Yay, so now that we have a theme that those who care have no problem with (or are at least okay with) let's get to work on the tangible parts of this game. Excitement!
First, What we are going to do now is decide how we want our engine and such, and we will start by planning out game features. Discussion will be based around two types of features, those being:
In-game features: Things that people playing the game will be experiencing noticeably and directly, such as double jump, health recovery, combo moves, item use, etc.
Engine features: These would be the features in the engine that people may or may not realize are there, or may not even affect the player. This would be things such as how the levels are made (in click or through a level editor), the engine controls (detectors or no, fast loops, special extensions), etc.
Both of these are of primary concern, as whoever decides they want to make the engine (or help make the engine) will need to know just what to program, how to program it, and may even need assistance with programming.
Second, those that want to build the engine or help with programming (which would also include things like the menu, HUD, online, scores, saving, and the like) should give examples of their work and what they could do with their programming experience for this project. That will be in the seperate Programming Audition thread.
Remember that this will be made in click products, and that some people don't have MMF or MMF2. All right, discussion, discussion, discussion! Let's go!
In-game:
Having a double jump would be handy, especially if it were acquired rather than standard. It would make for some interesting level design. I like to call it "faux open world" because you can't call a level linear if you have to turn around and go back later.
Engine:
With the game being steampunk, there's going to be quite a bit of steam (and hence water). It'd be cool if the water could make the floor wet and slippery.
Also, with not everyone having MMF2, it'd probably be best if levels were made via a level editor. That way, levels can be shared amongst everyone. I could make a level and share it with someone who has TGF, and they'd be able to make whatever changes to it and send it back.
Since not everyone has MMF2, I think a level-editor will be required - I suggest making it tile-based (it's just better that way) and capable of loading external resources (tilesets, sprite images, music, sfx etc).
I think the level-editor needs to be as flexible as possible, to enable different people to come up with levels that "feel" different, rather than just having a different tileset and layout.
You need to be able to set general values such gravity and surface friction.
You also need to be able to set specific object settings, for example:
* enemy - hit points, speed, movement pattern/behaviour, attack type, attack damage...
* moving platform - speed, width...
* breakable wall - hit points...
* chest - contents...
* ...etc
If you want to add loads of special moves like double-jump/wall-jump, I guess it's okay. Be aware that this is not only more work for the coder, but it makes level design more difficult too (more likely a player will do something in a way you hadn't anticipated, and don't want them to - and no, that's *not* a good thing). It also dilutes the gameplay. To be honest, I'd like it kept quite simple - the really great platformers don't need to rely on gimmicks like combo attacks and 20 different weapons.
I'm still not sure about the steampunk thing - I just think steampunk implies complicated, wacky inventions, and they're going to be too hard for most people to sprite.
Also, I think it would be more original to use something other than steam power - perhaps lava like someone else suggested, or some other substance (maybe a mysterious substance so widely used that civilisation would collapse without it, but which the player discovers (during the course of the game) has some terrible drawback that no-one's aware of, thus causing a moral dilemma - I'm thinking along the lines of Soylent Green / Slurm here ).
Double jump, definitely. We could even give it a steam-powered vibe, working by a pressure gauge. You're able to use the double jump multiple times, but each jump reduces the pressure. This would start out taking 100% pressure on the first double jump, and recharge fairly slowly, but could be leveled up/upgraded. Landing on the ground would probably recharge pressure completely - unrealistic, but a better gameplay choice. I can imagine the effects of a steam-powered pressure jump being pretty cool.
Adding onto this, other abilities could use steam/pressure/water related technology, too, so obtaining these would build up to some kind of steampunk power-armor. Not sure what this would mean for different player characters - maybe it would be too complex to have each of their progressions balanced. Maybe with a deep enough upgrade system, multiple 'characters' would come from the choices the player makes.
The environment seems like it's going to be quite dynamic, with moving objects and possibly steam jets etc. so many objects would need to be tied to some kind of basic global physics.
Varied and dynamic enemy AI would be a plus, too, even if it's just following the player and jumping when they need to reach a higher level. Deeper AI could come from having enemies act in swarms, or react defensively when hurt, little touches like that. Combat would definitely be more fun, and possibly different each time. Difficult enemies should have higher intelligence and a range of methods of dealing with player actions, rather than just having a higher damage attack or more health.
