Hello,
I'm not sure if a lot of people are still brainstorming about this but I wanted to add my contribution.
I thought about a Mario Party clone for a long time.
First of all, I truly think Mario Party 2 did a lot of things (everthing?) right and there shouldn't be much room for new ideas.
Mario Party 2 already have very simple ideas that works and doesn't need to be reinvented.
If such a project had to see the light, I think it should stick to very strict rules in order to make it enjoyable.
1/ Limit the game assets and rules- Only 4 players at the same time, no more, no less. Mario Party is a very long game and some times it can feel like it's never going to end (50 turns anyone?). Letting more than 4 people to play at the same time would be unrealistic and will end up feeling like playing never-ending Monopoly.
- Stick to the Mario Party 2 magic numbers:
- 6 available characters to choose
I thought a long time about this, and I feel the character that are the most suited for both a board game, but also for people who have no idea about what free and open-source software is (like kids) are the following:
- 6 playable worlds
Again, the worlds themes in Mario Party 2 are pretty straightforward. No need to reinvent the wheel.
- Desert
- Forest
- Ship
- Space
- Theme Park
- Town
- 65 minigames
Total number, from different categories (Free for all, 2 vs 2, 1 vs 3, item minigame, etc…).
Regarding the non-playable characters, we could again replace them with cartoonish'ed FOSS mascots. Some of them will be a no-brainer for kids:
2/ Limit the work to doFrom a technical point of view, Mario Party 2 does use very little 3D in fact.
The board is a flat image on which only the characters are in true 3D.
The same goes for most of the minigames where 3D is only used in case of moving objects.
I truly think a clone should try to keep the low poly + 2D art charm of thoses old N64 games, both for aestetic and performance reasons.
Let me know what you think.