Definitely not our immediate priority, but worth discussing considering most of the idea topics have been about crates to put in the cavemaker so far. We don't have to use the same tiles from the standard HATPC cavemaker in the Aeon campaign; I expect there to be a lot of campaign-only scenery and tiles. Tiles that will only be needed to play one section of one level, for instance.

Aeon is supposed to take place in futuristic, abandoned army bases. Now don't slate me if this has been discussed before, but what are we going to replace arrows with in the campaign? Nothing that you'll think of will be any less realistic than firing an arrow out of a box, so be as crazy as you like. I like the idea of mini-rockets that blast off in a straight line when hit. Arrows are just going to look out of place.

The basic story of the game is that a crew of six are flying about in their spaceship, the spaceship gets hit by space junk, they fall to Earth in separate escape pods, they have five missions each and they all meet up at some spaceport to go off in a rocket. A sixth crew-member stayed in the spaceship and landed on the moon; I don't know if any levels will feature him. The question is this: should there be an opening level where the player is on the spaceship, the spaceship is hit by space junk and they have to reach the escape pods in time while the ship collapses around them? I'd say yes, because that sounds like an awesome level and sets the mood for the game. There could be those 'red alert' lights and sirens from Star Trek (I'm not a Trekkie, I'd like to make that clear! ) and specially-designed 'control panel' tiles to be placed around the ship to make it ship-like.

If we're making a game in which different settings are used, by no means should we use the same tiles and scenery as we would in the cavemaker. We need to find some outside people who can do some pretty art for us: cityscapes, desert rocks, ice chambers, spaceship interiors, alien worlds, whatever (I'm still talking about basic HATPC-quality 2D art here). If Livio can figure out how to put together the basic mechanics, I feel we should try and make this the BEST game that we possibly can. Let's not be shy; when the time comes to making it, we should ask around for hobby artists (and maybe even programmers if the case may be) to give us a hand. Let's make Aeon a really kick-arse flagship game for our site; a real reason to come to the interguild. We don't just have to make another HATPC campaign, we could make something really spectacular without having incredible skills of our own.

Enough of my brainless waffle; let's hear some good ideas about level design, storylines and whatnot.

"they fall to Earth in separate escape pods"
Correction -- They fall to -Aeon- in separate escape pods.

"I don't know if any levels will feature him."
Lol, I think that his levels were gonna be like, the bonus levels, or something. I'm not sure what he's up to, but whatever. Maybe they leave him behind because he's psychopathic or something.

"The question is this: should there be an opening level where the player is on the spaceship, the spaceship is hit by space junk and they have to reach the escape pods in time while the ship collapses around them?"
Not sure how we'd make that. Perhaps an opening movie would work better.

"good ideas about level design"
I'm really hoping that we get the water working right, what with the taps and the drains and their crates and the crusts and the floating tiles and the differently-behaving water types. Like, who doesn't want to make a level with rising death water? Or a rising crust, with you on top, avoiding being crushed between it and the ceiling? Or a water tower with rising and lowering water, where you have to go up and down multiple times in order to see everything? Sounds like a good time had by all, right there.

My idea for the sets:
Set 0: Tutorial set. Each of the 5 main crew members gets 1 level where their own special powers are introduced and where the basics of the game are explained. In this set it is the goal to get to the escape pods safely. They probably have each have to get their equipement before escaping, explaining why they each take a seperate route. Beat this to unlock set 1 through 5. These levels will be mechanical themed.
Set 1: Floyd the wolf's set. He lands on an island in the middle of the ocean. To get to the city, he has to swim through the ocean from island to island, get through those islands and get through under-sea caverns. His levels will be mostly aquatic, either fully submerged, half submerged or jungles with scattered lakes.
Set 2: Felix the eagle's set. He lands in a mountainous region. He has to get across mountains, up and down cliffs and through caves. His levels will be mostly mountain, ice and cavern themed, with many vertical levels.
Set 3: Ivan the gerbil's set. He lands ontop of a volcano. He has to get across the outside and inside of the volcano to reach the city. His levels will be mountain, rock cave and lava themed.
Set 4: Jean the cat's set. She lands in a massive jungle. She has to across the jungle and through lakes to get to the city. Her levels will be jungle themed with some water here and there. Perhaps a few caves and vertical levels too.
Set 5: Rita the armadillo's set. She lands in the middle of the desert. Her levels will be sand cave and desert themed.
After these 5 sets are fully beaten, you unlock:
Set 6: The city. 5 levels each featuring one of the crew members. They have to turn off the cities automated defences and clear the way to the space ship to escape. This will be mechanical themed, but in a different style than set 0.
After collecting all the gems (or whatever we will replace them with), you unlock:
Set 7: Hugsy the mentally disordered hamster's set. He doesn't really care about escaping. He's just hanging out on the moon. His levels will either be lunar themed, or completely surreal such as peanut butter.

That looks good, but I still think that a variety of obstacles (as in my other post) is better then a bunch of shut off switches to the safety system.

We could definitely do some campaign-only stuff.

As for water, I have a backup plan: the ability to have water unaffected by anything. It's just on it's own plane, and everything goes under water and it all rises/lowers at a constant rate no matter what. In fact, this could be an entire separate option, if we get the other one to work too.

My biggest worry for the main levels (and I guess for the whole game) is the artwork. We better get it right... In fact, we should be working on the artwork right now, while the game is being coded..

GIMP to the rescue, eh?