Immobility not being the end?

Game Design Discussion
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Very new to this, I have lurked for about a week and made my account just today.

I have seen many projects here and elsewhere that have immobility as either the endgame or a game over. Some don’t have it, others give you methods of maintaining mobility despite the normal limits.
I don’t really want any of this for a potential game I might make, as I’d like immobilization to not end gameplay or be mitigated. But as is the standard for game development, fun is a priority.
So do y’all have any ideas to ensure being immobile can be fun?

Tl;DR, looking to maybe make a game, want to ensure immobility isn’t annoying or a game ending. Tips?

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Well, if you’re ok with a feeder protagonist and not a feedee one, maybe making the immmobile blobs almost like trophies/a harem for the main character. That way you’re not removing player agency but still getting to live with blobs? For example like this? The Hero's Heavy Loss (XWG) by FluffGirl15 on DeviantArt

A game where you’re an evil lich gathering a harem of blobs to maintain and care for ala dungeon keeper I think would be sick

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  • cleaning the blob
  • a character that’s trapped in the same room as the blob
  • an alternative for the new character for weight gain, so that they get fatter in the same room as the blob
  • basic slob
  • small minigames in i dunno a tablet or something whilst the blob plays
  • making the blob a source of food (milking the blob to make food to fatten others)
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if you want to play as the blob then you can make them a sort of “commander” like in a tower defense game, rts or similar. you could make the main game be something where the character doesn’t have to move like a fishing game or something like papers please. for more arcady games where you can move, the immobile state could be a type of “last stand” where you are expected to die pretty quickly after reaching it.

another approach would be to have attacks/abilities that can move enemies around. for example it is a top down game where you play as a mage and you have to kill enemies as long as you can. you could then have say a tornado attack that you can steer and it sucks enemies towards it and also some explosive projectile that knocks enemies around. basically trying to move the dynamics of movement to your weapons instead

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This is a topic near and dear to my heart! I love the concept of being fattened to immobility (world’s most natural weighted blanket)… the idea of being actually trapped in one location, not so much.

There are plenty of potential means to circumvent that outcome, though. Boundless went with the most obvious - giving your character either a mobility device or a proxy body so that they can keep exploring. Either of those are great options, and the mobility mechs were super fun from a lore standpoint too.

You could also, as mentioned, make a style of game where loss of mobility isn’t a real concern. Go Hoard Yourself! is a great example; it’s a minion management/idle game where you amass workers to do stuff for you. I don’t know if it does immobility or not - you do have to switch between different screens, so some motion is implied - but it would be easy to do something similar by adding a scrying mechanic so you can keep monitoring other areas without physically moving.

Going back to Boundless, it also has some other options for circumventing immobility. You can accomplish this either by using Helium Pills, which temporarily make you weightless, or undergoing a transformation that gives you the permanent ability to fly.

Something that I think would be fun, personally, would be a game where you start out doing your own exploration and tasks, but you’re accruing minions in the process, so when you eventually grow too fat to move you gain the option to switch over to one of the minions for that part of gameplay. Depending on how ambitious you want to get, you could even give your minions alternate routes/abilities to make their version of things unique.

And of course, you can have gameplay adapt with your character’s needs in order to keep things going. An example of this might be switching from making grocery runs to ordering your groceries at home, having people come to visit you instead of going out to meet them, etc.

In the end, a lot is going to depend on the kind of game you’re making. A visual novel or text adventure could end up having very different requirements than an RPG, which is going to have different requirements from an incremental or tower defense game.

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Tactically, Defenses up, hard to deal damage to, slow attack (if possible), fat weak to…fire?
For movement, you need to think untraditional methods: Hydraulic lifts, Astral projection, giant carts, hover pads, inching along like a worm or snail, rolling, moving along the ground like a slime creature, springs, or maybe the character’s able to force themselves forward, weight and all, but moving consumes stamina.
Think of it as a skill tree,
Strong- +1,+2,+3, jump high, throw, break or move large objects, can’t sneak through small openings, Strong attack, medium defense, high stamina, high health, continuous attacks and specials, can deflect giant enemies attacks,

Skinny- +Agility, +Stealth, increase movement speed, decrease noise made, low carrying capacity, low health, low attack, high critical, weak to overwhelming crushing force enemies attacks,

Immobile- +Charisma, +purchasing power ( 5% cheaper at stores), decrease movement speed, increase carrying capactiy (unlimited?), +Low Health but can heal quickly, + High Defense, +Increase resistance to Frost, -resistance to fire, high critical but low chance for critical. Resistant to crushing blows.

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I’m not sure I understand the issue, if you don’t want to add something to your game simply don’t add it. You don’t have to have drastic permanent weight gain at all if that’s not what you like. I know I’m not going to add any. I honestly hate when games make their characters into blobs, I become completely disinterested at that point. But you can do whatever you want, thinking you have to make your characters immobile and that what ends the game just because a few other people have done that is crazy.

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Immobility is one of those things that, if you want to include it in any way that isn’t an endstate, can warp the whole game around itself. It might also be nothing but fluff, especially in more arcade style games. It really depends on the kind of game you want to make.

Personally I think the most fitting genre for immobile protagonists is management / city builder style games. Story heavy games can do it well too.

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Plenty of genres work fine for this besides the aforementioned management games. Princess Maker-like raising sims and party-based RPGs come to mind. A long time ago I put forth the idea of an Oregon Trail like game where the transport of your carriage would become more difficult as the game progressed and one character became fat and less mobile, thought of explicitly for the purpose of a game that can continue after immobility, but I’ve since lost interest in the concept of immobility and prefer games that avoid it altogether

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I would love a city builder game like this, personally. I remain hopeful that we’ll see one, one day.

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It’s a bit of a cheat, I know, but how about where immobility isn’t technically immobile? Like, your player character is immobile, but there’s a power-up/upgrade/in-game cheat that still allows movement somehow. What this entails would depend entirely on the world the game takes place (usually some form of magic and/or technology) but it’s a thought.

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yeah like a hover platform or levitation magic (these ones require that the feet aren’t touching the floor, more so the same position they would have when sitting down)

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Gaining Perspective does this very well, where there is still unique actual gameplay that happens once you hit immobility. In my mind, for a game to not have immobility be the end, you essentially have to have one of two different options:

  1. A game design that allows you to still do most things while immobile. A number of people in this thread have already described options, but essentially think of something like a monarch where you can still reign over a kingdom even without actually moving.
  2. Specifically designed gameplay around immobility. Gaining Perspective does this, where you actually have this be its own section of the game with very specific and unique things happening.
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That’s a unique challenge! I think focusing on environmental interaction and puzzle solving while immobile could be really interesting. Maybe the player can manipulate objects or control other characters to progress? It’d be cool to see how you tackle this!

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This is also 100% something I want to see more of. Everytime I think about the lack of games where you play beyond immobility, I brainstorm a few ideas. I personally always prefer to play the “feedee” because I am a feedee, and so if I want a game where I am playing the immobile person, I think the easiest way to go about it is to build the game around “you’ll eventually be immobile” and give the player options on how to manage their lives afterwards (or not depending on the players’ wants). I also like what other people have suggested by having there be mini games with immobility as the framing device. I think things you can still have a say after a character is immobile are like… having conversations, making decisions (like at the very least what they want to eat). I also like how in Fatty Text Adventure Game, you can move around long after the game says you’re immobile, but it just takes an extreme amount of resources (primarily the game’s energy resource), and so you end up needing to rest more/to get energy more fervently. Neat, and a fun challenge for a game with a more “active” gameplay loop. Anyway, yeah, thanks for listening lmao!