Saturday, December 09, 2006

Addendum: Hammerspace

OK, since I was a day late this week (swamped with Xmas-related stuff) I'll be doing two updates. Well, one and a half, since this entry will go on further about the Hammerspace idea I wrote about last time.

I was hoping to knock up a few sketches of the in-game interface for this one but I got lazy. As I often do. So instead I'll describe some more of the levels and collection devices/tools and also reaffirm some of the game mechanics.

Extra Game Mechanics:
* First of all, there will be enemies and other dangers around but any damage they do to you will be limited to sheer inconvenience, as opposed to including any kind of health bar or game-over system. For example, they could hammer you into the ground (wasting the few seconds needed to pull yourself out) or flip you halfway across the level or off a tall structure, which means getting all the way over there again. There'll eventually be a way of knocking them out and collecting them along with everything else.
* I'll be bringing back that event-based timeline from an earlier idea I had for creating instances where a really valuable or rare item will only be available for a certain section of the time limit: so, for instance, a cuckoo coming out of a giant cuckoo clock when there's exactly one minute remaining, and popping out 10 more times over the next 20 seconds before going back inside the clock. These kind of bonuses will sometimes have hints (like the fact it's a cuckoo clock and the minute hand is getting closer to the 12). Players can either spend their time waiting for these rarities on a second or third playthrough (if they want to add it to the overall collection) or they can plan their high-score-gathering route to be near them at the right time.


Stages:
* The first stage will be classic Looney Toons, full of all the things you'd expect: giant cartoon mallets, "n Tons" giant weights, anvils, Acme products and so on.
* The second stage will be the anime one, with lots of anime-themed in-jokes depending on what we can get away with copyright-wise. More likely it'll involve non-specific giant robots and highschool girls with all sorts of other Japanese-y goodness.
* Third will be superhero-based, using the same kind of animation style as possibly the Batman or Justice League animated series. Big emphasis on vector-based art, you'll know what I mean if you've ever seen one. I'm hoping to have the entire stage as one big battle between various non-descript superheroes, leaving lots of carnage and equipment around to pick up.
* Fourth will be the Halloween stage, with lots of creepy goings-on. Not going to take any sort of Tim Burton route with this, but closer to those old Halloween specials but with many different areas of Horror being represented (trick or treating, slasher movies, Lovecraft, classic Hammer Horror - which would be very appropriate given the title of the game).
* Fifth would be the claymation stage, if one were possible. Instead of using actual claymation, I'm pretty sure you could make a reasonable facsimilie using cel-shaded graphics or something. I should really read up on 3D graphics.
* Sixth would probably be an Xmas stage, since we already have a Halloween one, so there'll be various Christmas related icons to collect (you could take a Christmas tree with all its decorations down in pieces).
* Seventh would be the space one, which will probably also be the penultimate stage. There'll be a way to become super colossal-sized (maybe by using a "2001"-ish Monolith?) and collect the planets themselves similar to the end of Katamari (since this whole idea is sort of an homage).
* Eighth would be the sort of bonus world that unlocks after getting a certain amount of points/objects overall. It would resemble an art tool program like Photoshop as a sort of weird meta-game reference. As well as collecting all the items inside the image, you'll be able to get out and start collecting things like the shading tool or the paintbrush. Some of which you'll be able to use (like the eyedropper tool to collect the color out of something). You may even be able to collect the cursor darting around the entire level, but you'll need to be fast or figure out where it stops in order to collect it.


Tools:
NB: The tools fall into two categories: Active and Passive. Active tools need to be selected and used by the player character to get any benefit from them, and sit in the hammerspace until needed. Passive ones are always active and tend to involve bonuses to time or carrying capacity.
* Ladder (Active): Having a ladder allows an easy way to get to an area slightly higher up than you are. You'll need a flat vertical service to place the ladder against though. There will be three levels of the Ladder too, with various heights.
* Trampoline (Active): Harder to collect but more useful than the Ladder, since it can be used anywhere.
* Giant Hammer (Active): The first hammer tool. Can be used to stun smaller enemies.
* 100-Ton Hammer (Active): Can be used to smash through obstacles or stun larger enemies (or pass them if they're too big).
* Earthquake Hammer (Active): The strongest hammer, which you'll find on top of a mountain (alluding to Thor's Hammer Mjollnir). Instead of having to hit things with it to stun/smash them, you can hit the ground nearby to knock them out with the vibrations.
* Time-Limit Boosters (Passive): Special clock collectibles will increase the time-limit by 30 seconds. They get progressively harder to find/collect. Since time-based events in the level are based on the remaining time (so something will only happen 30 seconds before the end, say) they won't be affected by boosts to the time limit. In fact, let's say for example one stage has a 5-minute time limit before any boosts are found. There could be an event-based item on that stage that appears six minutes before the end, meaning you'll need to collect at least three time-limit boosters and head straight for where the object appears to get it in time.
* Dark Matter (Passive): Not the astrophysical concept of dark matter per se, but rather the name of a collectible that will increase the size of the objects you can place inside the hammerspace. The hammerspace itself is considered to be infinite, so there's no limit to how many objects of varying size to squeeze in there, however the portal to hammerspace that our hero uses to store things in there is limited (perhaps to objects no bigger than a grapefruit, say). Dark Matters will increase this limit. Dark Matters are perfectly spherical black orbs hidden all over the place. I may decide to give them no physical presence in the world (since they're made out of the same extradimensional material as the hammerspace) so I could hide them inside other objects, so you'd only be able to find one if you collected or moved the object obscuring it first.
* Vacuum Attachment (Passive): Collecting this puts a small vacuum attachment at the mouth of the hammerspace portal and items of a certain size (say 20% of the current portal limit, see Dark Matter above) will be instantly collected from a small distance away.
* Black Hole (Passive): Collecting this monstrosity of space will power up the hammerspace and allow the portal limit to be effectively broken. Since the Black Hole has such colossal pulling power, objects of any size can now be coerced into the hammerspace portal (they'll do that kind of sucking-in thing that Black Holes do in cartoons). It also works as a stronger version of the vacuum attachment, pulling in decent-sized objects without you needing to go pick them up. The Black Hole will be one of the hardest objects to get, since it will suddenly appear at one point in the space stage and you need to find it before it sucks in too many planets and stars, becoming too big for you to collect.
* Eyedropper (Active): Using the eyedropper on an object (any object) will remove all color from it and store the color inside the hammerspace as paint. Though if you collect a desaturated object, it won't necessarily count as a separate entry on the collection screen (because that would mean a second entry for everything). Some colors are rarer than others (like gold or silver) and may only appear on certain stages.
* Tape Recorder (Active): Since the game takes a comic-like approach, they'll do that thing where the onomatopoeia actually appears in word-form (like a spiky balloon that says "BANG!" when a bomb goes off). If you're close enough to this sound effect and use the Tape Recorder, the onomatopoeia balloon will be collected and stored in hammerspace also. A lot of onomatopoeia can be generated by your character doing something (like landing on the ground hard or hitting something with a hammer) but there'll also be a lot that can only be generated by other objects (like a machine humming, or the superheroes in Stage 3 hitting each other with Zokk!s and Newt!s 60s Batman-style).