It occurred to me the other day that the game I'm currently working on might take quite a long time to actually finish, so right now I'm looking for a repetitively-quick source income, or at least to put my first stamp down in the field.

So I've been playing around with this basic concept for quite a bit, and I'd appreciate some feed back.

It's going to be a localmultiplayer game, in which the object is to jump on your opponents heads (Yes, like a goomba, I'm very aware of that.) There will be quite a few movement mechanics that can aid you, such as wall jumping, wall sliding, and stomping. But where it gets most fun is in the items and game modes. The items will do a variety of things, such as add a second jump, fire lasers from one end to another, give you invincibility, give your dash the ability to knock people over, and even grab another player. There will be various game modes, but I'll save those for later

This is something I can pretty much get into alpha in about a month, so I figured why not give it a try?

Do you think this will catch on?

tl;dr: It's a game where you stomp on peoples heads to get points. Suggestions?

As it stands, I think this concept would be better served as a single player game (maybe a browser/flash game); however, I can't be sure without more information.

Why does the object of the game center on jumping on your opponent's head? It might be a silly question (because it's fun, why else?), but I would consider this further. I'm not really the kind of player who enjoys playing games without an objective to justify the gameplay.

For example, the Mario Party Series is comprised of party games with a variety of individual minigames. These games were tied together in a board game. The goal was to collect the most stars, coins, and minigame wins by the end of the game.

In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, players create a character, form a party, and explore dungeons (fighting monsters and bosses) in search of Myrrh trees. It's set in a fantasy world covered in poisonous Miasma, and the goal is to collect Myrrh, bring it back to your home village, and use it to fuel a large crystal that protects the village from Miasma. The thing that made this game so fun was the crafting and cooperation of the party. You could collect items from dungeons to make weapons and armor. In dungeons, players could stack magic for more powerful co-op attacks.

My suggestion would be to consider including a game mechanic (your current one or another) that allows for various forms of gameplay and to add an overall objective for the players to strive toward.

On Rye

I actually love this idea for a local multiplayer game. It reminds me a little of Gang Beasts (in which you basically wrestle/punch/kick etc to kill your opponent, whether by throwing them off/into various objects), which I find a blast to play with other people. Sometimes simple mechanics like this can be really fun, if given the right abilities/tools. It can get rather hectic. But, something single screen-multiplayer like along your idea sounds great to me.

Add objects in the terrain which the players use to try to get the other players (or counter things the others are trying to do to them)

Not neccessarily picked up boosts or temporary objects which open different actions.

Also things you strike/push that send them into motion (falling, sliding down, flying up and coming down, etc) including some cascading effects or ones you move a little (to open a climbing path in the terrain - or block one). These things might not deal damage but impede/delay the other players (and things they set in motion)... for a while (AND may disrupt the players own actions if they aren't careful).

These objects then interact with others in a multitude of ways (which might take a while to figure out - and thus a reason to play further to see whan they do in the different combinations). The active behavior of the object should eventually settle again (some varying period for different things).

Possible poured liquids/sand type flows (ones that flow down because of gravity)??

Fires/gas clouds that spread (and dissipate)?

With the other potentially players in motion having obstacle placed in their path (to unexpectedly halt them to be jumped on) will prevent the game from just being an endless chase (with the terrain quickly figured out).

Having the various objects types and counts semi-randomly placed can make each game play different.

I think that it seems as though it could be a fun party game, and there's precedent for a similar type of game in Towerfall/Towerfall Ascension (a gameplay video should be here) and others, I believe.

You say that you feel that you can have an alpha ready in a month; in that case, my main suggestion is to prototype it and see whether it's fun. The initial prototype needn't have anywhere near all of the features of your description: have two players, controlled by opposite sides of the keyboard, a single level, the basic head-stomping mechanic, perhaps some of the navigational mechanics (wall jumping, for example), and maybe one or two items. That way you can try it out, and give it to us to try out, and hopefully get feedback on it.

If I may give one warning, however, it's this: beware feature creep. For a game as simple as this, beware the temptation to keep adding more and more features onto it. By all means add features that significantly add to the experience, but you indicated that you want a game that you can complete quickly, and I suspect that a party game like this might be well-served by being kept fairly straightforward, thus allowing people to sit down and have fun without having to spend much time learning how to play.