I’ve been playing too many of this kind of mobile game for my own good, if I’ve got an idea like this. Here it is anyway.
A little background: the term “gacha” is derived from “gachapon”, the Japanese name for that kind of prize machine sometimes seen in supermarkets like Albertson’s, full of little plastic capsules with tiny toys. It also sounds a little bit like “gotcha”, i.e. “got you”, which is a little appropriate considering the not-quite-gambling nature of the practice (up to and including actual gambling laws applying to this kind of game in Japan).
Part of the core engagement of such a game is, as the name implies, using one or more virtual currencies to obtain some randomly-selected something-or-other from a pool, with whatever you’re obtaining varying in power and rarity. Gacha games tend to have at least some RPG elements so that content can scale, and some do better than others at this.
This idea is for more of a straight-up RPG than something like Puzzle and Dragons’ puzzle game hybrid or Fire Emblem: Heroes’ tactical style of gameplay.
Combat is conducted with four player units or characters against some number of enemies. Characters can attack, defend, and use techniques, and they also each have character-specific special moves as well.
Each character has six slots within which to place a “power gem”, which affects his, her, or their abilities in combat. Power gems are the primary item drawn for, coming in rarity levels of one to five stars. Maybe six, but definitely no higher than six; it would be reserved for undrawables that need to be purchased directly or obtained under special circumstances. Power gems are divided into five categories:
- [Attack] gems modify the Attack command. A character can equip only one at a time. Examples might include giving Attack a different elemental property, or allowing it to inflict status ailments.
- [Defend] gems modify the Defend command. A character can equip only one at at time. Examples might include reflecting certain attacks, intercepting attacks aimed at other characters, or expanding Defend to affect the rest of the party.
- [Technique] gems make a Technique accessible from the Techniques menu. A character can equip up to three of these at a time.
- [Passive] gems either increase a character’s stats directly or allow them to react to enemy or other characters’ actions regardless of what the user is doing. A character can equip one at a time.
- [Special] gems are character-specific. Obtaining a character gem associated with a character you don’t have already adds the character to the player’s roster (at the rarity level of the gem drawn).
Some non-Special gems also have a Type; a gem with a type can only be equipped by a character with a matching type. For example, a gem for a basic Technique that deals fire damage might have the [Fire] and [Direct Damage] categories, allowing it to be used only by [Fire] or [Direct Damage] characters. Types on characters also indicate what their strengths are.
Characters also have a “rarity” of one to five stars that doesn’t exactly correspond to how rare they are; the more stars a particular player’s version of a character is the higher their level cap is and the more of their gem slots are accessible.
Characters are loosely typed in the same way Gems are (except Special); Attack characters’ unique gems tend to have the same kind of effects as regular Attack gems, except stronger, and so on.
The player is given options to obtain missing Special gems for characters they own that they haven’t drawn by spending other in-game resources, so they don’t have to get lucky to use one they like a lot effectively. This also helps cut the number of different versions of a character, although seasonal editions are so well-traveled it would be kind of hard not to do some at some point.
There’s more to it than this, but it’s an alright start for something that wouldn’t possibly be within my ability to make at this point.