This is a One Button Game. Many players can join behind the same device/keyboard; each player only gets one unique button and that’s it.
Objective
Endless highscore game => reach as high as possible.
Input/Action
PRESS = jump up (to next vertical level)
HOLD = speed up your left/right movement
Map
Vertical. Goes upwards. Different “levels” at fixed distances from each other.
Players automatically walk left/right between boundaries. (On some levels, they might wrap around the level.)
Multiplayer
Place multiple people. Here’s the real kicker:
- They start on different layers.
- When two players are on the same layer, jumping goes down. (So, you can only go up if you’re alone on your layer. This is where the staggerstep comes from: you need to constantly wait for players above you when jumping up.)
- When you die, you become a ghost. You can only interact with ghost objects.
- You lose when everyone has died.
ISSUE: what to do with camera? Just don’t allow players to be too far apart?
- The lowest player(s) must always show their own level + 1-2 below them (and then you’re at the edge of the screen)
- The highest player(s) must similarly be able to look ahead.
ISSUE: How to make it unlikely that a single player will remain and just keep playing on their own for 5 minutes before they die? Ramp up the difficulty? Still force it to adhere to ghost positioning?