Sloth

Posted by Overkill on November 11, 2007 at 3:01 pm under gruedorf

Help me, I’m becoming lazy again! I will not allow myself to lose yet, though! This post is utter crap, I wrote it in a rushed 20 minutes before the deadline, so bear with me. I have been trying to come up with some various ideas for weapon and ability designs, because it has occurred to me that in order to make somebody care about my game, there needs to be awesome abilities, not just a bizarre ability system where the player’s powers increase or diminish based on signal reception and interference.

I apologize, because I have been procastinating heavily and I am having trouble coming with ideas in about half-an-hour before the deadline, but I open the floor to discussion on weapons and ability suggestions.

These things need to be able to incrementally upgrade as signal strength gets higher, level 1 being the lowest, weakest power (furthest from broadcast point), and level 4 being the highest, godly power (closest to beacon).

This week I will not post a new build, because I have yet to make any notable changes since last entry. I was busy studying for midterms during the week, and busy with social life during the weekend. Regrettable, I know, and I am dreadfully sorry.

Okay, quick, quick, ideas for weapons. Firstly, I was thinking some sort of weapon that creates a slightly-damaging electrical vortex of sorts that attaches to a target and sucks nearby, moderately sized enemies into it. When you have greater signal strength, perhaps you get a bigger charge that explodes into several small chaotic vortexes. I was thinking this could have various puzzle uses, and in combat could be used to keep enemies from swarming you. Maybe it could also be used to pull the player over difficult ledges by chaining the attack in higher signal strengths, in areas where the player’s suit is strong enough to shield them from the electrical discharge.

Nifty weapons are essential, no doubts, but there will need to be some sort conventional pea-shooter weapon, just so that there is some moderate comfort in regular fighting. But I need to give the pea shooter some sort of twist, so it isn’t some generic energy blaster. It needs to be awesome, yet still conventional in use.

Oh crap almost out of time, so I’m just going to leave it at that. I really hope that this next week will yield better results. In the meantime, this half-assed quickly written post will have to suffice. Thanks. I look forward to hearing your suggestions, if you would care to share any. I can’t promise I’ll use them, but I will appreciate the suggestions in order to prod my creativity again. That is all for now.


SDHawk on November 11, 2007 at 6:48 pm (comment)

This is, without a doubt, the worst gruedorf update yet.


Max on November 13, 2007 at 1:06 pm (comment)

Try focusing on gameplay fun as your primary goal–have weapons and abilities that one can get creative with. In other words, the funnest gameplay relies on emergent effects–complex game behaviour that emerges at runtime, but is not specifically programmed. For example, being able to draw any picture that portrays any scene–this ability can emerge out of the basic ability to set pixel colors to a bitmap. The sum (the picture) is larger than its parts (the pixels). Some ideas:

* A “telekinesis” gun that you can move objects around with–including the baddies and yourself. An emergent effect would be to use this gun to use a baddie as a lethal weapon towards other baddies–not explicitly scripted for, just capable.

* A portal gun whose shots warp objects to different places on contact. Used in conjunction with a mirror to reflect the shot, you should be able to also warp yourself. Perhaps the trick to taking out enemies is to warp them into the dangerous places, such as the middle of a vat, or a garbage compactor, rather than killing them directly. If you can also create portal doors, you can get really creative if your portals allow you to warp to to some place high in the sky, build up velocity while falling and then hit another portal that translates you upside down, so that you can use the velocity you have falling, and turn it into velocity for shooting upward into the air–a use for chasms. All these behaviours emerge from a basic portal gun.

* Mobile jet-propelled explosives combined with homing and repulsing beacons that stick to things. Such beacons will be fired by a gun. Fire a repulsing beacon into the air, and falls back down and lands on you, to avoid being killed. Fire homing beacons at your enemies and watch them run, but be careful if they take them and throw them back at you! You can also fire repulsing beacons and homing beacons at the landscape to provide guideways for jet-propelled explosives to avoid obstacles, etc.


Syn on November 14, 2007 at 4:23 pm (comment)

Wow Max, interesting post!


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