Firstly I should say that a dream game such as this is great, and I really hope you guys actually advance in it. Judging from the ideas I've come across, this can really turn into something well known and hyped. I'm not sure how much of these ideas you guys have finalized, but I thought I might as well share my thoughts regarding what I've seen and share some of my own ideas, too.


EXISTING IDEAS


Why should there only be one limited per level? Doing that kills its potential. Furthermore, can this crate be launched like Wooden Crates can, or does it have to be destroyed by another object (arrow, dynamite)?


I feel that this idea can be handled much more creatively than just making it a simple box. What if, instead, it was a vent that could produce bubbles every so often? It could be manually decided how often bubbles pop out, or perhaps it could be set on some sort of random timing. If you do it this way, you could go even further with the idea, making it so that bubbles that reach the surface actually rise up and become an object that characters can ride until it pops (by touching terrain, platforms, etc.). Vents that are placed in acidic water could produce poisonous bubbles that would kill the character if touched.


This idea is a good one but, again, can be handled better. Just make objects called "broken ladders," and have them look more rigid and cracked than regular ladders. As soon as the character touches these ladders, the entire thing breaks apart. This could set up some fun traps, mandating quick jumps from ladder to ladder.


I don't see how using 2 or 3 tiles for regular air pockets wastes space. This idea is complicated and, really, rather unnecessary.



I don't like this. Take pride in your artwork and design and make the player use it. Honestly, this seems sort of lazy, like the developers won't take the time to create satisfactory or extraordinary art for their players. I should also mention that I'm against the idea of players being able to upload their own music, too. If they want to listen to their own music, they can turn off the game volume and open up iTunes while they play.



This is an interesting idea, but I don't see why exactly it's needed. The only benefit I see for this is being able to hit two objects at once by meeting them at the corner.


Um. Why? I'm assuming you can't roll it...so what's the purpose of a spiked boulder when spikes already exist?


NEW IDEAS

COLLAPSING TERRAIN
This is needed and very simple. When standing on this terrain for more than, say, two seconds (or perhaps instantly), it starts to collapse, forcing the character to move. When many tiles of collapsing terrain are vertically connected, the entire column collapses.

GIANT BOULDERS
This is an idea that would work well with slanted/curved terrain. These boulders couldn't be moved, but could be set up as a trap to make the characters run for their lives. For instance, place it right above slanted terrain, somehow get it to fall down (dynamite, arrows, you know the drill), and it'll roll at a fast pace in whichever direction the terrain was curved. These boulders would be about four to five tiles high, and they could only be destroyed by a Nuke Crate.

TRIGGERS
This is something I really wished HATPC--a simple way to start a trap. It's a simple button that, once stepped on, causes a single tile to do its effect (an arrow crate to burst, a dynamite crate to explode, etc.). In the level editor, I imagine it would be very simple to work. Just lay the trigger somewhere, then after it's laid, you have to lay a second tile that is just a slightly transparent, red square, and that red square is the area the trigger effects. The button would be small, taking up only 1/4 of the bottom part of the tile.


CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT



Seems like you guys have a variety of characters in mind, which is good. Just be sure that you guys give each character their own unique attributes, while all the same making it so each character is enjoyable to play. My suggestion for you guys is to give each character their own special or super move. I have one in mind for each character, and I would also like to suggest changing the species of one certain gerbil... I'll also suggest what the attributes for each character should be, regarding speed, jump, and swimming abilities.

Speed affects a character's quickness on land and how far they can jump.
Jump affects how high a character can jump.
Swim affects a character's quickness and flexibility in water.
(3/5 is considered average: think of Hannah's stats being 3/5 all around)

FLOYD THE WOLF
Speed - 4/5
Jump - 3/5
Swim - 3/5
Special - HOWL (instantly destroys all enemies in a ten tile radius)
Floyd would be given above average stats, but his not-so-useful special would balance his abilities.

