From Superstition to Game Mechanic

In Skullpogo, there is a stage called the Pumpkin Patch. It is a level of living Jack-O-Lanterns, Witches in the sky, skeletons, ghosts, and other halloweeny creatures. With this fun, albiet a bit cliche, group comes a great set of gameplay possibilities, no?



Witches can fly on broomsticks, but they are also associated with black magic: turning people into frogs, curses, cauldrons of bubbling brew. The amount of ways such fantastic folklore can transist into the world of games is innumerable! But this makes choosing the best way to apply such an idea to a game a challenging task; for some, it may be a bother, but for me it is the most enjoyable stage of creating games!



Today on the menu are a very popular piece of folklore, the Black Cat.



For centuries, Black Cats have been blamed for the worst of the worlds problems. From the worst earthquakes, famines, plagues, deaths in the family, stubbed toes, and burnt muffins, the fault has lain with our small black furry friends. No, this isn't me trying to be subtly rascist, this is something we call "Superstition".

n. An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.

In other words, people believed that Black Cats are bad luck; in fact, many people still do, believe it or not! There have been movies about it, books about it, and even Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story about it. So how does a myth like this come into existence?

In ancient Egypt, cats were actually worshipped. And why not? They are cute, are (or at least can be) graceful, they eat mice and other vermin, and are easily tamed. But over the years, and into the middle ages, cats gained a new reputation. It was believed that Witches were able to transform into cats, and cats started becoming associated with black magic and other satanic beliefs. When a Black Cat crossed your path, it was believed by some that it was actually a Witch in disguise, and you'd be granted bad luck from the experience.



So how can bad luck be turned into good gameplay? I could go the easy route, and make it so that when you hit a Black Cat in the game, you are subsequently punished with fewer powerups, weaker combos, and less enemy appearances for a period of time. But really, how much fun is that? One of my core focuses with the design of Skullpogo is keeping it an all-around positive experience; why make something into a negative gameplay mechanic when it can be turned into a positive one instead?

"Hmmmmmm..."



So who says that the Black Cat has to bring bad luck to the player? Skullboy has enough bad luck as it is; he's kept imprisoned by Wizard magic, and forced to protect them from all sorts of goblins and ghouls, many of which are often products of their own magic foolery! So I decided that this bad luck will go to help you out, because it'll be your adversaries on screen that suffer from it.

So my final idea: hit a black cat, and you go into "Bad Luck Mode"! While in this mode, which lasts for a short period of time, enemies may slip and fall, anvils might fall from the sky and land on their heads, perhaps they will just... spontaneously combust. While this is happening, you can go mad with your pogo stick, picking off enemies that have taken a tumble on the ground and scoring combo points from those unfortunate enough to suffer an unlucky fate.

And all thanks to an age-old superstition, cooked up by fanatical priests centuries ago. Funny how that works.



If you liked the article, leave a comment! This is most-likely the first in a series of game design articles that I will be writing up, which basically focus on taking otherwise mundane or taken-for-granted aspects of games and turning them into interesting and engaging experiments through research and creativity.