In Dragon’s Crown, a Vanillaware developed beat ’em up from Ignition, has a character sharing system. The warrior you create and customize can appear in another player’s game in at least two ways.
"You can give character data to a friend and even if you’re not there they can use your character in the game," Kashow Oda, Producer, explained to Siliconera in an interview. Dragon’s Crown also has a clever system where your character, more specifically its corpse, can spread virally.
"When you play Dragon’s Crown online, fallen characters leave corpses on the map. The body collection system allows players to collect these corpses from the battlefield and bring them back to town," Oda announced. "Pay a fee and you can revive these characters and use them inside your game. In a single player game, revived characters are computer-controlled NPCs and if you’re stuck you can select a more powerful character to assist you."
Now, that’s interesting. I suppose the body collection system has natural balance since weak characters will spread more often than strong ones… since powerful characters won’t die as often. However, there is an opening for an altruistic player will sacrifice their character to help newbies. Ignition also introduced a reward for dying – fame. Die a lot and you’ll be a popular Dragon’s Crown hero.
I asked Oda how many NPCs you can have in one single player party. "Right now, that’s still being decided," he answered.
Dragon’s Crown is slated for a spring launch on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.