FELIX THE EAGLE
Speed - 2/5
Jump - 4/5
Swim - 2/5
Special - FLIGHT (is able to fly, hover, glide over any distance for a period of ten seconds)
What Felix would lack on ground and in water would be made up by his advanced air mobility.

JEAN THE CHEETAH (still considered a cat, a cheetah is more fitting for the stats I had in mind)
Speed - 5/5
Jump - 3/5
Swim - 1/5
Special - SPRINT (running speed is quicker by x1.5 for a period of ten seconds)
Jean's ground game would be fantastic, but they would be the worst swimmer in the game.

IVAN THE OTTER (you guys lack an animal that deals with water movement, and that's a major area in the game)
Speed - 2/5
Jump - 1/5
Swim - 5/5
Special - SPIRAL (swims in a spiral motion underwater, able to break any sort of crates and boulders for a period of ten seconds)
Ivan would be the ideal character for the most enjoyment in underwater levels.

RITA THE ARMADILLO
Speed - 1/5
Jump - 2/5
Swim - 2/5
Special - ROLL (curls into a ball which allows x2.5 speed and reasonable invincibility for a period of ten seconds)
Rita would be for advanced players, and levels featuring around them would usually consist of harder moments.

You guys also need a monkey, so I was thinking that perhaps you could switch in one for a hamster.

HUGSY THE MONKEY (come on, it even rhymes--get that hamster out of here)
Speed - 3/5
Jump - 5/5
Swim - 3/5
Special - CLIMB (is able to climb any sort of solid wall with ease for a period of ten seconds)
Hugsy, as the bonus character, would have the most enjoyable stats in the game.

Now, you could handle building supers/specials in a few ways:
[1] Have them start with it in the beginning, and they can only use it once.
[2] Have the special refill after a certain amount of time.
[3] Have the character find a special "object" that supplies them with their special.

Whichever you might choose (personally, I feel that option three would be most fitting), know that giving your characters unique statistics and unique abilities is a must and will heighten your overall enjoyment with the game. I also imagined that each character could have there own theme song playing for the duration of their special. I hope you guys found my ideas insightful and amazingly awesome--I certainly feel they could make for greater development. Tell me what you think.

The 3 New Ideas you had don't seem to fit to me. I know we're not recreating HATPC, but they seem like a completely different style to the other elements of the game. I don't really like the way they'd change traps .

I agree with Harumbai that none of the new ideas feel like an instant hit for me, especially the giant boulder one. Even if we reduced the size of it, I still can't see it being used expect for some very specific purposes. I am neutral towards collapsing terrain, because while providing a speed element, it doesn't force any reaction from their surroundings and if you only wanted to make it impossible to get from point A to point B more than once, we already have solutions for that taking about three tiles of space. I am slightly positive towards triggers, but I think that they need restrictions. Activating a trigger in one corner of the cave shouldn't start a trap in the other end of the level. I think that the actual triggers and the area they trigger must be within a radius of 8 tiles.

That's some good character suggestions though.

Ivan is staying a gerbil. When we started this and we thought we'd only use one character, we wanted it to be a gerbil. So the gerbil will not change. And I will not change Hugsy either.  Hugsy the Deranged Hamster is my own special character.

We already had some character specifics planned, but nothing too deep. We wanted Felix to be able to jump higher than the other characters and possibly have a second jump in the air, I think we wanted Jean to be able to wall jump and Rita to be only one tile high and not be able to crawl (as that is pointless on a character one tile high).

"I should also mention that I'm against the idea of players being able to upload their own music, too."
I think that that's for the level editing, not the playing?

"I'm assuming you can't roll it...so what's the purpose of a spiked boulder when spikes already exist?"
These boulders are the "falling spikes" that everybody keeps talking about, lol. You forget that these will still fall and roll around, even though you can't push them. It could be interesting to have a spiked boulder that you somehow need to get to break through some platforms, but you can't push it in order to get it there. Maybe some type of enemy that can push boulders would fit well with this object? Either way, if custom objects goes through, then this type of thing should already be inherently possible.

