Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
Arenas and Other Minigames
Eric and Noah's adventures in our world have been relatively gloom and doom up to now. While they're merely
player-characters and don't mind their status as such, their alter egos (a.k.a. the players themselves) would probably
appreciate a change of pace. Minigames are a classic video game tradition. To take a somewhat recent example,
Grinsia
(which had a mobile release and a recent rerelease on the Nintendo 3DS) has a shooting gallery minigame.
Sometimes, the player just wants to explore off the beaten path and do something unrelated to the main plot at hand.
Sidequests are a good way to do that, and I'll be talking about them in a later chapter. This particular chapter, however,
is all about having fun within the fun that is a game. Meta, isn't it?
Why an Arena?
Well, while being nominally less of a minigame than most other concepts (given that arenas usually involve battling,
which you already do in most role-playing games [RPGs]), arenas require a decent amount of eventing and afford the
opportunity to introduce features we haven't talked about before. Besides, you get to beat up assorted baddies for
fame, glory, and special prizes! What's not to like?
What If I Want Another Minigame?
I have a few more ideas lined up for this chapter, including using eventing to come up with a similar treasure chest
game as the one in
The Legend of Zelda
. For now, though, let's press on with the arena.
Arena Overview
Just the mere mention of the word
arena
evokes gladiatorial combat, as in the times of ancient Rome. In an RPG,
arenas can be loosely divided into two categories:
1.
One in which the player and/or his/her allies fight against predetermined encounters.
2.
One in which the player watches a group of combatants face each other and bets on the
outcome.
The first type is much more common than the second, especially nowadays. You can look to
Dragon Warrior 3
for an example of the second. Here's a list of the things we'll need to have or know:
•
A map in which we can host our arena. You can have both parts of the arena on one map, but
we'll split them into two, to make things a little less cluttered.
•
A nonplayer character (NPC) that allows the player to sign up for arena events
