Thread: Aigis Game Design Review

Because I'm toying with the idea of designing an Aigis like game in the future, I wanted to break down what Aigis had going for it in gameplay design. Mainly because Aigis is less an H game and more a strategic tower defense game with an H feature.

I guess the first thing that really caught my attention about Aigis is that while premium units are strong, event units, depending on the unit, can be on par with some of the units from the summon gate. Most other gacha type games usually place all the power units in the gacha (I'm thinking back to when I used to play Brave Frontier, and events in that game were less about featured units for usage and more for featured units for acquisition).

I give it an 0/10 because it shut down. The game design wasn't good enough to stay up.

The porn and the waifus.

There was something fun in seeing the Prince being a unit strong enough that he can be put into the front lines and fight with all the characters that we know and love, whether he's placed right next to a Julian to help cover a path, or has a strong archer/ranged unit shooting arrows to assist with getting that one boss type downed faster, Its just really neat to have the prince in the fray, especially with the whole title mechanic.

well , first and foremost it had 3 things that people like :


1. colecting stuff
2. actual gameplay ( tower defense - which were pretty popular in my days - back in the warcraft 3 age )
3. somewhat decent story that didn't revolved around H stuff (h stuff was cool in the begining , but it gets really old really fast. the fact that h content was not forced down your throat is what separated aigis from other h games)




Also the leveling/cc/aw mechanic was interesting even tho it was a grindfest , and units actually felt good to level up becuase they gained significant bonuses

Originally Posted by lolix

Also the leveling/cc/aw mechanic was interesting even tho it was a grindfest , and units actually felt good to level up becuase they gained significant bonuses

Adding onto this, it struck a good balance of making it take effort to grind units up to higher tiers of power, but once you got a few there, it it only took a bit of dedicated effort to rush a new unit up if you knew what you were doing, meaning that while you might not manage to level everyone, you could still manage to level and use any unit you got that you liked without a major setback to your team, unlike some games where leveling costs can be almost prohibitively expensive as to prevent branching out using new units.

That aside, the gameplay was actually strategy/skill based without much in the way of luck (only really factors in if you use assassinate/dodge units which are not required outside possibly skipping past some harder maps sooner than your team is otherwise ready for them). It also allowed for many possible ways to win that often allowed you to use what you wanted rather than being forced to use some specific winning combo. Sure not all units were equal, but almost all of them were viable.

As others have mentioned Aigis was great because it was an all round great game.

One of the things that I REALLY liked about it is the fact that a working joe like me could put in a few minuets each day and be successful. Most of the other games want you to sit there and watch your character do the same thing over and over....

Aigis was really nice to casual gamers that didn't have a lot of time to play.

I learned a lot about what makes a good balanced web game by playing Aigis. Making a web game is one of those things I want to try eventually too.

I'll start with a few of the things I disliked about it... namely, that maps are all-or-nothing. Either you win and get rewards (you hope), or you lose and get absolutely nothing. Related to this is that there's no way to practice maps. The result of both of this factors is that when going into a tough map, rather than test out strategies it's best to just look up a guide, and then it becomes a matter of trying to follow it as best you can... which can become frustrating if your units aren't exactly the same.

I'm not a tower defense wizard or anything, and to me the fun part of Tower Defense games is methodically trying new strategies and figuring out what works on my own. This game takes that away from me. Either the maps don't really challenge me, or they stump me and I just look up a guide because I can't waste stamina and charisma on trial-and-error. I'm normally fine with slowly figuring things out, but when you lose resources with each attempt, it just becomes frustrating - particularly since Aigis is the kind of game were variations in units, placement, timing, and even order can mean the difference between victory and defeat. There are a lot of ways to go about an Aigis map, and on the toughest maps only a handful of them result in victory.

Another issue I have is that if your browser/computer crashes, or you lose power or internet, you lose that attempt... although that's more of a issue with the way the game handles that, than any issue with the game design itself.

As for the things I like about the game, that'll take a longer post. I actually have thought about what I'd do if I were to make an Aigis-like game, though since I have no artistic or programming expertise, those were just idle fantasies...

My two cents on this, I'll quote myself from a conversation on another thread, regarding MWA's approach to the newcomers-veterans gap, both F2P and P2P

While this holds true for most games, I don't really think it applies to MWA, since there's no direct competition between the players themselves, unlike games like PPS.
PvP and Ranking systems are walls that get larger as time goes by, keeping newcomers (specially F2P) away from getting rewards, unlocking stuff, etc.

But in Aigis, if you fail at completing an event, you don't really lose the possibility of getting the featured unit, you just need to wait for a revival or for another event tha happens to drop the unit you want. And most importantly, you don't have the risk of waiting for the next event, and being hard trolled again by veterans. It is just you and your hard work, what older players or P2P do with their accounts will never prevent you from obtaining a certain unit.

That's one of the greatest things about MWA's design, IMO. You can join at any given time, play at your own pace and eventually get results. Might as well post this thoughts on faketurtle's thread.

IMO that flexible dynamic is a huge advantage, since it allows each player to advance and enjoy the game at his/her own pace, which is particularly appreciated when you see the opposite side in games like PPS.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My two cents on this, I'll quote myself from a conversation on another thread, regarding MWA's approach to the newcomers-veterans gap, both F2P and P2P



IMO that flexible dynamic is a huge advantage, since it allows each player to advance and enjoy the game at his/her own pace, which is particularly appreciated when you see the opposite side in games like PPS.

That reminds me of a browser game of sorts that I played a while back, called Dragon Tavern. While the style was drastically different, it was also totally PvE. It did have rankings, but that was the only real form of competition - what I call "indirect" competition. It was actually really nice, although I'm biased since I dislike PvP in general.