One game I was really into for a while was League of Legends. I still find myself playing a few rounds every now and then. And this last time I had kind of an interesting idea. What if we could take League of Legends character design and use it as inspiration for our own game design?
About League of Legends
If you aren’t familiar with it, League of Legends is a MOBA (massive online battle arena). Two teams of five players each compete to destroy the enemy base (called a Nexus). Every player chooses from one of over 140 (at the time of writing) champions. And it’s these champions I want to focus on.
Each of these champions fits a certain “role” (like the common tank, healer, damage roles) and has their own unique abilities. But even though abilities are unique, they all have the same amount of abilities: 1 passive ability, 3 active abilities, and 1 ultimate ability. (There are some minor exceptions, but I won’t get into that here.)
Characters to Game Design Idea
It’s this notion of having a limited number of abilities that really kind of inspired this idea. If you think about it, many of the most popular games follow a similar idea with their characters. Mario can run, jump, slide, and shoot fireballs. Sonic can run, jump, and spin. The examples are limitless.
So what if we use this restriction to only 4 abilities as the basis for a new game design? Take any character from League of Legends, but design a completely different genre of game for them. Then, reimagine their abilities in that new genre.
Take Tristana, for example. Watch this short segment on Tristana’s abilities (video should start there automatically, but it’s from roughly 0:58-4:00).
Imagine moving a character like this to a 2D platformer. The cannon could be used to jump longer (or higher) distances. Cool alternative to the common double jump. Or could even be used mid-air AS a double jump. What if the cannonball could be used to interact with switches and the environment in addition to enemies? It’s fun to think about.
Examples
Think about your favorite League of Legends character and try to design your own game idea from them. I’ve thought a little and come up with a few of my own ideas. Here’s what I’ve come up with.
If you don’t play Leauge of Legends, there are champion spotlight videos (similar to Tristana’s above) for most of the champions. I encourage you to watch through some of them and try the same exercise.
- LeBlanc/Zed/Ekko – a teleportation-based puzzle platformer
- Kai’sa – a bullet hell or SHMUP titled “Bullet Angel” (directly inspired by the skin of the same name)
- Cho’gath – a metroidvania where you devour enemies to get bigger. As you get bigger, you can jump farther or higher to access new areas.
- Zoe/Viego – action/adventure game where you can temporarily steal enemy abilities
- Diana/Akali/Katarina – an RPG about assassins
- Jhin – an single player FPS where you are judge on the “beauty” of your kills
Final Thoughts
Obviously, I don’t think you should outright steal a character design from League of Legends. But I think setting a limit on abilities the way League of Legends has is actually pretty useful. You can use it to help brainstorm ideas, combine them into new ideas, and put your own unique twist on them.
I’ve actually had a ton of fun reading through character lore and coming up with my own ideas for this post. And I’d be curious to hear some of yours! If you come up with your own great idea from an exercise like this (doesn’t have to be League of Legends), be sure to let us know in the comments below!