The code doesn't have to be that complex, neither do they need advanced pathfinding, but simple actions and reactions would make enemies stand out much more than conventional platformer enemies. The player would have to adapt to enemy behavior, learn certain patterns and be on their toes for changes. Enemies don't have to be brutally aggressive, though, since we're keeping a little more relaxed pace - having this depth to AI would just make battles a little more tactical, and less repetitive.
Also, I second the level editor. In the end, it would seriously reduce development time.
Sketchy makes a lot of good points (I didn't see it before I posted).
Abilities probably should be limited. It's definitely better to have fewer, but better designed abilities - ones that have depth that can be used throughout the game, not just required for a certain section. Both good and bad examples would be in Zelda games - some items are mixed in with a wide variety of puzzles, used throughout the game, whereas others are really only used in the dungeon you obtain them in...
I don't think the Steampunk style would be too complicated. I was thinking that most objects would be simple mechanisms, and making a crazy contraption would be a case of simply combining these basic objects to look like some advanced machine - at the same time creating interesting platforming puzzles.
I'm not opposed to using some other substance, though. I'm with you on this:
"Also, I think it would be more original to use something other than steam power - perhaps lava like someone else suggested, or some other substance (maybe a mysterious substance so widely used that civilisation would collapse without it, but which the player discovers (during the course of the game) has some terrible drawback that no-one's aware of, thus causing a moral dilemma - I'm thinking along the lines of Soylent Green / Slurm here ). "
Tying the possible basis of the gameplay mechanics with the narrative is an excellent idea.
"Also, I think it would be more original to use something other than steam power - perhaps lava like someone else suggested, or some other substance (maybe a mysterious substance so widely used that civilisation would collapse without it, but which the player discovers (during the course of the game) has some terrible drawback that no-one's aware of, thus causing a moral dilemma - I'm thinking along the lines of Soylent Green / Slurm here ). "
You can't have steampunk without steam! Otherwise, all you're left with is really crummy music. (I kid, originality is rare these days. Punk music is still crummy though.) We could have our own phlogiston!
"Tying the possible basis of the gameplay mechanics with the narrative is an excellent idea."
It really is.
"If you want to add loads of special moves like double-jump/wall-jump, I guess it's okay. Be aware that this is not only more work for the coder, but it makes level design more difficult too (more likely a player will do something in a way you hadn't anticipated, and don't want them to - and no, that's *not* a good thing). It also dilutes the gameplay. To be honest, I'd like it kept quite simple - the really great platformers don't need to rely on gimmicks like combo attacks and 20 different weapons. "
Simpler is better. Faster to code, too. Whenever I mentioned combo attacks, I thought simple things like Super Smash Bros.: B+up for example. But then that means having to code 4 different specials for each character. An even simpler combo could be: B+jump, B+attack; That's it, just some sort of jumping ability and some sort of special attack. Never thought anything complicated like up+down+down-forward+forward+back+forward+kick. Also, the really great platformers were limited to 48kb.
Level design is only as hard as the lack of planning and testing. One of the problems that I can foresee is making levels work for every character.
Even Super Mario Bros. 3 had a few special abilities. Temporary Invincibility (Star), Fireball Bouncing Range attack (Flower), Grow Big (Mushroom), Frog Suit, Tanooki Suit (can turn into statue), Racoon Suit (can fly temporarily), Hammer Bros. Suit, that's all alot more coding than how I was thinking really.
Since apparently a level editor instead of simple coding methods will be used to add levels, there won't be a way for everyone to add their own abilities to the roster anyway unless you intend on building the level editor in such a way that it's almost another development tool on its own which really is overdoing things a bit.
Sooo, since a level editor is what's planned, I'd say make a jump attack, ground attack, running attack and forget about the added abilities. I mean, how is anyone going to add the new abilities for their levels with just a level editor?
I'd suggest instead of new abilities, it could just be new clothing/accessories so you wouldn't be looking at the same sprite throughout the entire game, but you'd feel like you are gaining something, even though the clothes don't really do anything. Clothing would be easy enough to change in the level editor since nothing has to be altered but sprites.
So, you fight a Pirate captain boss, you get his eye-patch, hat, and parrot on your shoulder.
Fight a Knight in armor riding a horse, you get his horse and armor.
Beat a caveman, get his club and cave guy outfit, etc.
Really, if you coded it in a certain way, the sprites could be what changes an attack. So new abilities could be easily added in this way.
Lets say you have the weapon be its own object, and the character its own object, and you changed the knife sprite to a longsword sprite, it would have a greater range to hit the enemy. And just think if you added a horse to the character sprite and changed the weapon sprite into a lance, and you had a transitional change animation for the weapon, then the lance could be lowered from being straight up to being straigtforward, and that would be much different than swinging a sword around, yet NO EXTRA CODING is required. That transitional animation for the weapon could be used to do stuff like holstering a gun or sheathing a sword too.
Also, you could have a flag to check if you were using melee or throwing and set what weapon is to be thrown by a value, and then change that value based upon what weapon is used. Then the level creators could make the sprites for their weapon and suit, and also make an example code for how the ranged weapon should move. Finally, they could send the code for said thrown weapon and its sprites to the main coder of the project. Thus it gets added to the game easily, as the only factor changed is the weapon movement. Melee could possibly be done in the same manner if you wanted any melee.
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 ?
"Since apparently a level editor instead of simple coding methods will be used to add levels, there won't be a way for everyone to add their own abilities to the roster anyway unless you intend on building the level editor in such a way that it's almost another development tool on its own which really is overdoing things a bit.
Sooo, since a level editor is what's planned, I'd say make a jump attack, ground attack, running attack and forget about the added abilities. I mean, how is anyone going to add the new abilities for their levels with just a level editor?"
How is anyone going to add new stuff from clothing with just a level editor? I highly doubt that a jump attack, ground attack, or running attack would be level specific and hence have to be added to every level, so why would abilities be? That's the sort of thing that gets hard-coded.
"unless you intend on building the level editor in such a way that it's almost another development tool on its own which really is overdoing things a bit."
If the level editor were built in such a way that it could be almost exclusively used as the development tool, then we would transcend having to use either TGF or MMF to make the core content of the game. Levels, characters, everything could be made as external files for use by both the level editor and the game... I'm going to give this some more thought and make a separate thread for it. It's likely improbable that getting such a feature rich editor could be made, and doing so would take quite a bit of time to produce, not to mention all of the content for it.
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EDIT: Such a robust editor, while it would be very cool to have, would ultimately be useless. Every object would have to be controlled using an external script file, using either LUA or .net; While this would give a great amount of flexibility to these objects, it would require object creators to understand the scripting language. Or, a separate editor would have to be written to make it easier to generate scripts to do what you want, but then there's the problem of that editor not having the feature you want to add available. Just creating these tools would probably take longer to make than the game itself.
It would be much simpler to have a simple level editor, with all of the objects predefined.
MBK gave me an idea. I played a game called Castle Crashers on my 360, and man I love it! Well, I'll get to the point, If you beat the game, or a certain arena, and beat a game with an unlocked character, you gain more characters. So maybe instead of gaining clothes, you can gain the enemies you fight against.
I've also played Castle Crashers. The different characters only bring a different starting set of stats and a different special ability. Kind of the thing I had mentioned.
I think it would be easier to plan level features, and game features based around those, if we decided what the levels are, where the levels are set, and what the world is. How players get from level to level. Level themes. Example, if we plan a jungle area, then we could have swinging on vines. That same mechanic could then be applied to chains in an industrial factory. If we added the jungle area later, then we would make the vine swinging then and maybe miss out on the opportunity to use that mechanic somewhere else.
I think it would also be prudent to figure out just what "RPG elements" means. Personally, I see it as, "with RPG elements;" That 'with' tells me that this is NOT an RPG, so I shouldn't be thinking that it's going to have every bell and whistle that an RPG does. Instead of breaking off into a full-blown rant (which is what most of my wall o' text on this subject is), I'm going to define what I think these "RPG elements" should be:
Multiple—ideally three or four—characters. They would be slightly different from the other, each having a different special ability. They would all have the same running speed, jump height, and controls; the only difference between them would be how much damage their primary attack does, how much damage they take from a hit. There would be one character from each starting area, coming from their hometown (or whatever). Their appearance, attacks, and special ability would reflect their culture. As the characters progress through the game, they get one or two graphic updates. That's it, nice and simple. No character customization. No superfluous spells and items. No extraneous vanity gear. Should be easy to design and fast to code.
Now, if this idea takes off, we would have to decide how many areas there are going to be, how they're going to be themed, and what purpose the area has in the story. Then, we can determine who the characters are, and what their ability would be. The important step is figuring out the areas first. (Funny how I'm pushing that earlier in this post )
Actually, defining what the heck the RPG elements are should be first. It seems like the biggest point of contention.
@MBK:
Abilities should be hard-coded, like Adam Phant says. So should player/weapon graphics in my opinion. It is less work for the programmers, and more importantly, it provides continuity between levels - bearing in mind that the rest of the visuals are going to be different between levels, you need to keep the character's appearance and abilities the same, or it's just going to feel like each level is a completely separate game.
@Adam Phant:
I agree with a lot of what you say - the rope/chain is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of.
I'm not sure about the multiple characters though. How would that even work?
A.) You use different characters for different levels (how will they be so different as to be worth swapping? how will you get people to design levels to be easier for one character than another? how do you balance characters? etc...)
B.) You choose a character at the start of the game and are stuck with them (what are the chances of anyone replaying the game after completing it once?)
C.) You switch between characters during the level, á la "lost vikings" (that's a pretty big gameplay change).
I don't think the themes are important to worry aout yet.
I think we need to come up with the basic components people will want to use in levels - moving platforms, swinging ropes, bouncers, pushable/breakable blocks etc.
Also, the properties which you'd like to be able to set for each of them (eg. speed of moving platforms).
For enemies, we need to come up with a decent selection of movement patterns, and the ability to modify them in terms of speed, jump height etc, so that enemies can still be made to feel somewhat different.
Bosses (if present) should obviously be hardcoded, as could other levels with unique mechanics, such as an underwater level.
Then sort out the platform movement, and then worry about themes and level design.
I guess my idea of "RPG elements" is probably something like this...
Storyline:
It needs something a bit more imaginitive than "go rescue the kidnapped princess".
Character Development:
The player character (I had assumed there would be just one), can gain experience, which leads to some improvement of their key stats.
This could be as simple as a small increase in maximum HPs and nothing more. This rewards the player, and also fits their expectations - the level 10 boss should obviously be tougher than the level 2 boss - to make it "fair", the player also has to be stronger by the time they reach level 10. I definitely wouldn't want to add a lot of unneccessary stats.
An alternative way to make the player become stronger, is by making weapons etc available to find/buy. Instead of increasing a players "attack" statistic when they gain experience, you could enable them to buy a more powerful weapon, which would have the same effect. Again, I don't want there to be 10 different kinds of sword, or anything anywhere near that complicated.
In Zeliard, if you die, it's not game over - you simply go back to the starting town. However, it only takes a few minutes to play through the early levels and get back to where you were, for a couple of reasons - you're more powerful and better equipped, you have new abilities that allow you to take shortcuts, all doors remain unlocked, and bosses do not respawn. My point, is that it gives you a great sense of achievement when you go back to early levels and find them so much easier than they were first time around.
...Which brings me to linearity. Will the game be a sequence of levels, that must be tackled in a particular order? If everybody is making their own levels, how will we ensure that they become progressively more difficult? Will the levels be static, or will a level change depending on the point at which we reach it (eg. more enemies, or enemies have more HPs later in the game)?
I think this is important to figure out early on.
"I'm not sure about the multiple characters though. How would that even work?
B.) You choose a character at the start of the game and are stuck with them (what are the chances of anyone replaying the game after completing it once?)"
This is where good story/storytelling comes in. If needed, multiple characters could give a glimpse into different facets of the story (if it's deep enough). They could have their own specific section of a level that only they can get to where they do something that's critical to the plot (that the other characters can't do). It's definitely something that would require a bit of planning to pull off effectively.
"...Which brings me to linearity. Will the game be a sequence of levels, that must be tackled in a particular order? If everybody is making their own levels, how will we ensure that they become progressively more difficult? Will the levels be static, or will a level change depending on the point at which we reach it (eg. more enemies, or enemies have more HPs later in the game)?"
Well, according to the devlogs: "A hub world leading to other worlds, may or may not be a map, and you can get to other worlds through the hub or by following a path from one world to the next (interconnected worlds)."
It could be fairly linear. You could start with any world from the hub and go through it, then move onto the next. Or, it could be linear at first where you're limited to where you can go, then when you finish that tour, old areas become expanded upon as you're able to get to the out-of-reach locations that you couldn't on your first time through.
i dont know if this game is bow and arrows and swords or guns but i like the idea of unlockable characters and mutiple characters that have the same controls and different special abilities. I think you should be able to swap characters between levels. There could be a strong defense, strong offense, and a character that specializes in ranged attacks and after you beat the game you unlock a guy who is good at everything and he is just a beast in the game. It could make the player want to play the game agin to use the super character.
I have this really old game making software called "Game Maker" but it's not the same as the GameMaker you are all thinking of ... anyway ... even though it was soooo incredibly limited and incapable of producing much more than point and click adventures (except you can't even point and click, you have to use the keyboard) .. even though it was like that, there was something I really loved about it:
It had this level path and entrance/exit editor ... it was like an ever-expanding family tree that you could link back to the main path at any time. It's just too bad that ClickTeams' toolsets don't have anything like that. It would make designing a choose your path sorta game so simple.
Maybe sort of a web of levels, a set of placeholders, should be made, just telling where the path will lead to next in a pre-determined route, then add the levels in. This should be made in conjuction with the storyline, btw it might be a good idea to talk about that and leave most the coding ideas up to the main coder.
Also, It might be best to come up with a few Engines with easily altered values (to change jump height and other factors easily based upon the costume or weapon the character has) ... then once a few of those are built, vote on which one is best, and go from there.
There really needs to be a good foundation to build on for a group project, or it will just fade away and die.
Found that out the hard way with Abstract Soup. Everyone had tons of ideas, but nothing ever got worked on as an entire group. So while all these ideas are golden, they won't be of any use if there's nothing to add them to. "If you build it, they will come" In this case meaning, once there's a good engine to work off of, all the ideas will fall into place.
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 ?
Neuro, I like your idea of water pressure-powered abilities, since this is steampunk after all. I also like how Sketchy brought back the lava idea, which would make it lavapunk: What would that look like though? What would it be made of? I also agree with the idea of multiple characters, but not so much about them have the same jump height and running ability, at least not in the beginning. There needs to be some exclusivity with these things, so that there will be incentive to use the other characters. Because of the fact that it may cause regret, however, it could also be done that the characters all are in a party, so you can use each one whenever. You would unlock them as you meet them in the story, and they would have hot-swapping. To prevent it from making the game too easy, though (by changing right before you die), it could be that they share percentages of health. The story could also force you to use a certain character at different parts in the game, and have everyone level up together (as they do in Chrono Trigger) so that you aren't totally screwed when this happens.
It might be too complicated, but it could be done that you either:
a) Pick worlds one by one, and go through each in the order you choose, but the difficulty ramps up as you beat a world. If you were to go to the jungle world (to bring back old examples) first, it would be relatively simple. However, if you were to go there as the second or last world, it would be harder. In this way, you could choose what order the worlds go in without ending up in a hard world first by accident. This would require greater amounts of code and more programmed level transitions.
b)Go to any world at any time, and simply have the enemies and certain parts of the levels be more difficult. This would be easier, but not nearly as inviting, nor fun.
I actually had a different idea for b, but I was watching Cash Cab, so I forgot.
The maximum amount of stats, in my opinion, would be HP, MP (or water), Atk, and Def. The minimum would be HP and MP or Atk. Defense would be unnecessary because increased HP would make it easier to survive (as defense would). Attack would be unnecessary because MP or water could be used to charge and strengthen attacks (for example, holding the button on a water gun could give longer-lasting or bigger blasts, make bigger water bombs, or cause more concussive blunt weapon attacks).
