Strengthen your biggest fans without losing the random feeling

I like randomness as much as the next person Binding of Isaac, Spelunky and lots of games here on Ludum Dare uses it in really cool ways to spice up their games.

But what if we made the seed of the randomness player-decided?

My suggestion is letting the random system be determined by factors within the players control.

For your next Ludum Dare try using a factor the player has control over as a seed for your random number. For example: - amount of jumps - amount of clicks - seconds since start of level - half-seconds since start of level

Note that this does NOT mean, the player walked 205 steps so we spawn 205 things.

The result could be 1 or 1000 or 5, the important thing is that each time the random event triggers from seed 205 it spits out the same number.

So if Random(103) = 67 the first playthrough then Random(103) = 67 in the next playthrough

For most players this will work identically to normal randomness but people who want to speed-run and optimize strategies now have complete information which is awesome.

It changes nothing for casual players but strengthens your biggest fans.

This random system could of course be a "secret to everyone" or tucked away in a mysterious book the player can find. (Or maybe the secret is tucked away in a nes-style game-manual).

I hope people use player-influences semi-randomness in their next games

The following is a clip of people speedrunning Super mario for NES and using semi-randomness to influence game-events it inspired me so I hope it inspires you.

In Mario this is unintended and many parts of Mario is out of the players control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQJEzJcQw