To Infinity...! The never-ending game

All disdain for "Flappy Bird" and it's clones aside, what are your thoughts about infinite runners? Those games who never quite end and just get faster and/or more and more difficult.

I remember one of, if not THE, first infinite runner type games - the helicopter that's on its perpetually last ounce of fuel as you must navigate through an endless tunnel to avoid crashing. That was it - just don't crash. Fly long and make everyone wish you had that kind of gas mileage for real.

If you have taken or would take on such a genre of game, how would you make it fresh and original? (Games designed to mutilate Flappy Bird are acceptable.)

Still trying to figure out if people actually liked the game or just downloaded it because it was well known.

I've been gaming forever, all kinds of games too. I gotta say, Flappy Bird was one of the worst games I ever played. It had a couple of nice design features to it like one finger to play, fast load time, and decent graphics, but that is it. The play was awful and downright repetitive-too boring too fast. I mean, other than a high score, what payoff did it give you as a gamer? Just about every game has a highscore, so really, I just think the game was full of hype and no substance whatsoever.

i dont like flappy either, deleted in 3min... but as it gets popular, it became a social game, its all about leaderboard and challenging your friends. other than that, play value is pretty low.

Different games provide different challenges. Some people build stories, other people enjoy the difficulty of challenge and improvement. Check out the idea of Mario speed runs or the Donkey Challengers. Sometimes it's just about the imrpovement and masters. Infinite runners are about the slow increase of difficulty.

While some won't like them others will.

I am really into the idea of soft limits in games. Examples are infinite run that gets faster and faster, up to the point where the player no longer keep up with it and die. This implies that as you get better and better, you can keep up running longer and you evolve along with the game. Not only in game length, the soft limits (or soft caps) in player progression - like levels or skill powerups - are very promising I daresay. If you can balance 20 different skills capped with a maxiumum level of 10 each, all along with eachother I am pretty sure you can do it if they are uncapped too. Just make the time / resource neccessary to increase the level beyond really big. Especially in sandbox games like skyrim, gta, minecraft, terraria... and infinite grind games like diablo, path of exile... I think soft caps are way to go...

Windwalker - I love your thinking there. Actually, what you describe reminds me of Tetris in all its purity. Reach level 9 and it's nothing but a mad-dash to keep from losing.

jayderyu - Indeed. And that's true for most any genre. Examining the pros/cons of every type of game. Infinite Runners, I think, present a unique challenge to improvement and variety because they simply do not fit into the traditional goal-oriented/completion-minded focus that almost any game promotes. Success is based entirely on NOT losing. LOL

TheDoctor and hollowthreat - How would you guys improve on or contructively twist the infinite runner genre? How would you make it your own?

You're asking us, but what are your thoughts on making it fresh/original?

Infinite runners are about the slow increase of difficulty.

Flappy Bird was just plain hard to start!

TheDoctor and hollowthreat - How would you guys improve on or contructively twist the infinite runner genre? How would you make it your own?

How about I just make one? I'll put one out in a few days. It'll have a few twists, guaranteed. If anyone was wondering I saw there was a tutorial for one and a premade game on the Start Page when you start Construct 2.

Rhindon

Not so true especially in todays market. Many games are geared for the player suceed with that being strongly applied to any game with a story. While the difficulty ramps up in say a game like Dragon Age. The only purpose of that increase is keep the player engaged in the story. Failing in Dragon Age doesn't restart the game. Play one again starts from not far off. Making the value of losing near nonexistent.

Where as an Infinite runner is differnt. If your HighScore is say 2000 and you want to set a new high score then failing at 1900 has a larger impact. The player doesn't continue at 1500. The player if they are interested in the game needs to improve. Where as back to DA, as long as the player in engaged had have basic gaming skills they will get to the end.

Rhindon i'm working on one right now, not a flappy clone, but an infinity type of game with elements from the type of game i like, trying to make it work, hopefully something i can enjoy playing as well as the new generation

jayderyu - Excellent points. I didn't take the high score factor into mind, either. I guess I was thinking on bare-bones terms.

TheDoctor - Be sure to post it here!

hollowthreat - *GRINS* Well, my comment about Flappy Bird was just a bit of a joke given what I have perceived to be disdain for the game. I don't really care, either way. A friend of mine made his own variation of Flappy Bird with a couple of twists. I play it and enjoy it.

Do you have any screen shots for your game yet? Do share!

mrnannings - Heh heh. Well, the one I'm about to finish now is an absurdly simple platformer. Random platforms of different lengths that randomly generate coins to collect. Don't land on the ground, and it'll keep the coin value multiplier on the up-and-up. There's a bird flapping behind - maybe it's flappy bird angry that he got taken off the market (but I didn't intend it to be that way LOL) - who randomly spits bouncing eggs that will *AHEM* EGGsplode after a few seconds. This was purely a challenge given to me to try my hand at a simple game (I tend to think REALLY big and that can hinder me if I'm not careful).

Another infinite runner game I started on is where this "box" generates random other boxes that go either up or down in this narrow corridor. A machine follows behind endlessly...it has two electric crushing arms to smash those released boxes so they don't get deeper into the corridor. The trick is to time it so the arms smash accordingly above or below (they operate independently). Not to mention random power up icons that you have to click on in the middle of it all to make your crushing arms wider for a time.

These are my first two ventures into the infinite runner genre. They're lacking in polish, for sure.

Rhindon cool, whats your friends game called?

yeah i'll start posting about my new game soon, the visual isn't quite there yet, and i don't like to share ugly game haha

hollowthreat - Look up Flappy Hal on Facebook or Android.

I'm really into Flappy Bird right now :p

I think a really compelling infinite runner could have lots of small variations possible that could be combined in many ways to feel fresh. Oh, this guy has a leather jacket and red boots? TOTALLY DIFFERENT. And the mechanics need to be tuned to perfection, obvs, because you're asking them to play it forever.