Month 1 - Banter over rain concepts

[DimensionWarped]

This is the thread for open discussion of new concepts. If you have a concept you'd like to be pushed into its own topic, make a mention of it and if it seems worth discussing, it'll get one.

[Cyber Rat]

If the rain level would be a downpour, I have two ideas at the moment:

* 1) Due to heavy rain, the player's movement would be somewhat impeded. This gives the player motivation to seek indoor routes for better maneuverability, but the tradeoff could be a more complicated or difficult route.

2) A downpour at night could make the use of breakable TVs interesting. Let's say not all of them are that sturdy, you could have the poor visibility due to rain and night make the display screen hard to recognize. Every now and then, a flash of lightning would light up the screen and make the TV screen visible. You could add a few duds here and there (TVs with static screens) that would damage the player if he were to break them (broken TV + rain = electric shock (Immunity with lightning shield maybe?)). The problem would be to not over-do it, or else the whole level would be a paranoia run.

Random banter: the extent of the rain being the "level theme" could go as far as adding scripted mudslides or tiny animals in the background running for shelter (Maybe if you keep your eyes open, you could see that a rabbit vanishes through a wall and realize that it's actually a hidden route?). It all depends on how much time/effort the game designer wants to spend.

[Ironrind]

I prefer to use ambient sounds along side when using weather. What ever it may be, wind, thunder, drips.. I think sounds is important.

[FanGameRevolver]

heh I made a storming level before but I never did anything special with it, The lightning and rain makes visibility tough and its interesting to play through.

as Ironrind pointed out the ambient sounds are very important in this level.

why the fuck I took that screen in fullscreen mode is beyond me

What might be cool to see though is water that fills a bucket, the bucket pulls down creating a temporary switch and then the bucket pours out, like a cycle.

Or switches in a machine to get water to travel a certain way.

what about keeping a certain place from flooding?

*is Loving this monthly concept idea.*

[Asuma]

Here's my mines.

A Water Level Puzzle thing where water level constantly rises or falls depending on the switches you push. The Main catch is that the water is toxic and staying in it for more that 30 secs will drain your ring count. Any water shields will pop after 1 minute of being in this murky water. The theme of the level is like an forest that has been industrialized by Eggman's dumpage of oil, broke robot parts, etc. I think I can put together a "sketch level" soon.

[Kasei Honoo]

I'm thinking gimmicks could be made around lightning. Like have a gimmick that is pretty much a lightning rod that you have to move. It's been done before in Tales of Symphonia if you've played it before. A Gimmick like that pretty much switches to make the rods go up and down and the lightning would hit the highest up rod making you able to get to other places

[Asuma]

That would be pretty cool.

Actually, I think I know how that might work. Maybe you have random lightning strikes at a set elevation.

[Vexus]

Having random lightning is good for when its part of the background, but if you want to make it part of a gimmick that requires timing, the lightning strikes would need set intervals and possibly some kind of gauge to show when the next one will strike (so speed-running is still a case of skill rather than luck). If the gimmick revolved around a lightning rod, the rod should have the gauge on it.

Back to rain... Acid rain (which would be a green or purple colour to show as such) would be a good reason for anyone to stay under something. I could imagine Sonic trying to stay under a partly broken conveyor belt to stay dry, among other things.

[OverbounD]

If you are like me you might feel you just "KNOW" what would work as classic Sonic and what doesn't. Its not even something you can really explain sometimes. Its just as if you've played the games so much you know how the developers think. And knowing how they think you can decide what's classic Sonic and what's not. I hope that makes sense.

Attempting to stay in the limits or style of classic Sonic, makes this pretty tough thing to incorporate. This is because its either raining or its not, and whatever effect the rain will have on gameplay will more or less be constant. Which is why water is much easier to work with water rather than rain. The only way I can think around this is to wait for something to fill up with rain water. Sorry but waiting around for something to fill up with rain water is just not classic Sonic, besides maybe working as a boss.

One thing that might work is to have shields that interact with the environment. Which is actually a really cool idea and sort of a natural evolution from the Sonic 3 shields. So a rain shield what would it do? What about a shield that makes you float on top of water? Granted that has more to do with water than rain specifically.

[Dan]

I agree with your points about waiting for things to fill up. Implementing the idea with enough awareness and interaction from the player would need the player to be at 1 point of interaction at least 2 times. This suggests cycling or backtracking in the level design and neither of these ideas are strong in any classic I can think of (Casino Street Zone act 2 however... ).

Ways around this are making that point of interaction very big or the time difference very small, so the area flooding and the water-gathering badnik examples given are still fine imo. You could go for some kind of "beat the water to X" idea but then the player would have no idea what is happening on the first playthrough, so it's not a strong design.

