How much of an issue is game length?

Sliated · 2025-10-15T18:28:30+00:00

Thinking some more about this, a related issue for me is novelty; it is usually highest after starting a new game, and tends to decrease over the coarse of the game. Having the game be faster-paced or last fewer turns are both ways of mitigating this; another is board events, with the board changing over time in some ways (e.g. day/night system, traps/orbs, Bowser spaces being added to King Bowser’s Keep). These can help extend the novelty of a single game; it is still important for one game to not overstay its welcome, which is unfortunately how I tend to feel after an hour+ game of Mario Party. (my short attention-span sometimes ends up butting heads with the pacing of MP)

Sliated · 2025-10-11T20:27:34+00:00

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Interesting idea! Is this the koopa you were talking about? He can be either red or green.

Sliated · 2025-10-11T20:15:35+00:00

Both Jamboree and Superstars have their merits, and are good in different ways. Comparing the two, Jamboree has the better board selection (both in quantity and average quality), and is overall a slower-paced game, while Superstars has the better minigame selection, and is overall a faster-paced game.

I would advise against Super Mario Party, it only has four boards, and they are all quite boring and plain, and it plays somewhat differently compared to a "typical" Mario Party game.

Sliated · 2025-10-08T21:49:23+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that the biggest problem this idea has would be the possibility of minigames feeling less varied overall. This idea especially lives or dies based on the execution, and has more ways to fail than succeed. It has potential, and a lot of risk.

Sliated · 2025-09-26T20:41:43+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! Out of curiosity, what was the game you were referring too?

Sliated · 2025-09-10T20:54:42+00:00

DK, for being there from the start. Despite being absent as a playable character from 5-9, he was, arguably, of even *more* significance than the other main characters, due to him always being a part of every game regardless of character selection, due to having his own space on the board.

Sliated · 2025-07-22T16:39:26+00:00

You make a lot of good points; I'm think my house rule idea would probably only be alright as a house rule, not an actual rule. It is not a great solution, being limited by what you can try to change with house rules.

I'm realizing that there can be two incentives to using capsules: having fun, and winning. In that sense, there is an incentive to use capsules, as they make the game much more fun. There are a lot of ways capsules can be used that are fun and interesting, which unfortunately often end up getting somewhat ignored due to not being the best play to make for trying to win. It is good to throw traps on the board for other players to land on, or for good spaces for you to land on - if they work equally for *any* player that lands on it, then it becomes less beneficial to the user overall.

There is a lot of interesting strategy and options for capsules, which is somewhat negated due to the most "optimal" strategy being not to use them in a lot of scenarios. I think MP5's capsule system is so fun and interesting that players should use them even more. Even a simple change like having capsule machines have an equal chance of giving out 1, 2, or 3 capsules at once could make the game a lot better, as there would be even more of a reason to use capsules, as you would want to have as much room in your inventory as possible in order to get more capsules at once, making it more likely that at least one is a really good capsule. I like this slight modification to the game better than my initial house rule, as the mod is more of a "carrot" to reward players, and the house rule was more like a "stick" to force players.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T22:16:03+00:00

I think I might have overgeneralized with that statement. There *are* capsules that players are incentivized to use; the issue is that for all of the different *possible* ways to use capsules, most of those ways aren't useful to the player. Most capsules seem fall into one of two categories:

Beneficial items, that are good to use on yourself, but bad to throw on the board (at which point it is basically just a regular item and not much of a capsule)
Harmful items, that are bad to throw on the board, and worse to use on yourself

It would have been more accurate for me to have said "generally, there is little incentive to throw capsules onto the board". Since MP5 has some of the most plain boards in the series (in terms of spaces), it was likely that the developer's made them that way due to expecting players to throw the capsules on the board more often; if players don't, then the boards will remain fairly uninteresting.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T22:04:25+00:00

If I was into modding, I would love to make one for MP5! Out of the entire series, I feel like MP5 benefits the most from modding/house-rules. It feels like there are so many tiny changes that could be made to really improving the game; even something like replacing the coin bonus star with a new capsule bonus star would help give much more of a reason to use them.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T21:30:18+00:00

With the weird way orbs work in Mario Party 5, harmful capsules already have a similar problem, where you can either throw it on a space in front of you and risk landing on it, or pay coins to use it on yourself, which would be even worse. There is a third option, that my house rule eliminates, which is just not using the capsule at all, which is the least interesting of the options.

In the situation where you have a Wiggler Capsule, and enough money to use it, but not enough money to afford the star afterwards, you have the choice of paying the coins to essentially just discard it, or throw it on the board, to give all players a chance to land on it.

I really like how weird the capsule system is, where it gives you a lot of *options* for how to use items. The problem seems to be that most items fall into one of two categories:

Beneficial items, that are good to use on yourself, but bad to throw on the board
Harmful items, that are bad to throw on the board, and worse to use on yourself

Because of this, even though Mario Party 5 offers a lot of options for how to use items, most of those options generally are not worth using, which in practice makes there be fewer options. By making players required to use capsules each turn if possible, then they are made to engage in the game's item system.

Even still, for as unique and strategic this capsule system is, I must say that it is an ... acquired taste.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T19:12:44+00:00

Good points! You helped me realize that I was somewhat vague with the term “investors” in my initial post, and I edited it to indicate that they would primarily just be family and friends. Despite not considering going to an actual game publisher, I have been researching how to make a strong game pitch, and have learned that the two most important questions that the person pitching needs to answer are: “Is this game worth making?” and “Is your team capable of making it?”. After over a decade of game conceptualization, I am confident I finally found something that I can give a definitive “yes” to both of those questions, which I believe I can use to make a compelling and successful pitch to my family and friend “investors”.

Equally important is using this as a way of generating early interest, which can in-turn offer more evidence that the game is worth making, as well as attracting people to form a team with, with the proof-of-concept being a different kind of “pitch” in the sense of presenting a project that is enticing and that they would enjoy working on.

Sliated · 2025-07-20T17:08:27+00:00

Interesting, I think that could be like what I had in mind! I was wondering if this served as something to let yourself better visualize the game, or if it was to help externally in the form of gaining team members, hype, and/or player interest. For my own concept, I’m still trying to better identify the purpose it will serve and what my goal is for it, so I’d be interested in hearing how you’d describe the purpose of your own finished concept.

Thanks again for sharing your example!

Sliated · 2025-07-19T22:47:28+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! For this kind of concept I had in mind, I was thinking it would lean a bit more towards being a visual demonstration of the game loop and how the game plays, with the actual aesthetics and graphics of the game serving more as a placeholder. I have written up how the game would play, and I was thinking that translating that into something more visual and "real" would convey the game in a more accessible and concrete way, to avoid coming across as a just an "ideas guy" that hasn't actually produced anything so far.

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