Abilities (and weapons) could be minimized by simply upgrading older weapons or abilities (as I believe Sketchy suggested) and subsequently the range of abilities could be increased by charging these weapons or abilities (as I alluded to earlier in this post).
Each character could come from a different area in the hub, and depending on which you pick, that would define what areas you initially have access to, then by completing one of those, you gain access to other areas of the hub, which leads to more areas.
The story could have certain substories for each area, that connect into a larger story as the game progresses. For example, one may go to the mountain world to find that it is actually a dormant volcano a villian wishes to reactivate. This would be a substory in which you attempt to stop this from happening. An example of how this would tie into a larger story could be that after completing the mountain world, a part of the larger story progresses where the villian reports that they have failed to a larger entity, who moves on to another part of the plot, and after 3 general areas (any 3 areas) another part of the larger story is revealed where the people of the hub world are attacked by the larger entity, which sidetracks the story to a point where you have to go back and help your native area, which could be where the party splits up.
Lots of writing! The story part will go in the story section of the forums, all right? I'll start those soon.
Both steam and lava would work pretty well together. Steam being the more common and cheap power source, and lava being expensive, used for advanced machinery. The materials used to contain lava would have to be pretty interesting too, and used elsewhere as protection from lava (armored enemies) or deadly weapons. Oh no, Hyper-Arkanium War Axes!
I think the minimal stats would be best. Health, MP (or pressure, steam, water, lava), and Attack are all that is needed. Maybe a 'Special' stat for each character's special ability. I agree with Adam that they be equal in platform ability, and varying only in stats and their special ability. Switching between characters I'm not really sure. Being able to instantly change seems kind of magical, maybe set locations (pressure tube transport system! ). Then again, instant change could give some kind of strategy - even if they had separate health. It would be like a party, if you die, the next one comes in - so it'd pretty much be the game's lives system. When everyone dies, you go back to a save point, or the hub or something. Or, we could have a mix. You activate the 'pressure tube' (or whatever) points, and these would pretty much be checkpoints. If you die, you go back to the checkpoint with the next character, or if you're fighting a boss, the next character simply jumps in (the next character could be set in a party order, or simply chosen from a little menu when you die). Then there would be major save points, where you can revive and heal party members.
What is everyone thinking for attacks? Melee? Ranged? Different (changeable) weapons? Character-specific weapons? Upgradeable and special weapons? I haven't given it any thought. I think the different characters having a signature weapon would be cool, though, and this would determine their attack style, speed, damage, range etc. Adds to their personality, too.
I'm thinking four weapon-specific characters- one fists, one guns, one longswords, and one staves. As for the character switching function, I think maybe to have a steam-powered teleporter that either self-charges or is charged from enemy drops. that way it can't be spammed so it has a limit but the strategy mechanic is still in place- ex only the hand one can open keypad doors, only the gun one can hit bullseyes, the sword guy can push heavy objects, and the staff guy can polevault. To make it more interesting, the players could reach bonus areas by spending a LOT of points to upgrade these skills, like a longer pole vault, a grappling hook, a signal jammer, etc. The open-world mechanic will be more easily enforced by allowing the players to go back and unlock a buncha secrets with their hard-earned points like hp/steam maximum increases or damage boosts. Maybe new character skins or minigames would be a good idea. The minigames would make it even easier for ppl not interested in side-scroller level design to contribute to the final product.
Vegeta? What does your mother say about my power level?
I've thought about features, so here's a list. I list engine and gameplay features separately. Engine features describe what the intended effect is, while gameplay features describes how the player would percieve/use them.
Engine features:
Moving platforms - Both horizontal and vertical. Pretty self-explanatory.
Thin platforms - You can jump through the bottom of them. Holding down + jump would let you fall through them.
Variable height jumps - Longer you hold jump, the higher you jump. Tapping jump results in a low jump. There should be a limit to how low you can jump, as well as how high.
Double jumps - Self-explanatory. Would be affected by VHJ.
Slopes - Jumping to climb over an anthill is soooo NES style.
Rope Swinging - Probably easier to do if it was a single fixed distance/rope length instead of having it be dynamic.