I just can't think of any workable "Wait for it to fill up" ideas for now.

In response to the rain shield, I think that would simply be bloat. The water shield by definition protects from water, so instead of bloating the options with a new shield why not allow an existing shield to feel even more special simply by enhancing its passive abilities.

On that note, you could use rain as an excuse for above-water-water simply as a device to screw with how the player maintains their shield. You can't go underwater with a fire sheild - well, now if it's raining you can't even go outside. Kinda gives me the feeling of opening the front door, seeing the weather outside and feeling "Ah f***."

From there you can play funny buggers with the player's mind, just like rain in real life. Will it stop soon? Will it start soon? Does it look like it's letting up? Some kind of indication would need to exist for the player to gauge what is happening because I wouldn't like the idea of random showers here, nor uncertain waiting around. I think some fun ideas to serve this need for indication could be ambient lighting or at least a changing background, with thunder sound effects (which might end up needing to be a bit advanced). Basically the level darkens and the storm is heard approaching. In the other direction, adjusting the intensity of the visible rainfall, the sound, and perhaps springing some early rainbows around would help the player know if it's going to end soon.

You still need to avoid waiting around, so all this indication would need to be frequently present. Gaps in the background when indoors, so you can see outside, perhaps play with glass areas, again the ambient lighting and thunder... I can't think of much else really.

As with real weather, this could be a little bit temperamental, just to make possible that feeling of "it might hold out... should I make a dash for it?" Again this runs into the problem of a player not knowing what's at the other end on his or her first playthrough.

But all of this depends entirely on the value of not getting rained on. In my opinion the idea is fun but shields do not generate that much value as we have seen them. You would need to build the level around increasing a shield's importance (forces your hand too much imo), or enhance shields themselves (altering the game too much for one idea imo), or - more realistically I think - find another reason to make avoiding the rain useful. I guess the shields just got me started.

One way to think of it working is to imagine everything I just described, with a fire shield, in Lava Reef Zone. There we have a zone where the player really will think twice before stepping into the rain. But yes, in this example it's admittedly a bit wtf. Is it raining or is it an underground cave of fire?

Well, I'm not finding any other ideas that make the rain worth avoiding without making it damaging, but maybe someone will.

Another idea that plays on the cool Sonic factor is racing a rainfall straight down. Simply run faster than the rain and stay dry. Sounds cool but it could shape/hurt the game too much when trying to set it up well enough to feel effective.

Tails' flight and Knuckles' glide paths can be dampened by the downpour. It would really add to that miserable rain feeling. Perhaps even affect the jumping height of all characters if you're feeling harsh. This alone could be an affective way of handling the player's choices. Make rainy areas simply feel sluggish and they would avoid. Always with the problems, this time you're risking simply making these areas always feel bad and the only way to get a player to enter is to direct them deliberately. Even worse. So you'd need to make the sluggish areas hold some kind of clear reward also.

The only other thing I've got is rain as a non-interactive indicator of wind (already mentioned) or even gravity. Oh it's raining upwards today. Might look silly though - just throwing it into the pot.

The entire zone's badniks change behaviour.

- They all migrate to trees and shelter to stay dry. Suddenly rain becomes hunting season as you run around catching clusters of goofy badniks.

- They continue as usual but their motion is simply toned down in response to being rained on. Flying badniks are now walking or hopping around on the ground, etc.

- One particular badnik turns into a nightmare. A real nightmare, as if water to him is spinach to Popeye. I would like this idea because I would like to see more playful badniks in any Sonic game, however this is bucking the trend of classic Sonic badniks. But I do really like the idea of the player seeing the rain and approaching the outdoors with actual fear of the psycho badniks. Perhaps that's a better idea than shields for avoiding the outdoors.

[Vexus]

I like the idea of a badnik becoming more powerful under the rain, but I think that can extend to hazards as well, like bushes that grow sharp spines when rained on. In that case, there could be places littered with them, so one would have to jump over them and be fearful of going really fast when raining outside.

[Kessler12]

How about a badnik that looks like a tear drop that drops from the sky.

And for a gimmick you can make leaf springs grow when wet and as they dry up, you get less higher.

Running in mud could slow you down but will stop ground badniks from moving.

[luksamuk]

Having random lightning is good for when its part of the background, but if you want to make it part of a gimmick that requires timing, the lightning strikes would need set intervals and possibly some kind of gauge to show when the next one will strike (so speed-running is still a case of skill rather than luck). If the gimmick revolved around a lightning rod, the rod should have the gauge on it.

Back to rain... Acid rain (which would be a green or purple colour to show as such) would be a good reason for anyone to stay under something. I could imagine Sonic trying to stay under a partly broken conveyor belt to stay dry, among other things.

