MMF2 has a swinging platform object. I managed to get it working one time. Don't really remember how, though. But oh well, I never put swinging platforms in my games- they never fit in with the genre. It'd fit in more with this type of game so maybe you could use that.
The hammers would be attached to some axle/ motor whatever suspended above the ground, say attached to a wall, and would come down every so/so seconds. Maybe a user specifiable ammount of seconds?
You guys ever watch that MXC (most extreme challenge) <takeoff of Takeshi's Castle> show that used to air on SpikeTV all the time? ... well, they have big cylinders that the people have to jump from one to the other and if they land on one side the cylinder begins to spin that way making them lose their balance and fall into the water. I'd love to see something like that in a platformer done with ragdoll physics added in.
Some more realistically doable ideas are as follows:
1) Skateboard, Bike, motorcycle, pogo stick, rollerblades, surfboard, snowboard, jetski, spaceship, etc.
2) Giant bosses (an example would be a giant squid wrapped round a ship or something)
There should be some sort of pattern to the bosses with only a few random this way or that which the boss chooses within that pattern (randomness isn't really needed at all though, especially if there's a long pattern).
3) A hippie pot-smoking Leprechaun wearing sunglasses
4) Gargamel chasing a Smurf with a knife and fork
5) Cartoon Mallet hammer as a usable weapon to flatten enemies in a comical manner
6) Demons, Angels, Dragons, Knights, Frogs, Castles, a working Drawbridge, moat, you know the usual stuff
7) Wench's in Taverns serving Beverages while wearing playboy bunny outfits
Guest appearances by Klingons, FairyTale characters, and popular television stars
9) Ball 'n' Chain weapon
10) short term speed boost for running faster
11) hang-glider
12) talking zebras with real voice audio
13) the ability to ride on Turkeys (they should hide in bushes and gobble and you have to flush them out)
(and one they are out you gotta lasso them to catch 'em)
14) Lasso to wrangle up things to ride on
15) MUD (you always see water in games, but how often do you ever see real environmentally interactive mud?)
16) mudslides, rockslides, avalanches
17) Running from a dinosaur and grabbing things along the way to throw at it (a boss)
1 Lions, Tigers, and Bears?
19) Waterfalls in the foreground and background
20) A mini-golf level out of the blue thrown in between 2 really action packed story intense levels.
21) Drink water and eat food often to replenish health and add Bathrooms and a 'Gotta Go' meter, and if you don't go when the meter gets too high, you explode
22) Have a few enemies attack as you come out of the bathroom stall
23) Archway Bridges over streams and Troll pay Toll booths (either pay or fight the troll to gain bridge access)
24) Ride in a Kangaroo's pouch
25) A Slip 'n Slide (one of those strips of plastic you put water on and slide on, well we did as kids anyway)
26) Tar and Feather Traps above doors
27) Leaves (plural of leaf) with spike pits hidden underneath
2 Side Ladders (there's always the kind where the character's back faces the screen, but why not have the kind where
they face left or right and climb)
29) Swinging on vines where you get to kick the enemy on the upswing before jumping off
30) Climb a ladder that is hanging off a helicopter while the helicopter is moving (full control not a cutscene)
31) The cartoon cannonball lookin' bomb with the wick burning as weapon, and have it bowl over the enemies flipping them
in a comical manner and then while they are laying flat on their backs the wick burns down and the bomb blows them up
32) Hippos in rivers (I notice that crocs are always used, but hippos can actually bite crocs in half, 'tis true)
33) Spear throwing with a nice gravity pulled arc to it
34) Bow an' Arrow shooting too with the arc
35) A level where the character floats down on a giant feather and shoots enemies (feather swinging back and forth on the air) <presumably after a big battle with a giant bird in a huge nest on near the peak on the side of an immense mountain>
Blood of the Ancient One, Seen only as Shadow, Faster than Lightning, Fierce as the Greatest Dragon, Nearly Invisible, Floating in a Dream, Entered through the Demon Door, Destroyer of Evil in a Realm with a Red Sky Scarred, Who could I be ?