Swimming - There's likely going to be water, and lots of it. Doesn't have to be complicated, could be very simple. See gameplay note.
Variable water height - This could be very easy to do or quite difficuly, depending on how the swimming is setup.
Bouyancy - Some way of finding out how deep the character is in water. If their waist is below the water line, then their movement speed could be hampered. If their chest falls below the water line, then they would be swimming. If their head dips below the water line, then they are underwater. Combined with VWH, this would make for a more dynamic feeling swimming, and would allow for some interesting level design.
Gameplay features:
Pressure pack - Your character can find and be equipped with a pressure pack. This pack is lightweight enough not to affect their movement abilities, but heavy duty enough to contain quite a bit of pressure. What's inside? Steam! (or whatever the story element is). At first, the pack requires external pumps to be recharged/refilled. Later, an upgrade would allow the pack to recharge on it's own when you're on the ground. Another subsequent upgrade could allow it to recharge faster on the ground and enable a slow recharge while in the air (subject to level design/balancing).
Double jumping - Pressing jump while in the air releases a burst of pressure and propel you upwards, while holding jump would constantly release pressure to allow you to go further.
Swimming - While underwater, pressing jump makes you kick your feet to swim upwards, while holding jump would release pressure to allow you to move even faster.
Pressure devices - Throughout the game you may find devices that require you to pump some of your pressure into the device in order to activate it. They could be simple switches, requiring just a burst of pressure, or they could be valves where you have to make pump a lot of pressure in to make something move.
Abilities - Your character's special abilities are not fueled by their pressure pack, but may be augmented by it. This allows for the abilities to be used early in the game, and then be powered up when they get the pressure pack.
I'm curious as to how much of this game is RPG and how much is action. Some are thinking (looks like) that the rpg elements are only in the form of hp boosts while others like myself are thinking ability upgrades as well, etc. Well anyways, This is what I was thinking for stats:
HP: obvious
SPEED: fast attack damage
STRENGTH: slow attack damage
RESIST: chance to avoid effects like stun, poison, etc.
DEFENSE: each point reduces damage by 1%, max 25%
Notice that I didn't include STEAM since that isn't a character skill, that depends on their equipment. Anyway, My thought is that each level the player gets 2 points to spend on each char and they all gain exp as long as they're alive no matter which one you're using. That way if a character leaves temporarily for story reasons then the player isn't screwed. For gun chars just switch SPD and STR with SHOT and CHARGED SHOT.
Vegeta? What does your mother say about my power level?
For swimming, it would probably be easier to basically have unlimited double jump while under water. Thin platforms might be better served as darker platforms (Castlevania does this). Same concept, just a different graphical representation.
Pressure devices sound nice, but it the end, it's just a switch. Why have someone sacrifice their power to move a lowly switch?
There could be devices that are physically switched on/off with a simple lever. The lack of a pressure pack would restrict access to areas that require pressure to power them. Once you do have the pack, getting to those switches could end up being sort of a puzzle assuming the pack doesn't passively regenerate (without a later upgrade); How little power can you use between the recharge station and the switch?
Of course, these pressure switches would become mostly obsolete with a passive regen. Later pressure puzzles could become things of a timed nature, where putting more pressure into the system gives you more time to get to the end objective.
It could also be a pacing mechanic. There could be a door that requires pressure, but there are enemies on the other side. Do you open the door and fight the enemies with less power, or do you take the long way around and use no power?
oh, and shab? Cool idea, but i would suggest halving the momentum of those underwater jumps. That way it would feel a bit more like they're actually feeling the pull of the water instead of like theyre floating in space or something. same with all momentum, movement (including descent) should be slower while underwater.
Vegeta? What does your mother say about my power level?
I have drawn up diagrams for what the pressure packs and steamglobes should do, and how they should work.
Regardless of the fact that it says the date over each post, when he posted that, it said "Today", so he was making sure people knew that day.
But seriously, Great collection of Ideas there. You should do one of those for everything and place them in a special thread so anyone can join at any time more easily.
Anyone ever notice how my first sentence in a post is never capitalized? I've started noticing that recently. I wonder why that is...
Vegeta? What does your mother say about my power level?
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Jon Lambert
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