Actions.md 11 KB
Current
Proposed
Fireflower
The behaviour of the fireflower is that it gives Tux the ability to spit bouncing fire bullets. Most badguys are killed when being struck by a fire bullet.
Any subsequent fireflowers that Tux takes increase the amount of fire bullets that can be on the screen at the same time, but do not increase the amount of hits Tux can take.
Running
Running is an automatic action that gets activated when Tux is walking in the same direction for a certain amount of time. When Tux is running he is able to jump five tiles high instead of just four.
Milestone 1 used a dedicated run button, in Milestone 2 it's automatic.
Backflip
The backflip is a special jump which gives Tux some extra height compared to a normal jump. It requires that Tux comes to a full stop and turns around.
Buttjump
The buttjump is an ability that lets Tux crush boxes from above and destroy some badguys that cannot be harmed by a normal jump. It is performed by jumping up into the air and then pressing the Down key while in the air.
The buttjump has the following flow of actions
- Tux jumps up as normal
- Player presses 'down'
- Tux does some acrobatic movement to get into the 'butt-position'
- Tux then falls down back to the ground, butt first
- When smashing on the ground wooden boxes will be destroyed
- It takes Tux a small amount of time to jump back onto his feet to get back to normal
Super-Butt-Jump
- Player moves Tux to a high position on the map
- Player jumps from the ledge
- Player presses 'down'
- Tux does some acrobatic movement to get into the 'butt-position'
- Tux then falls down back to the ground, butt first with increasing speed, due to the higher altitude he will change to Super-Butt-Jump-mode
- When smashing on the ground nearby enemies might be turned upside down, rendering them unmovable or killing them (might depend on the type of enemy and of the type of ground)
- It takes Tux a small amount of time to jump back onto his feet to get back to normal
Proposals featuring special items or power meters have been rejected. For reasons why see Special Items Are Evil.
Proposed abilities
Idling
Sometimes Tux just stands still. To make things more interesting we should have some animations in this case as well.
Examples:
- Shaking his head
- Flapping his flaps
- Open/close an eyelid
- Yawning or falling asleep
- Whistling a tune
- Tapping his feet in impatience
- Getting more and more angry the longer he is left.
It would also be nice to make him turn and face the 'camera' if an idle timer was exceeded.
Blowflyer
The blowflyer or BalloonTux action should be a temporary limited action in which Tux fills his body with air (helium?!) and is thus able to fly for a short time, i.e. as long as he can go without breathing. The end of the flight should be announced by Tux changing color and catching for air.
Perhaps there could be a hidden “pump” in each level, which tux could pump himself up with.
Flapping
Once in the air, Tux should be allowed to flap with his wings. They are not enough to let him fly, but should allow him to get some additional air-time (like a small double-jump).
Iceflower
The iceflower will give Tux the ability to shoot ice bullets. Ice bullets will not bounce like fire bullets, but will shoot out in a straight path towards the enemy. When the ice bullet hits an enemy it will freeze him for a short time, if the enemy is freezable not Snowball, Mr. Iceblock and Bouncing Snowball.
Proposed behavior
Perhaps the ice bullet could freeze water, bouncing across the surface of a body of the aforesaid liquid and freezing the surface of the one block it touches, and maybe one block either side of it. I got the idea from water -> ice on the User Ideas page.
Dive
When jumping from a great height, Tux should have his beak facing down, like a dive. It would work well with the swim ability.
Slider
Tux will be able to make use of smooth terrain by using the slide action. By using the slider action Tux will jump on its belly and thus slide speedy down the hill. Terrain that is formed like a ramp should allow him to make huge jumps, which would be impossible without the slide action. While sliding downhill Tux shall be invulnerable by normal enemies, however special enemies with spikes or so, might still be able to stop him.
Exact details on how the sliding will work have to be worked out, but it might get a rather central role in gameplay.
Somewhat related, you could have icy platforms that when running on it is much harder to stop/change-direction (i.e. you could slide off the edge accidently) that require you to be extra careful.. these could appear on later harder levels. If these aren't flat, you get what is shown in the above picture, which you could slide down instead.
We'd probably need tile-based friction to make this work well. Holding “duck” while moving above a certain speed (or on a slope) will reduce Tux's friction by a large factor (4?) and make him slide as illustrated in the above picture. He'll be able to kill/stun certain enemies this way, but some (like the spiky ones) will damage and stop him.