Meh, I don't really care for those new ideas, but I really like where you're going with the characters. You're right about the lack of a water-based animal. I don't know what Jellsprout's saying, but it doesn't really matter if we have a gerbil or not. What would a gerbil do...? Hugsy, jell, I could take or leave. Sure, he looks funny, but we need to think in terms of gameplay, and what's he's going to add to it.

Couldn't it be possible to add a seventh character? And arsenalist or a cook or something? I personally don't care if we have a gerbil or not, but it is a nice throwback to the early development days of Aeon.

I don't really like the specials idea (I'll explain later in this post), but this: this gives me a great idea! Whenever you crawl with Rita, the crawling animation would be her rolling as a ball (reminds me of the morph ball in Metroid games), and she would crawl faster than she runs. And maybe let her get into crawling mode from mid-air, but we can balance it by not allowing her to jump while in crawl mode. Think of the crazy speed traps we could make with this.

I really like the trigger idea. I don't really see what's so wrong with this, though:Why not? It's not that big of a deal.

I'm not sure collapsing "terrain" would be a good idea. Maybe collapsing platforms or crates.

Giant Boulders. I'm not sure about that. I could potentially be doable if you just take a boulder and make it bigger? Maybe try it out with custom objects.

I don't know the difference between gerbils and hamsters, so I'm wondering that it's redundant to have both a gerbil and a hamster, even if one is mutant. But yeah, we could always have more characters.

As for character differences, they are a good idea and we talked about them a bit already, but not so specifically. It could be best to experiment with the settings when figuring these options out.

I'm not sure I like the Special abilities idea. I get a sense that it just isn't within the scope of the game's style. I did however think that having them unlocked by a tile was a good idea-- You just gave me another idea!! We could make a bunch of "power up tiles". When you break through them, you get special powers for a limited amount of time. Think of the Star Man from mario. We could get more creative, like making a tile that'll let you hover (imagine a puzzle where you have to figure out how to get such a power up to fall down to you so that you can advance?), or one that gives you a boost of speed, or unlimited air, or the ability to break whatever you touch. Maybe make these power ups flexible enough that you can make your own via the custom objects feature.

I'm actually not sure about this idea that I just suggested. Maybe it too would be breaking from the style of the game, or maybe it could lead to more diversity in the game? It could be fun..

Of course it's always possible to add more characters--it's your dream game, after all--but just know that a gerbil doesn't necessarily have anything to offer in terms of fun, new gameplay. The point I'm making is that you guys need characters that can be useful in exploring different areas of the game to the fullest. It makes no sense to have both a gerbil and a hamster (personally, I feel both of those ideas are horrible for characters, but that's just me) when both are nearly the same, even if one is a mutant. Having only one of them in themselves even seems redundant as far as character capabilities goes.



To be honest, I had the the very same idea when first thinking of triggers. It just didn't seem quite realistic, I guess, that a button would be able to start a trap from the opposite side of the level. But the more I got to thinking it, the more I realized that an unrealistic game shouldn't have those sorts of restrictions, anyway. Really, though, having a limited radius is one of those things that would be fine with or without. Triggers would still be immensely useful however it's implemented.



I disagree. Giving each and every character the option to hover, sprint, be invincible, or whatever other power ups might be available would give a feel of blandness to the characters. What you're suggesting is the Mario games, and those mechanics work for those games because the different characters (Mario, Luigi) have nearly exactly the same attributes. With so many different characters in mind, however, I imagine that you would want each character to have their own unique properties, and as such, handling power ups in this way would be out of place.

The specials I suggested for each character were given as a way to balance their abilities. If, say, Floyd was able to be invincible, run at the quickest space, and hover around the entire level, then who would want to play as the much slower and uncoordinated Rita? Instead, Rita is given one of the best specials in the game, and Floyd is given one of the worsts in order to make both characters respectfully enjoyable. The same is for the other characters, too. Theoretically, there is just no way that a cheetah would be able to jump as high as an eagle or swim as fast as an otter. Appropriate, individual specials maintain these differences.

