How would you put a spin on WarioWare?

[noobmurderer34]

I've heard of Mindwave, Buster Jam, and now Telegeddon. It's cool seeing so many WarioWare-likes all so soon, and each with their own thing going on and having a different structure from level select, starting cutscene, microgames, ending cutscene, repeat. They're all big on story, have some form of exploring or platforming, and some kind of hook whether it's an RPG or Mario and Luigi style overworld gameplay

After seeing Telegeddon, I really liked the idea that you can defeat enemies faster depending on how well you did in the microgame. It made me realize that there's not a lot of that in WarioWare and most of the time it comes down to either clearing or failing. Some of the bonus modes like the workout mode in Move It where you go for a high score are less about winning and more about how well you did, and are some of my favorites. Then I realized that if it weren't for those kind of microgames, it would make Telegeddon's enemy health bars feel obsolete. You wouldn't be able to influence when the enemy dies, and it would feel more like a predeterminded moment in time that you have no control over.

So then it inspired me to make this post. If you had to change or add or put some kind of spin on Warioware, what would it be? Me personally, I would make every microgame about score! I think it would be cool if you could get greedy and risk losing the entire microgame for some extra points, high risk and high reward.

 

[Really Ilini]

Honestly I think you've struck the golden answer... scoring depending directly on how much you do in each individual microgame could be a way to inject more tension into the mix, while still keeping the life system. The microgames could have a base requirement that lets you pass, but then allow you to keep going for bonus points at the risk of hitting another obstacle and losing a life. Maybe lives could even be eliminated and losing games would deduct your score instead, in a marathon mode that puts a limit on the microgames you play and therefore the score you earn. I'd like to see that!
Otherwise, I remember someone suggesting that difficulty levels higher than 3 could be a way to spice things up too. Apparently the GBA microgames in Wario World have higher difficulty levels that were never in Mega Microgame$, and I'm surprised that concept hasn't been explored in an official Ware title yet.

 

[Glowsquid]

Having microgames scored on how well you do is something the PS Vita ripoff game Frobisher Says attempted, and it was super broken in that game. A microgame could have you either start right next to the objective, or on the other end of the map, but both variants would be scored the same way. Randomization doesn't necessarily break scoring in arcade-style games, but it's a very difficult thing to balance.

One thing could be to have your success or failure in a microgame influence the next one. You could get advantages if you succeed or penalities if you fail, or a microgame could be part of a series where your performance in the first part influences how the next one starts.