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Gobo edited this page Jun 3, 2021 · 4 revisions

Thoughts and suggestions that came up in chat

Items

Bolas

Capture/stun/immobilize mobs with that throwing weapon. Maybe have this as a levelup of the Boomerang?

Roc's Cape

Upgrade to Roc's feather. Let's the player jump and soar greater distance and higher air control.

Fire fairy

To be kept in a bottle and released in dark rooms. Buzzes off into the direction you are attacking with your A button, providing a small light to scout ahead. Travels in straight lines until a barrier is encountered. Has to be bottled up again before you leave the room or it is gone. Can be bottled by other players? There should be at least one (lava) "pond" of fire fairies that players can go to catch a new one in an empty bottle.

Lucky Loot

A big, rare, rainbow colored Tetran. Has to be damaged to pop open like a pinata. Can contain a single valuable item (like a high value Tetran or a potion) or explode into a bunch of low value items (small value Tetrans, a bunch of ammo, heart refills). It is a filler item, that is more interesting to receive than just another usual Tetran or an item like the single arrow in ALTTP.

Gameplay

Player interaction in co-op games

Let players block each other, push on dash into another and get picked up, moved and tossed by other players. Picked up players should be able to free themselves by sword slashing.

Puzzles

Torch puzzles that span a whole dungeon

For single player, those candles or torches would be lit forever, but in multiplayer games they would turn off on a timer that depends on the number of players

Enemies and traps

Guards and alerters

Soldiers holding a position or patrolling a fixed route, will chase a player that walks into sight and have them re-spawn at the entrance and walk back to its guard position afterwards (if there is a player in the room). Alerters are targets a player can activate with bombs or bomb arrows to lure guards from their posts and sneak through unnoticed.

Name tags

How should player names be displayed? Have the player toggle name tags in the game options with additional opacity and delay modifiers? Have a special key/button bind? Show labels once a player enters your camery view? Show tags after viewing a multiplayer overview screen (tab screen in shooters)?

Player colors

Have players chose a color along with their character sprite and name. That color is used as a shadow beneath that player on other player's screens. Maybe even marks player positions on a map?

Visible Armor type

Have one color (or two, to allow for a shade?) in a player sprite change according to the level of armor the player has equipped as visual feedback

Loot pickup and stocks

Have new items cloned to every players inventory on pickup, but each player keeps their own ammo count. Same applies to bottles: once a bottle is picked up, each player gets a copy, but can use and restock it independently.

Boss weak spot overlay

Would it be possible to have some kind of "weak spot" overlay for bosses, that players can chose to see as a means of difficulty setting? Skyward Sword had bright colors indicating hit zones on bosses. The overlay could also be triggered by a certain ring or a lens. This would also allow for a "puzzle boss", where you have to have an item equipped to know which part of the boss is vulnerable at any given time. Players could still attempt to brute force the fight, but with the right gear it would be faster and simpler.

Ready Room / Lobby

Have all players enter a special scene on game start, where they hang out until the game/race starts with everyone ready to go. That interactive lobby could feature a small tavern, an arena, mini games like a shooting gallery to keep the players entertained while waiting.

Item swaps and presets

We will use more buttons than the Gameboy provided. That opens up the possibility of having certain items permanently bound to special keys/buttons to avoid item swap fatigue. That means a dedicated action for sword, shield and jump, once the items are picked up.

Item interactions

Special effects for certain item combinations, like bow and bombs used at the same time would result in a bomb arrow to be fired, with explosive splash-damage on hit.

Tech stuff

Randomizer

"Fake items"

Fake items would allow for harder modes or glitches to be taken into consideration at loot distribution. For example, chests in or after a dark room would work on a "darkroomtraversal" condition, where "darkroomtraversal" would be a skill, not an item. It would still be provided to the randomizer as part of the starting equipment, so the randomizer identifies those locations as accessible even if the player does not have a lamp or fire rod. She is simply able to finish dark rooms blindly and can reach those locations. The lamp, fire rod, sonar ring, sound detector ring or fire fairy would trigger this fake item for the randomizer as well. So as soon as one of those real items is picked up, the "darkroomtraversal" trait gets set. Lamps and fire rod would also set another "firesource" fake item, that would make for easier conditions, e.g. on chests after torch puzzles.

Swap out rooms

Swap out selected rooms in each dungeon to bring a bit of variety to players doing lots of runs. Replacement rooms do not change the dungeon requirements or overall pathfinding, they are just a variation of the room layout.

Live data over websocket

Have the host instance or even each peer stream their current status and inventory over a simple protocol like websocket. That could allow add-ons to be developed to enable spectator views or self updating trackers.