[Livio] And, I don't understand why collapsing crates/platforms makes more sense than collapsing terrain. As for giant boulders, it's an idea that would go well with slanted terrain, if that's ever used. It would also give Nuke Crates an actual use, because as of now, I don't see what the purpose of them is other than a flashy explosion.

actually, not all the characters have to add something new to the gameplay (whether it's more speed, higher jumps or whatever) because we still need one standard character who has all the default settings. This ideally would be the captain, which is probably closest to be Aeon's main character.

And yeah, maybe that power up idea isn't such a good thing for Aeon.

As for collapsing terrain, terrain is supposed to be a non-changing tile that can't be moved or destroyed. Things would be really weird if all of a sudden we could destroy it. That's why it's better to take that idea and assign it to platforms or steel crates.

I think we decided not to go with slanted terrain because of what happens when tiles fall on it. Would they be slanted? How would they stack? Etc. Such a thing would change quite a lot about the gameplay and would take more effort to program and stuff.

I actually like the Nuke Crate idea. Using it once per level, I don't know why that would have to be, either. I once thought of a nuke crate where once detonated it would destroy the entire level, so the point would be to stop it from detonating. It would most likely be used as a means of adding a time limit to the level, but it would probably be better if we just added a time-limit option to the level editor, wouldn't it? Time would be measured in frames, of course, to avoid differences among computer speeds.

As for characters, we figured to divide the levels among different sets, with each set being played through by a specific character in a certain region of Aeon. For example, one set could feature the armadillo in a bunch of volcano levels. But what if we rethink the way we organize our levels? What if we just make a level map that you progress through (such as in Mario games) except that each level requires use of a specific character. And as you go through the Aeon world, unlocking levels and secondary paths, and secrets and stuff, you could also unlock characters, which can allow you to go back and play levels that were closed off before. Or maybe even let you use any character in a previously-beaten level so that you can use that character's different abilities to find a secret exit and unlock a secret path of more levels? But the whole point of this idea is so that we can add as many characters as we need without having to worry about making an entire set of levels for them. Just and idea, though.

And yeah, you're right that each character should probably have their own abilities to set them further apart. However, I think your abilities are too powerful. I like what jell said more, about giving one character the ability to wall-jump, another higher jumps/second jumps, another ledge-grabbing, and maybe even that morph ball idea I mentioned. If we're gonna give characters specials, I would enjoy it more if they were real gameplay mechanics used frequently and not just a powerful thing that can only be used once or a few times.

I already planned on doing this.

And for the story, the idea was that the ship gets hit by an asteroid or perhaps Aeon's automated self-defense system. There was first a few tutorial levels explaining the basics of the game where you run through the crashing ship to the escape pods. Every character (except Hugsy) makes it to the escape pods. The ship crashes on the moon, and every escape pod crashes in a different section of the world. At the center of this world is a big city each of the characters tries to make it to.
So one character crashes in the mountains and has to make it through a series of mountain and snow based levels, while another crashes on an island and has to make it through a lot of tropical and ocean based levels. After you beat each of the five main series, you open up a seventh series of levels inside the city, where you play through the city to make it to the very conveniently placed spaceship the extinct residents just had lying around. After beating this you escape the planet and beat the game.
Finally, after collecting all the gems, you open up the eighth, bonus series, where play as Hugsy who crashed on the moon. He doesn't try to escape, just has a lot of fun. Perhaps ending this with a little of Hugsy finding the American flag or something.

man there are so many things I forgot about Aeon planning.

but I remember the story and the premise for the level setup. I was just wondering if that was the best way to do it. But wait, I don't remember how we planned to set up the level select screen. Will you be looking at a map of Aeon, then click on a set, zoom into a different map, and then select the levels like that? (actually I remember the idea being that a "list" of levels come up when you click on a set, not a map). I remember suggesting how awesome it would be if we made one giant map similar to Super Mario World, filled with all sorts of secret paths, secret levels, exits, and bonuses. Instead of every character following their own little area and then all meeting up in the city, we could just start out with Captain Floyd and join him as he travels Aeon looking for his crew. As he finds each of them, they join his party and travel the Aeon world map together. Each new character in your party makes certain routes and levels accessible. Plus we could get more creative with the overall locations of levels, instead of just limiting it to the 7/8 areas on the planet.

