Child of Light details
Polygon recently published a new Child of Light preview with new details about the upcoming downloadable game. Read on below for the information, plus comments from writer Jeffrey Yohalem.
– Combat system has traditional elements but has a twist
– Game rewards clever thinking over button-pushing dexterity
– One level takes place in a subterranean network of caves back with big spiders and three-legged archers
– One player can play as Aurora while another controls the floating spark sidekick Igniculus
– Head through the caves and battle enemies
– Combat system based largely on the system from Grandia 2
– Sneak up on enemies in order to gain an advantage in battle
– Can attack first if you drop on enemies from above or behind
– Battles are set on several raised platforms
– Platforms were inspired by the designs of opera sets
– Bar at the bottom screen tracks the amount of time between each combatant’s attack
– Small pictures of each combatant will move along the bar as they prepare to attack
– At the end of the bar is a smaller bar colored red
– Characters that are attacked while their picture is in the red zone will have their attack “interrupted”
– This resets their charging time and starting them over from the beginning of the bar
– Dialogue is structured like an epic ballad
– Every second and fourth line in its poem-like structure rhyme
– Yohalem wrote the first 10 pages of the script before he realized it “had to be a poem”
– He then decided to write the script directly into poem format
“We wanted to create something minimalistic that would welcome new [JRPG] players in. We wanted to show people how we felt with the games we had growing up, and we feel there’s an audience out there who has never played a game like this. Then there are people who miss games like this. We wanted to create a deep, passionate story and world that would welcome new players to this type of game.”
“Battles are based on cleverness, not dexterity — they require a lot of logic and strategy. You win fights and earn rewards based on cleverness.
“Video games are still in their infancy, so this might not prove true on the future, but I feel gameplay evolves through society, not an individual. I think it’s difficult for an individual to create a fun game, let’s say — it’s something that evolves organically over centuries, like chess. It takes time to develop these rules, and I think we have a toolbox of mechanics that we know are fun and interesting and as designers we play with those mechanics.
“If you go off and create something that doesn’t build on that any of those, it’s difficult to create something that people enjoy playing. It’s great to create something from nowhere, but most of the time you make that thing and then players go, ‘We like what you’re trying to do but we’ll stop after five minutes.’ We know here we have something people miss and that people love. We can build on it.”
