Multiplayer: Possible MP game modes#1864
I know MP is only “under consideration” but it might be helpful to widen your minds to even more MP related topics :-)
If MP comes to the game i would enjoy different play modes e.g.
Cooperative Building
Shape Racer: Create a number of random shapez against your friends. Who will finish first?
Competitive Mode : Players compete against each other to see who can build the most efficient factory within a set time.
There are various categories such as production speed, resource utilization, and complexity of shapes.
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competitive mp sux
I feel competitive is difficult to make feel substantially different than single player. (Also, it may just be whoever has the better blueprints wins.)
Cooperative would be really cool. Anyone have any more detailed ideas about how to make this unique, fun, and interesting?
I like my games having multiplayer, but shapez is largely a singlerplayer game. Part of the fun in a multiplayer game is actually interacting with other players.
Co op could work on paper, but the game doesn’t really have good incentives for the players to actually interact. I could see it turning into two players on opposite sides of the map working on different projects with no interaction. In my eyes, it would have to be implemented closer to how Portal 2 decided to take on co op; Certain players have access to certain resources and have to cooperate and plan with other players to reach a goal. I think a multiplayer version of the puzzle dlc from shapez 1 could work really well for something like that. For example, make it so only player A can touch one side of the puzzle, and only player B can touch the other side. Of course, if you ever played portal 2 co op, you would know how much communication is a limitting factor on how well you preform.
I still like the idea, but it would have to be a big step from what the game is now in order to work.
The latter 2 gamemodes you suggested would be better executed as a singleplayer challenge mode with leaderboards. If they really had to be multiplayer, though, you would have to add ways to sabatoge / attack other players in order for there to be any real competition (Think Bloons Tower Defense Battles). I personally don’t think that would end up all that fun, balancing turns into a real headache with those sort of gamemodes and it would turn a very relaxing “play at your own pace” game into a competitve stink fest.
Multiplayer, if executed right, can be really cool to see, but the game is built for singleplayer and trying to shoehorn a multiplayer gamemode that doesn’t fit the rest of the design sounds like a waste of time and resources that can be spent improving the main game. My opinion, though, and I’m open to discussion of course. :)
This would be awesome