Maybe I've been missing out on an era of gaming, but while I really loved my Nintendo DS, I never really got into playing the 3DS.

Of the games on that DS though, my favorite two games (by a long shot) were "The World Ends With You" and "Megaman ZX". (ZXA to a lesser extent, but ZXA largely felt like a nerfed and partially gutted version of ZX, despite the inclusion of gimmicky additional battle forms and balance concerns like NOT giving you what is debatably the most powerful armor set right at the beginning of the game XD; ... ...Wow. I think I just talked myself into whipping out my DS (or 3DS? ) and playing ZX and TWEWY again XD; )

I've always had a thing for game design (as might've been apparent from previous journals in the past year maybe? ), and when I played The World Ends With You for the first time, I had this inspiration for a new game like that in this niche genre that TWEWY sort of created. Something that would take tablet input and function basically the same, but as a new game.  At the time, with the knowledge I had then, I saw it being made in Flash, and using something like a Wacom tablet for input.

There were a couple problems with that, though.  One is that it limits the market to basically just users of drawing tablets, but another is that I have no idea how to market flash games, and as I don't have a source of income (and, would want games I make TO be a source of income), that is a problem.  (In hindsight though, there's also the Corruption of Champions game model, but that's a thought for another day, I think)

What with the coming of the modern era of the "tablet devices" (and referring to a "tablet" evoking a drastically different mental image now than it used to) and the prevalence of iOS and Android OS and the growing acceptance of the devices as viable software platforms, and, even the hardware demands of Windows 8, it seems like touchscreen devices are becoming a (relatively) common household concept, so maybe now might be the right time to make that game.


With what I've learned since that game came out (thank you, two semesters I spent at DigiPen, especially that weird pre-Linear Algebra course, even though it was taught by a guy who wasn't really a math teacher ) and the certificate program I've been taking for studying learning how to make things for Android OS, I've been finding that my world is kind of really opening up with the things I can make, and the basic framework for things I want to make are deceptively simple to lay out, if I can just think in terms of how it might be implemented.

I've had some nice bursts of inspiration in the last few days about how to lay out the framework for a TWEWY-style game, but also for a ZX-style game. (almost surprisingly to me, the TWEWY-style game is a LOT simpler of a concept to implement XD; I've been trying to wrap my head around side-scrollers for years though. I feel sort of dumb for not thinking of a solution sooner )
Part of it was because I was playing this purely touch-based game on my cellphone (...well, they ALL are "touch-based" XD; ) called like "Cartoon Defense 2" or something, and it played pretty similarly to this old flash game I used to love where you were protecting a fortress from waves upon waves of stick figure enemies and you had to throw them into the air to die from fall damage to protect your castle. The cell phone game played similarly enough to the Flash game, but there were certain elements of it that just left me feeling like "...I could make something better than this!", and it got me thinking seriously about making those old game ideas again, using that cellphone game as a benchmark for quality comparisons and sales levels.

Just last night, I got thinking about how I might render the engine for the battle system on my screen, and even thought about some nice boss battle mechanics that I could implement, based on the engine I came up with.


So, yeah. I admit, I'm pretty bad about doing "Story Time" before getting to a question I'm trying to ask, but.. yeah.

Question Time:
Did you play The World Ends With You?

If so, did you enjoy it?   If so, what were your favorite parts about the game, and regardless of enjoyment, were there any aspects of the game or the battle system that you felt could have been better?

Most specifically, since I'm trying to recreate a similar battle system on Android and TWEWY focused VERY heavily on player pin abilities (at least, on the Neku screen), what were your favorite abilities / attacks?

I'm trying to gather ideas for interesting player attacks, and many are also applicable as monster attacks as well.
When I played TWEWY, I think I played most often with fighter/melee-type skills, but I also liked things that gave extra player utility, like teleportation, and...
...The attack that makes chains fly across the screen could be the single most fun weapon in the game XD;
But yeah. Since I played mostly from a melee'er's background, I might not think of the other things that could be interesting for a game like this.
So, I'm curious what people's favorite attacks / abilities were, and I'm curious if anyone has ideas for things that they would've liked to have seen, but didn't! ^^