So, seeing as we're looking into redoing the HATPC tutorial for Reborn and the general opinion is that the tutorial should be more gradual and integrated into the campaign, we're basically going to be overhauling the whole campaign. If that's the case, we might as well fix another oversight in the original HATPC campaign - the lack of immersion and story development.

Changing the tutorial to be more organic will go a long way towards making the campaign more immersive. Another way we can do it is to have the tutorial messages written from Hannah's perspective rather than from the perspective of the dungeon master. Then the biggest thing our campaign will be lacking story-wise is some sort of plot progression.

Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas for story elements.

*insert some real-life pirating story here*

Ok, let's start with the original story, such as it is:


And now let me throw out some ideas:

(1) Instead of beginning inside the first cave, the campaign begins on the surface where Hannah searches for the entrance to the first cave. This would require the implementation of a new background (an above-ground background) but would be a good way to provide context for the campaign, and it could serve as the first level to introduce the mechanics. And as a bonus, the new above-ground background would be available for use in user levels.

(2) Rather than ending each level as soon as Hannah reaches the door and cutting to a different screen to collect the treasure into your score, the game stays on the level screen when you enter the door and the treasure gets collected into your score as the door closes behind Hannah. It's a fairly minor detail, but just seeing the door closing behind Hannah provides a whole new story element to the game - there's no way back. The only way for Hannah to escape the caves is for her to find her way all the way through to the other side (if there is one). At the start of the second level (immediately after the level where Hannah enters the caves from the surface), Hannah can comment on this.

(3) Rather than randomly sprinkling different terrain types into campaign levels, the terrain evolves as you progress through the campaign to give a sense that you're going deeper into the cave system. For an example of a game that did this, see Armor Mayhem (and it's an excellent game, so you should play it in any case. ). The terrain will start out with Terrain 1 since it looks like a seabed, and then it will progress through different terrain types as the game goes on. I'm thinking that terrain 2 should be the last in the progression since it's clearly composed of compacted bones, making it suitably ominous for the deepest depths of the cave system.

(4) Once you reach the deepest point in the cave system you find something (treasure hoard, boss, trap, etc.) which triggers the cave system to start flooding. That particular level will act as a sort of climax of the campaign and introduce the mechanic of flowing water. Every level after that point will feature flowing water as Hannah rushes to escape from the rapidly flooding cave system. The terrain colors will reverse their progression from earlier to represent your progress back towards the surface.

It should be possible to play user levels in a series as well so that users would be able to create their own story modes.

That sounds like an awesome idea, Kro. I'd have to figure out how to implement it, but I think I have just the thing to do it without making things too complex. I'd add another use for the $ syntax: Add a line that reads $next(URL) to your level to make HATPC Reborn automatically load and play the level stored at URL. That would make it easy for users to set up series of levels and easy for HATPC Reborn to know about the series - all it has to know is the URL stored in the cave file.

How's that for a fast turnaround? You suggest a feature and 6 hours later, it's implemented and pushed live.