MegaMan Battle Network 2 is
an action/role playing game developed by Capcom. The game's core
mechanics revolve around collecting weapons called battlechips and
using different combinations of them called folders to fight various
enemies. The player's character, as well as the enemies he fights,
are virtual beings called Network Navigators, or Net Navis for short.
I chose this game for a project called “reverse prototyping.”
The assignment was to take a digital game and create a paper
prototype of the game that could have been used in the initial design
process. The following rules are the prototype I came up with.
Play
progresses through a series of rounds. Each round has ten “steps”
referred to as priority. Each step is numbered 1-10, with 10 being
the first thing that happens in a round and 1 being the last. Each
action a Navi can take falls somewhere on that range of priorities.
The player plays as MegaMan, who has four basic options available to
him each round: move, fire, charge, or use a battlechip. As a general
rule, you may not take any action after moving, though there are
exceptions, and most actions you can take will result in forfeiting
your movement. This means that most of the time, you will only be
able to perform one action each round.
Battle
takes place on a grid, much like this one:
[_][_][_]|[_][_][_]
[_][_][_]|[_][_][_]
[_][_][_]|[_][_][_]
Each
of the boxes of this grid, known as “panels” is a space that can
be occupied by a game object, such as a Navi. Usually, Navis are
indicated by the first letter of their name. For example, MegaMan
would look like this standing on the middle of the left half of the
grid:
[_][_][_]|[_][_][_]
[_][M][_]|[_][_][_]
[_][_][_]|[_][_][_]
Each
time MegaMan moves, he may choose any panel directly above, below, to the
left, or to the right of the panel he currently occupies to move to.
[_][^][_]|[_][_][_]
[<][M][>]|[_][_][_]
[_][V][_]|[_][_][_]
The
lines that divide the grid in half mark off the boundary between the
player's side of the field and his opponent's. This line can't be
crossed by either Navi, except with certain abilities.
Battlechip
folders diversify MegaMan's options in battle, giving him more
attacks and abilities to draw on to help him win. Folders must
consist of exactly thirty battlechips, and may
contain at most five of the same chip at a time. At the start of
battle, and every ten rounds afterwards, the player may open the
custom window in order to select battlechips for the next ten rounds.
To start the battle, the player draws five random chips from his
folder, and may choose up to five of those chips, as long as their
codes match or they are the same kind of battlechip. For example,
you could choose a Cannon A and a Cannon B, or a Cannon A and a
Recov10 A, but not a Cannon A, Cannon B, and Recov10 A. * coded
chips are wildcards, which can be treated as being any code the
player needs it to be. Chips must be used in the order they are chosen on the custom window. In addition to choosing chips to send to MegaMan
and use in battle, the player can choose to “add” chips, removing
them from play in order to draw new chips the next time he opens the
custom window. As an example, if you chose to “add” three chips
in this way, the next time you opened the custom window, you would
have three new chips replacing those three, as well as three more new
chips. At most ten chips can be in the custom window at a time.
The
enemy Navi is controlled by a series of preset attack patterns and
random dice rolls, to simulate being operated by a computer AI.
Thus, this game can be played with only one player. However, if two
players wish to play each other, they can each take control of an identical MegaMan and choose their folders to compete head-to-head.
In this case, it is recommended that players write down in secret
what action(s) they wish to take each round before announcing them,
to prevent cheating. Once an action has been announced for a round,
no additional actions can be taken that round, regardless of new
information the player might receive mid-round.
Once this basic reverse engineering of the original game was completed and tested, I chose to make my own addition to the game: the ability to play as Navis other than MegaMan. All one needs to do is use the stats listed for the Navi one wishes to play and pick out a complementary folder. Then just have fun with it. This version can be played against "computer" controlled opponents or human players.
Once this basic reverse engineering of the original game was completed and tested, I chose to make my own addition to the game: the ability to play as Navis other than MegaMan. All one needs to do is use the stats listed for the Navi one wishes to play and pick out a complementary folder. Then just have fun with it. This version can be played against "computer" controlled opponents or human players.
For a
list of all the Net Navis and their stats, click here.
For a
list of all the Battlechips and their stats, click here.