That could also work.
But the Hugsy levels still need to be hidden till you get all the gems. He shouldn't find the others.

cool, I wonder what everyone else thinks of this idea. It would take quite a bit of planning to make a good map.

Perhaps it is a good idea to first make decent Order of Operations. For you and me it is pretty obvious what we need to do now, but which things are necessary to find out now and which things can best wait till later in the development.

Yeah originally, it was just gonna be sets of levels, but now I'm thinking of a more SMW-world style map. Each character starts at a different place on the map (with some way to switch between which one you want to move around the map), working their way to the center. Eventually, the routes that characters take to the center slowly begin to collide (and they may meet up in different orders and groups, depending on what secret exits you took) and eventually, all the characters meet up near the centre and now every character can now visit every previously-visitable level.

When you choose to play a level, you can select which of the characters that can reach to play as. It could be very possible that, upon entering a level with a certain character, is turns out to be completely impossible to complete, lol, so there would need to be a sort-of "suggested character" on the selection screen. You eventually need all the characters together in order to tackle the last few levels.

I was thinking of adding different map screens also sort of like SMW. You would have different screens, each containing a world that contains levels.

So you have a map and there are 6+ characters scattered through, each you can toggle to and then move around to select a level. Maybe something like that will get confusing/annoying? We could do that or we could keep them all in one big party, which you move around.

After thinking about it, I prefer to just have one character on the world map, which represents your party. And whenever you enter a level, you can pick which character you want to play as, and some levels may block the use of some characters or even all but one character. This approach would make it easier to keep all the harder levels towards the end of the journey, and it'll be more interesting since you don't unlock all the characters near the beginning.

Wouldn't it make more sense to start with one character, have them do their levels until they reach the "inner city," and then move on to the next character's set? I imagine you could start with your captain, Floyd, and have him complete whichever region he lands in. Have his levels sort of be the tutorial of the game, introducing general items and the overall objective. From there, move on to a new character, have them reach the inner city, and then move on from there. The inner city would be the area where all characters are needed in order to pass the final and hardest level.

In doing it this way, you could also build up the player's experience with the game. For instance, let's say Floyd ends up being the easiest character to control, whereas Rita's movements were focused for people more familiar with the game. Let them start with Floyd, then a harder character, a harder character, a harder character, and then they finally reach Rita. By the time they reach the inner city, they'll have plenty of experience with each character and have the knowledge needed to pass the final stage. If you do it this way, then there's even no need to worry about the complexity of the world map.



Wouldn't it be neat if, instead of crashing on the moon, the spaceship burst into parts and landed in different regions in Aeon? Then you could make it so that there's a spaceship part placed at the end of each level, and when the crew finally reunites, they can finally reassemble their space ship and get out of there. Regarding how Hugsy landed on the moon, you could just do something where his escape pod got hit by space junk, too, and was thrown majorly off course. That'd be much more satisfying than a "conveniently placed spaceship," hehe.

hey yeah, we're already collecting power boxes in each level, so why don't we somehow make that more involved in the story. So far, the power boxes are used to open the door, but maybe they need it to fuel the escape ship that they either already found or have yet to assemble. It could be cool if on the world map it says you have X number of Y power boxes, with Y being the total number of power boxes in the game (secret levels included? but not counting hugsy's levels)

and making a complicated world map is just to make the whole experience more interesting. If you've ever played Super Mario World, exploring the huge world map was a ton of fun, and it encouraged people to look for secret exits which lead to secret levels.In comparison, making a straight, linear road of levels seems boring. And segregating the game's levels by character also seems uninteresting.

