Gamefying the Abyss Curse: Proposals

I made a recent post asking for ideas and given the unexpected reception it had I decided to compile the ideas you guys suggested on this one! So here we go.

The problem at hand was how to gamefy and made from the Abyss Curse a fun mechanic, instead of just a punishing one, all suggestions I received were great but with different approaches, I decided to divided into two categories: Those go give a solution to the 6th Layer Curse (instant death) and those who not.

I'll start with the second category:

-Waiting Route (suggested by u/Sabetsu): this approach argues to maintain the waiting til the curse effects are over you see in the game, but instead of just do it standing in place, have something more to do in the meanwhile, gathering, exploring, or talking to NPCs. It requires some degree of smart level design, to guarantee that whenever you get hit by the curse, you got something to do around that depth, so a lot of horizontal levels where you can move left to right. Sabetsu also suggest to just skipping the time you'd need to overcome the effects, and then the danger of the course may emerge in a game where time management is extremely important, and wasting time is the price to pay.

-Blessing Route (suggested by u/RaknorZeptik and u/evilgigglefish): this one is all about taking up the curse and adding some buff into it, making it a risk /reward sort of deal. You could decide to wait up to the effects to wear off or tank it an taking advantages of the buffs it could offer

-BSFID Route (suggested by u/ZooSmell413): the existent game approach. Tank the course and deal with the effects, just maybe add something like a whistle for another delver to rescue you if you soft lock yourself.

Now onto those who give some sort of solution to the Layer 6 dilemma:

-Ghost Seek Route (suggested by u/JohnnyJoestar3214567): Provide the player of some sort of way to see the Abyss Field and make his responsibility to manage which paths to follow, always having in mind the way back. On top of it, with some smart game design, it could be a guaranteed way back, and the risk of finding yourself in a dead-end could be that that way back is either dangerous or expensive time wise.

-Last Dive Route (suggested by u/Pyragen_): You're not supposed to go back in the 6th layer, so why not follow that rule? Pyragen suggest a gameplay loop where you gather resources, weapons and relics from Layers 1 to 5, where the Curse is manageable, once you feel prepared you can do your Last Dive, a career to the bottom of the abyss with high difficulty so you gotta be smart about your resource management if you plan to make it to the end, if you don't cuz you're unprepared or inexperienced, start the gameloop again with a new party or character and the new knowledge you have. I think this one is my favorite

-Accumulation Route (suggested by u/_MRDev): Let your party die, take a rogue like approach. Explore the abyss making sure to not end up in a dead end, if you do well, try again. Your new character/party would take the notes of your deceased one in the same way Riko took the notes of Lyza, then try again with new knowledge and maybe some items that make it easier to make more progress

-No Returning Route (suggested by u/Fresh-Peach5437): simply make sure through game design there's never the need to go back.

And that's it, thanks you so much for taking the time to add your suggestion in the previous post. With these at hand, you got any new idea? Or have some idea on how to improve one of the suggestions? lemme know.

PD: I've discovered a lot of gamedevs in the subreddit in the last days and I'm so happy about it, game development is one of my passions and I absolutely love MiA as well so would you guys be interested in more discussions like these? I don't got a lot of time to either develop or drawing anything right now, but I sure love to talk about it!