and a potion. That’s it and it’s deceptively simple. The game builds on it but letting you combo and chain moves like attacking after shielding or vice versa to go perform different moves with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Simple controls are great for the player but on the long term can make it difficult to create engaging gameplay for action oriented games like this. I think there’s so much potential for more action mobile games to use controls like this.
Bite-sized Story and Characters
Besides the gameplay, I really love how it melds story between each level. You get bits and pieces of dialogues from characters that let you learn more about the world and about the characters in it. You also get an overarching story and character development the longer you play through. It’s not a lot between each level which is nice since it doesn’t distract from the gameplay but it also gives just enough that you feel motivated and engaged in the world. You want to know what happens next. You want to talk more certain characters.
You have some dating-game mechanics where you can gain relationship with characters through gifting and unlocking new dialogues through that. I think it’s so effective as well as efficient because writing takes a lot of work but this way you get a lot of mileage out of just a few conversations.
Applying To Zombies
I love zombie survival games. One of my favourite classics is the original The Last Stand series. Specifically the second game has mechanics that I think works very well with the simple input format.
Those mechanics include:
- Simple gameplay controls
- point and shoot
- reload
- swap weapon
- In between hub between levels
- Manage gear
- Dedicate hours to scavenging
- Manage gear of your team
- Manage traps
Gunplay
We would have to reduce the controls away from free aiming otherwise it would have to be dragging on the screen or tapping. Neither are nice to use. However, a shooting game isn’t all that enjoyable if you can’t have some aim control. It’s also not that interesting if you can’t strategically prioritize targets.
I’m thinking something in between. Like a swipe or simple button to switch targets left and right. Then a targetting cone that shrinks the longer you stay aimed at an enemy.
Or wait, aiming in 2D only really needs the vertical axis of aim. A short slider could also work to move aim. I saw video about implementing a better method of aiming 2D games that could be a good reference.
Designing a Better Aim Assist for 2D Games - t3ssel8r
I could imagine having an upgrade stat that improves the aim assist to be tighter at headshots or such.
Ideas!
Hub Experience
The Last Stand doesn’t have a strong narrative focus other than some journal logs. I think a mobile game could take some cues from Postknight with dialogue interactions with the survivors you have. This could also go further into survivor management like managing their health and happiness as that could affect their use in levels. This would also be important as you’re sending them out on scavenges.
Of course in addition to the narrative, I’d like to continue to capability to manage survior gear and weapons and positioning to affect gameplay. The Last Stand only allowed weapon changes but we can definitely do a lot more that. Maybe also roles! Survivors don’t always have to be just shooting. They can be doing repairing, recon, healing, and stuff. This would offer a lot more build variety and strategizing as well as personalization. I also think back to FTL where you can change your crews roles on the fly depending on what is needed.
Progression
The Last Stand’s progression involves gathering enough resources to travel to the next location and hopefully making it to a military extraction point. Maybe we could go with a single base that the player is continually improving.
Or an inbetween. As your improving this base, you gain the ability to go further out to collect more and more resources. Eventually letting you traverse to the next location. This would let get more gameplay mileage out of a single location. As well, the location we’re in can have access to different materials resulting in differing base styles, weaponry, and traps.
Even More Thoughts
Actually, the more I think about it, this could also just fit well in PC game. We can move to a 3D game with pixel graphics and an angled top down view. Angled so we get a better visual connection with the survivors. Then now, we can just place the base encampment in the center of the world and have zombies come from all directions. This would also work better if we want work on the base building aspect. Part of me likes this implementation even more than the mobile one. This also allows that aforementioned t3ssel8r video to better shine.