I have a feeling that this is going to be the case. Palworld is not copying anything so it’s not copyright and doesn’t even need a “fair use” argument for it. The patents of gameplay mechanics don’t really hold up in court.
Nintento’s legal battle chest is stuff of nightmares for smaller companies and they should be countersued for anti competitive behavior.
Yeah, they should absolutely argue that storing things, alive or not, in capsules has been used in numerous movies and shows and that the patent is invalid. Big corporations make tons of patents all the time just in case and then see if they hold up in court later, such as Nintendo with their pokeballs in this case. They still don’t know whether Palworld is an infringement or not
In a game where you can dodge attacks 2x damage makes a lot more sense than 2x health. They could also just increase game speed by 10-20% to make everything more chaotic. More enemies + more drops also works pretty well IMO but a sponge just makes everything take sooooo long. RPGs already often have long battles that can take 10 minutes and making the 20 where you use up all consumables, ammo etc is just bad.
Because it’s just good. It’s like a modern indie game with big bucks software company money. They got top notch crew for everything and managed to make combat not feel like a chore in a JRPG with great music and story.
I mean, it’s hard not to like it. Recommend SNES version btw, modern versions are not as nice.
It’s a tricky balancing act. They need to recover the investment as early as possible to pay less in capital costs but doing that will mean that later on when the product is sub-par it will cause problems and extra work.
Since the engine, game logic, art, story, testing is so heavily coupled together changing the engine a little bit could cause a month of work down the line.
I think personally the best way is to start by making an engine or taking one off the shelf and then write a mini version of the game with shit art that has a lot of bugs.
At the same time making models with hitboxes that all have the same physical properties otherwise, dialog content and recordings and all other content that can be done separately.
Once that is fun to play then you can start working creating a slightly bigger system with a single short storyline to have a cohesive experience and will have the genaral feel of the game.
Once everything above is done setting up a closed beta is the way to go. Take some feedback, add features and redo the small story to be more fun.
Then once everything is a fun experience but people just want more you do the whole everything.