Just something for your concept, Pro ShadowBlaze:

I know it's the most crappiest idea, but what if Sonic gets hurt with the rain?

I mean, imagine if he gets hurt like when the enemies shoot at you (you lose one ring each time you get hit). OF COURSE, a bubble shield or any special move (Spindash or Peel-out, to go through the rain quickly, maybe?) would make you NOT get hurt. Or get less hurt.

[OverbounD]

Dan I'm not quoting you post here but consider this somewhat of a response. The rain shield I thought of probably wasn't the best way to go about it. We'd need to figure out some other use for it. But the idea of having a shield interact with the rain somehow is solid I think.

You also mentioned making the players jump less, not fly, etc. because of the rain. To me this sounds sort of like a water level as it changes the physics. I think this kind of thing would just frustrate players though, and I don't think any kind of incentive is going to work.

Now lets talk about something that would work. Everyone here was been talking about badniks that charge up in the rain and use the water to hurt Sonic. Instead why not have a badnik that makes his own rain and pores it down on to Sonic. Sonic could get trapped in a giant rain drop because of the badnik's rain. Similar as to how the badnik the slows Sonic down with the steam in Lava Rief, or you can get frozen in Ice Cap. He'd have to jump a few times to get out and would be venerable while inside. Here's the concept illustrated.

[DimensionWarped]

Instead of a rain shield, you could have an umbrella shield with the added bonus of making Sonic raise it above his head and go into a Mary Poppins style animation to float lazily to the ground upon double jumping.

[Cyber Rat]

That reminds me too much of Kirby... Not saying that it's not a good idea on it's own.

[DimensionWarped]

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that Kirby borrowed a lot from Sonic as well.

[OverbounD]

That... sounds... silly...

[Serephim]

Wait, so only certain people can make topics here? Kills most of the potential if you ask me. Almost kind of pointless if we just vote on one person's idea.

buuutttt my own input:

I agree with the stage expanding on the shield's features. Take the water shield for example. Its purpose is to allow you to breathe underwater, make maneuvering underwater easier, and absorbing one hit of damage. In a situation where Rain is driving the level, the Water shield can just be made a priority to maintain. The bubble can shield you from the punishing effects of the rain, giving you regular movement outside and allowing you to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Other shields (lightning, Fire) can be instantly destroyed upon touching the rain, making them only useful in areas that arent touching water. Lets say theres a gimmick that shoots jets of water in a direction. Since the bubble (technically) should make sonic less dense than his surroundings, it can allow him to stand on the jets and use the top of them as platforms. Using the jets otherwise would result in the falling-sand type gimmick from Sandolopolis. (minus the jumping of course, just slower falling)

In a situation where we're focusing on Rain, we really should more be focusing on water. In a stage like this, i'd say the first act should be just water-based, and the second should be water-rain based. Outdoors, the rain can act as a hindrance to sonic's maneuverability. Without some form of protection for advancement, the player is constantly moved from indoor to outdoor environments.

The indoor environments can feature trap-door like parts in the ceiling for allowing the rain to come in and fill the cavities in the room with water, opening up different paths. (this can work as a sort of Chemical Plant Zone death-trap mechanic if the indoor environment is underground, which can be really cool imo. You know, its killing you but its the only way you can advance kind of thing) You can make it a sort of mini-puzzle type element if the cavities drain once they reach a certian part (meaning, no rain = no water), and make different parts of the ceiling open up to let water in.

Outdoor environments can be all about getting out of the rain. different gimmicks can be used to put up windshields (like the spinning thingies from Marble Garden zone you have to spindash on), or can create windtunnels or something that can cancel out the wind driving effects of the water.

With Rain-Wind, you can really achieve alot of things if you just think outside the box.

[DimensionWarped]

Wait, so only certain people can make topics here? Kills most of the potential if you ask me. Almost kind of pointless if we just vote on one person's idea.

Go read the introductory thread. I've already explained why topics have to be requested rather than simply made. Also, if you want to say anything about how this works, that's the place to do it.

[Dan]

Yeah I'm all for the shield interacting with rain idea, but all against creating a new shield based on that. Any new shield created needs to be based on an idea that is fun throughout the general game, not based on a zone-specific perk. And like Serephim was saying.. the whole rain concept is just a shoe-in for water shield antics. Remember getting to Lava Reef and realising how much the fire shield was God there? Or discovering the safety from electric floors in Death Egg with the lightning shield. A rainy zone would give the water shield a similar and deserved lift in fun & cool factor.

I agree that using the rain to edit the physics as you play is a risk - it could easily just become a permanent negative, but I think a playful balance can exist. It is also another good way to make the water shield more enjoyable. Can't fly high enough in the rain, so many paths you can't see... but then the water shield lets you fly/glide freely once again.

