Own
Moderator
Several games on Steam have a daily challenge in them. In One Way Heroics, you have a randomized list of daily adventures to choose from and compete in against other players. The world has tougher monsters, or you start with an NPC companion, or all monsters drop gold but no equipment. No matter what, everyone has the same generated world, with the same towns and NPCs generated at the same spots. Everyone plays the same game.
Same thing with Spelunky. Every day a new game seed is generated, everyone competes on that seed and when they die or win, that's it. Their score is submitted and they're unable to play the daily challenge again, come back tomorrow. It's fairly addicting, there's still people who compete regularly for the daily high scores despite the age of the game.
So, here's the thing: You already have seed generation, a scoring mode and competition between players. So why not experiment a little, have a bit of fun?
Add: The Daily Mystery Dungeon.
You select this 1-player mode from the Arcade screen and you're loaded directly into the Arcade run, or perhaps an abandoned and Pumpkin Woods-ified version of Arcadia for ~Spookiness~.
Perhaps you're told the daily randomized settings, or perhaps not. Which would be more fun? Personally I'd enjoy a bit of mystery, figuring out the settings on my own.
But either way, each day every player would play through the same exact Arcade dungeon, with the same enemies, same rooms, same drops, same NPCs, same gold, same cards, same challenges, same bosses specific to that day.
And they would be given three random perks available, same as everyone else gets. If Candy / Muffin are implimented, a number of random Candy Hexes / Muffin Treats are activated to influence the run, same as everyone else gets.
And when they level up, their points are auto-allocated into random talents or skills, same as everyone gets. You level up? You're given a point in, say, Windslash and a point in Insult To Injury. Maybe it could keep selecting skills and talents at random on further level ups, or keep feeding points into those skills and talents, only switching once they're full or at silver charge. Maybe it could do either one, depending on the challenge seed of the day. That could be fun.
End of the run, your score is submitted against everyone else that has ran in the Daily Mystery Dungeon and the option to return is blocked off until a new daily seed is generated.
Come the end of the day, if you're at the top of the list? You get a gold star. Spots 2-4? Silver star. 5-10? Bronze star. Gold is 5 points, silver 3, bronze 1. You get a starcount on your Daily Mystery Dungeon high score sheet, visible to everyone. It could end there, or you could make a contest of it.
End of the week, the Steam server could award some prize to those with the most points for that week. Top person gets a cosmetic face/hat and # essence or something special for their Arcadia town, top 2-4 get some essence and 5-10 get smaller amount of essence. Everyone else gets some participation essence.
The Daily Mystery Dungeon could even have it's own list of points-unlocked prizes, seperate from the normal Arcadia unlocks.
Instead of running the same OP builds over and over to try and inch a few more points over everyone else on the high score list, you force them to adapt to a daily challenge where the only thing they're in control of is their ability to play well within the boundaries it sets and the tools they're given. Seems like it might add a ton of fun. I know I'd have a blast with it, even if it had no prizes whatsoever.
Though I do know that awarding prizes for score placement is a thing with Steam, since Nimble Quest awards you tokens depending on how the team you're on did in at the end of each week on the leaderboards.
It would also give some streamers and LPers a reason to check back into the game at least once a day, knowing that there will be a new and unique challenge waiting for them.
Same thing with Spelunky. Every day a new game seed is generated, everyone competes on that seed and when they die or win, that's it. Their score is submitted and they're unable to play the daily challenge again, come back tomorrow. It's fairly addicting, there's still people who compete regularly for the daily high scores despite the age of the game.
So, here's the thing: You already have seed generation, a scoring mode and competition between players. So why not experiment a little, have a bit of fun?
Add: The Daily Mystery Dungeon.
You select this 1-player mode from the Arcade screen and you're loaded directly into the Arcade run, or perhaps an abandoned and Pumpkin Woods-ified version of Arcadia for ~Spookiness~.
Perhaps you're told the daily randomized settings, or perhaps not. Which would be more fun? Personally I'd enjoy a bit of mystery, figuring out the settings on my own.
But either way, each day every player would play through the same exact Arcade dungeon, with the same enemies, same rooms, same drops, same NPCs, same gold, same cards, same challenges, same bosses specific to that day.
And they would be given three random perks available, same as everyone else gets. If Candy / Muffin are implimented, a number of random Candy Hexes / Muffin Treats are activated to influence the run, same as everyone else gets.
And when they level up, their points are auto-allocated into random talents or skills, same as everyone gets. You level up? You're given a point in, say, Windslash and a point in Insult To Injury. Maybe it could keep selecting skills and talents at random on further level ups, or keep feeding points into those skills and talents, only switching once they're full or at silver charge. Maybe it could do either one, depending on the challenge seed of the day. That could be fun.
End of the run, your score is submitted against everyone else that has ran in the Daily Mystery Dungeon and the option to return is blocked off until a new daily seed is generated.
Come the end of the day, if you're at the top of the list? You get a gold star. Spots 2-4? Silver star. 5-10? Bronze star. Gold is 5 points, silver 3, bronze 1. You get a starcount on your Daily Mystery Dungeon high score sheet, visible to everyone. It could end there, or you could make a contest of it.
End of the week, the Steam server could award some prize to those with the most points for that week. Top person gets a cosmetic face/hat and # essence or something special for their Arcadia town, top 2-4 get some essence and 5-10 get smaller amount of essence. Everyone else gets some participation essence.
The Daily Mystery Dungeon could even have it's own list of points-unlocked prizes, seperate from the normal Arcadia unlocks.
Instead of running the same OP builds over and over to try and inch a few more points over everyone else on the high score list, you force them to adapt to a daily challenge where the only thing they're in control of is their ability to play well within the boundaries it sets and the tools they're given.
Seems like it might add a ton of fun. I know I'd have a blast with it, even if it had no prizes whatsoever.Though I do know that awarding prizes for score placement is a thing with Steam, since Nimble Quest awards you tokens depending on how the team you're on did in at the end of each week on the leaderboards.
It would also give some streamers and LPers a reason to check back into the game at least once a day, knowing that there will be a new and unique challenge waiting for them.
