Here’s a weird one I had a half-baked idea for: Tower Defense Metroidvania. The idea is that your an acolyte of a temple (or a mechanic in a space station, whatever), and there’s an armed group trying to force their way past the temple’s traps and defenses to get to the heart of the temple and steal the macguffin; that’s going on in a little horizontal track at the top of the screen, and meanwhile the rest of the screen is Metroidvania gameplay as you navigate the interior of the temple (or space station) to activate defenses, acquire magical relics, and eventually awaken the temple’s guardian spirit. You lose if the bad guys get to the heart of the temple, you win when you successfully gather everything you need to awaken the guardian. In the meantime, you have to decide when and where to spend resources (including time) shoring up the “normal” defenses (that delay the attackers) and when you need to just push onward to awaken the guardian.
This is what I enjoyed about the first Tribes game. I remember wandering around my base, repairing the generators, placing turrets, fixing sensors, and murdering attackers. The rest of the team would be off grabbing the other teams flag or messing up their base.
IMO the sequels didn’t get the balance between base maintenance and flag running quite right.
Damn dude, now I’m actually remembering base maintenance in online competitive games where you play a single character at all. Back in the day I used to enjoy that in Command & Conquer Renegade. Id hang back and repair people’s vehicles and the base when it came under attack.
The only thing that comes to mind would probably be the latest iteration of the Starsiege: Tribes series. Or I mean, the OG Tribes was great, and still one of my most fondly remembered shooters. Probably still some servers somewhere…
Here’s a weird one I had a half-baked idea for: Tower Defense Metroidvania. The idea is that your an acolyte of a temple (or a mechanic in a space station, whatever), and there’s an armed group trying to force their way past the temple’s traps and defenses to get to the heart of the temple and steal the macguffin; that’s going on in a little horizontal track at the top of the screen, and meanwhile the rest of the screen is Metroidvania gameplay as you navigate the interior of the temple (or space station) to activate defenses, acquire magical relics, and eventually awaken the temple’s guardian spirit. You lose if the bad guys get to the heart of the temple, you win when you successfully gather everything you need to awaken the guardian. In the meantime, you have to decide when and where to spend resources (including time) shoring up the “normal” defenses (that delay the attackers) and when you need to just push onward to awaken the guardian.
This is what I enjoyed about the first Tribes game. I remember wandering around my base, repairing the generators, placing turrets, fixing sensors, and murdering attackers. The rest of the team would be off grabbing the other teams flag or messing up their base.
IMO the sequels didn’t get the balance between base maintenance and flag running quite right.
Damn dude, now I’m actually remembering base maintenance in online competitive games where you play a single character at all. Back in the day I used to enjoy that in Command & Conquer Renegade. Id hang back and repair people’s vehicles and the base when it came under attack.
I dig the role based games where deployables and vehicles are a thing. I’m sure there are still some around, but I can’t think of any.
The only thing that comes to mind would probably be the latest iteration of the Starsiege: Tribes series. Or I mean, the OG Tribes was great, and still one of my most fondly remembered shooters. Probably still some servers somewhere…