And if the physics edits are restricted enough to still allow the character to feel responsive I think it can be done. Underwater you're always bogged down, but the rain only has to affect a few things to give it that heavy feel. Perhaps jump height is the same and the descent is simply faster, flying and gliding are dampened a bit, and the rest of the controls are still sharp.

Plus you can play with general incentive ideas to adjust the feeling of being in the rain. For example, designing the zone so that rings only exist in rainy areas might not be a great idea, but it definitely does edit how the player would feel in response to rain. In real life, running in the rain means there's a reason to do it. I would look for something like that kind of feeling.

[DimensionWarped]

I disagree. Take the water shield for instance. How frequently is its aspect actually useful? I can think of one stage where there is any significant amount of water throughout the entire Sonic 3 and Knuckles complex. Yeah, there is like one segment in Launch Base Zone that you can get stuck in if you don't know what you are doing, but aside from that and Hydrocity, that's it really. There isn't a single other place in the game where you are at any risk of drowning.

Besides, if the problem with it is its innate ability, you can give it other, similar effects.

And besides, people generally tend to like more features anyway. Just throwing some arbitrary effect onto the water shield isn't going to add as much as putting in something else to fit the purpose.

[Dan]

I agree with your first paragraph; it's most of the reason why the water shield deserves a lift in the player's eyes. I think it has a good place in Angel Island, Hydrocity, Carnival Night and Launch Base if only because part of its perk is being the only shield that keeps working, but yes, it needs more value. I agree with your 2nd line/paragraph too.

But I plain disagree with the third. It might even be true that people like more features, but that doesn't mean the game is better and often risks damaging it instead. I would rephrase your last sentence to: "Throwing some related effect onto the water shield isn't going to risk diluting and confusing the game as much as putting in some arbitrary extra to serve one purpose." Meanwhile water-related effects are plain not arbitrary for a water shield.

I'm just more inclined to increase meaning of what exists, rather than add more questionable items. Like you said, the water shield is often as meaningless as a Sonic 1 shield. This makes it hard to setup scenarios of risk and reward involving that shield. Spreading value among more items only makes this worse, but adding more meaning to what exists allows the designer to play more with the player.

[DimensionWarped]

I fail to see in any way how adding an extra shield could damage the game. The notion of 'diluting' the game that way is just nonsense IMO. And there is certainly no kind of confusion added through it. The original games were already entirely simple and this isn't the introduction of a new complication anywhere near as much as it is the expansion of an old one.

And it isn't just water related now is it? There is no reason a water shield would dampen the force of the winds pushing the rain into you. Also no, the water shield isn't meaningless. It provides that bounce ability... which for the longest time was my only means of getting through the Carnival Night Barrel of doom. They all had pretty situational usage.

Also, let me make one thing perfectly clear. This isn't meant to be all about Sonic games. Or maybe it just isn't based off of Sonic 3 and Knuckles. And even if someone were making a game using the concepts from Sonic 3 and Knuckles, they might not want to use all of the same shields and they might want to add to it. Ultimately this is about fostering the creation of new ideas, not knocking them down in the name of excessive purism.

[Dan]

An example of confusion: We already have a fire shield that walks on lava, yet no lava shield. A water shield that has no affect on rain could make the player wonder why; that's all I'm saying. I see your point about the force pushing the water, but I still think this leaves us looking at either force of water - ie. water shield - or force of wind - ie. new wind/air shield with further consideration that goes off topic. Either of these options is at least clear to the player as to which element they are being protected from, but a rain shield in the same game as a water shield isn't. The less the player has to learn rules and the more the they can see intuition working for them, the better.

Diluting the game: Putting 10 abilities into 10 tools vs putting 10 abilities into 5 tools. The more tools you use, the more each tool becomes like a key to a lock instead of an element of play. I prefer to see situational usage designed as a perk, like in your Carnival Night example, not as the foundation of a new tool.

I didn't say the watershield was meaningless, I said it was often meaningless. That sounds like nitpicking but no, I have to mention this was actually the point you first made. I was agreeing with you on that - it is not frequently useful. I don't want to sound stuck up but it feels like you've just disagreed with me in both directions.

The short of it is that we both agree the water shield frequently loses meaning due to a lack of its natural element in the game. My argument is that taking whatever other waterplay we can create and tuning it into that watery protection is a good thing for the shield as a less-frequently-useless item, and a good thing for the game due to obstacles being less lock-and-key.

If we're talking about rain shields in a non-Sonic game, or a game with no water shield already in it, then sure I see no issue with it.

Don't just label my points as excessive please, unless I am permitted to start labelling other people's points with my opinions too. I have explained my reasons.