I'm not saying don't make a fun and adventurous world map, I'm just saying to make it in a way that leads the player deeper in the game as they go--not starting them at the bottom of the hole. When I mentioned complexity, I wasn't talking about the amount of levels or the design of the map or anything like that, I was referring to how the characters meet up and jumble along. In my mind, it makes sense that you close in on one region of the world map, have that character work through that region and reach the inner city, then move on to the next character and their region and have them do the same.

oh okay. If I remember correctly, we were originally planning on separating all the levels into sets based on location and character, and that these sets would be beaten in a somewhat linear fashion where some would be open simultaneously, and they open gradually as you keep beating more and more levels. The cool thing about it was that if you got stuck or tired in one set, you could go and keep playing in another set.

However, as I've been saying, I'm starting to think that this isn't such a good idea. Or rather, I'm saying that making an open world map is a better idea. The premise is that you've landed on planet Aeon, so we should take advantage of that and make the planet feel as big and adventurous as possible. Splitting the planet into seven small areas and making you play through those does not make it feel like a unified planet. I want the player to see their progress as they play through the levels, to see their map expanding across the globe so that by the end of the game they have this network of paths that take up the entire planet's surface. Plus, it could help give the player a better feel of where the levels actually are. Suddenly they aren't just in a generic lava enviornment, but instead they're passing through that large volcano toward the eastern side of Aeon that they noticed earlier on in their journey.

In comparison, just splitting the levels up into a bunch of mini-maps which all connect in the end to one hub mini map, it doesn't give off that sense of exploration or the feeling that you are in a believable world. It just makes it seem like you already know where everything is, where you have to go, and it's as simple as following that straight path towards the end. That's not bad, but in comparison, it just isn't as compelling.

My idea is that Jean the Bird should mock Falco, and Floyd the Wolf should mock Fox from Smash Bros. The others, particuarly if we have a monkey who is actually sucking a dummy when the ship hits and asteroid, should be cute and lovable. Another Idea is that Floyd is the only character that can speak.

CLOTHING

Felix the Bird - Should be perhaps a blue feathered bird with a yellow beak, like Falco, but he is wearing a pilots goggles and scarf, giving him a mad sort of look. Scrap the robotic arm, and give it to the Deranged Gerbil.

Floyd the Wolf- Just wearing an Army armband. He should be grey and white.

Rita the Armadillo- Has a Medic armband, nothing else. Browny-grey coloured.

Ivan the Gerbil- Has a robotic arm and a hammer he holds over his shoulder. Is light brown and white coloured.

Jean the Cat- Black coloured with yellow eyes.

Hugsy the Monkey- Just a really nice monkey, like the ones on Yoshi's Island DS. Sucks a dummy as one of umm... His/Her idle animations.

you should take your suggestions regarding appearances to the Graphics 'n stuff topic.

but wait, he brings up an interesting idea: idle animations. should we have them?

Having idle animations is never a bad thing, and I'm sure it wouldn't distract from any major development. Idle animations can really show the nick-picks of character personalities, too, like perhaps Floyd could pick his fangs, Felix could adjust his robotic arm in some way, and whatever else. Go for it; they could be fun to have.



Your characters shouldn't be mocking or resembling anyone. Show some originality and get your own ideas for characters started. Besides, we don't need another bird with a bad accent or a dog with horribly bad dialogue.

This is kind of late, since I wasn't here when this discussion took place, but a good alternative to the collapsing terrain that imtimi suggested might be a solid crate that you can stand on, but would break after being stood on and left, as in, you can stand on it as long as you would like, but the moment you leave it, it self-destructs or something. Or we could just do a collapsing crate, or both, but I've never been a fan of collapsing things. It's just a cheap way to force the player to hurry up, in my opinion.