Fighting game idea

[Tailsteak]

My wife's been watching playthroughs of old shitty video games, and she's going through a layer of would-be Street Fighter clones, and I happened to notice two elements in two different games that were never really embraced by the genre that I thought would make the games more interesting.

From Slaughter Sport (a.k.a. Tongue of the Fatman), was the idea that money would buy you upgrades - standard enough, I suppose - but it was also used to heal you back up in between fights - you didn't reset to max HP automatically. Granted, in that game, money was essentially points - you got some every time a hit connected, and you always had more than enough to heal yourself, with usually enough left over to buy higher attack power, power ups that could temporarily immobilize your enemy, etc.

From Street Smart was the idea that you could bet on the matches before you fought - and, although the playthrough Amber was watching didn't do this, you had the ability to bet on yourself OR your opponent, which raises the interesting idea of throwing a fight to get more cash.

I couldn't help but combine these concepts in my head - imagine a fighting game in which you need money to patch yourself back up between matches and purchase training sessions or upgrades to your abilities... and (presumably through a third party) you could place bets either on yourself or your opponent. Ahead of time, you could see what the odds given on the fight are (and, of course, they rise or fall based on both the toughness of your opponent and your own prior performance), and you could see the maximum bet (which rises, the more you climb through the ranks and get to higher-publicized fights). You could choose to bet against yourself and throw a fight for a guaranteed payout, but this a) changes the bookies' odds on you, b) busts you back down to lower levels, and c) will, necessarily, hurt you worse, requiring more expensive healing.

Naturally, a perfect playthrough (where you're undefeated world champion) is possible (much like a complete genocide run in Undertale is possible), but it requires much greater skill on the part of the player, and you wind up being world champion with almost no money (even if you bet on yourself every time, the bookies give pretty lousy odds if you're on an unstoppable winning streak). On the other hand, you can manage your career specifically to get as much money as possible, but it involves a lot of manipulation.

Thoughts?

[Horizon]

That sounds like it could be pretty cool, although those two core mechanics- the fighting itself, and the "metagame" betting stuff- seem different enough that you end up narrowing your potential audience by a fair margin.

[Fake robot]

Agree with Horizon. Maybe the fighting should be done with dice or similar instead of skill.

Maybe there are mobsters that want you to throw fights, or that come after you if you throw fights they want you to win. And maybe cops. And maybe corrupt cops that you can buy off.

[zylo]

Street Fighter with rpg elements. I like it.

[tenshiko]

I disagree with Horizon about how wide the gap would be. I'd try it.