Swimming
This could be useful in underwater levels.
Before implementing swimming there are some details that need to be specified:
- What can Tux do in water?
Swim left, swim right, dive, and porpoise.
Tux could be able to move a lot faster in water than on land, and he could be able to jump higher when jumping out of a pool of water - like real penguins.
How does he leave the pool, ie. how high can Tux jump while swimming?
- By jumping when near the surface.
What happens to existing levels, especially in situations where the water is on the bottom of a shaft with no way to climb out?
Proposal 1
My idea of a cool swimming mode would be that as soon as Tux is in water, he jumps to the side so he lies on his belly (that's how penguins swim if you've ever watched them in the zoo :) You could then control his angle with the up/down keys (something between facing 45° upward and 45° downwards). The left/right keys would be used to turn Tux 180°. Pressing the jump key would accelerate Tux a bit into the direction he is facing (the water will have a high friction). We could tweak controls a bit so that an optimum forward movement is achieved if you press the button for a long enough time (if you press it shorter then Tux won't get as much acceleration) and then release the button for a long enough time (Tux will only react to a 2nd push after some time has passed). For getting out of the water you would dive a bit deeper face upwards and accelerate so much that Tux springs out of the water onto the land, we could have an animation there we Tux lands on his belly on the land and then stands up. This would add an interesting touch to the game and not feel like more jumping and running. And it would feel like real penguins swimming.
The only problem here is that implementation isn't so easy :) We would have to think about the following points:
- We would need some new collision detection code to check collisions on rotated rectangles (it's not that hard actually, but would need some API redesign to support this and would need more smart thinking on how to push out objects from collisions)
- We would need a several new animations: Tux landing in water and switching to swim mode, Tux pushing water away with his feet, Tux gliding in water, Tux landing on his belly on the land and going into normal mode again. This would also bring us to the old problem, that we currently would have to do all animation twice for big and small Tux...
- We could even make good use of more animations: Tux getting hurt in water, Tux flapping his wings while doing a jump out of the water, Tux hitting a wall in water, Tux turning to the other side in water.
Does someone know games that have a similar concept?
Yeah, i know a game that uses something similar, but there you *fly* using Jetpack in that way. See http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/blobWars.php (Eek, you'll have to cheat to get jetpack fast, read through the page)
TODO: Create some sketches for this to better explain it
--MatzeB 11:24, 23 Oct 2006 (CEST)
Wario Land 2 for GB has this system:
- When Wario swims he lies on his belly
- Directional keys are used for moving
- The Action button (B) speeds up swimming, the Jump button (A) works as up+B
- Wario cannot hurt enemies when swimming
- When Wario is right under the surface of water, he floats remaining vertical with a different animation.
- Wario can jump only 1-2 tiles up when he's in water.
Shylence 14:31, 23 Oct 2006 (CEST)
How's this in water Tux swims along without stopping, and slowly sinks, direction arrows change Tux's direction or speed him up if you press the direction he is already moving. if you press down he dives, when diving Tux hurts all enemies but can only move downwards fast. Up arrow stops Tux sinking and he starts rising. When Tux is on solid ground, pressing jump will make him kick the ground, and thus go upwards very fast. when at the surface of the water, Tux can jump out almost as high as when on land, but not quite.
The rotation angle could be uncomfortable. I think that instead of making an actual permanent rotation, just make use of the 8 directional gamepad. I mean.. make Tux sprite *look* like 45º rotated when you press both up and right arrows and perform a up and right movement simultaneously. The last movement direction will be kept after releasing the buttons, but you could press the right arrow after that and make the Tux sprite return to the horizontal angle (although it could have a bit of vertical velocity due to the prior acceleration). There could be no need for a new collision detection code after all, you don't need to rotate rectangles, just reorganize them to fit each Tux shape (horizontal Tux, vertical Tux and +/-45º rotated Tux, no more angles needed). -- Ferk 13:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
It's not about rotating images, but about the correct collision detection for rotated rectangles.
That's what I did mean. wouldn't it be possible to make the Tux character be 3 rectangles placed in some diagonal way instead of rotating them? I think that being allowed to use more than one rectangle for the same entity would be more useful than being allowed to rotate them. As you could draw any shape with multiple rectangles. If it is just the 45º rotated Tux collisions what needed to be resolved, it could be made that way and you would not need to care about actual rotation.