Month 2 - Bantering in the city

[DimensionWarped]

I'll just start right up...

Some locations I can think of that fit with the city theme:

1. (outdoor) park

2. (outdoor) downtown

3. (indoor) office building

4. (outdoor) Marina/Docks

5. (outdoor) Construction Site

6. (indoor) sewer

And a gimmick or an enemy associated with each of those themes:

park - swing : player jumps on swing standing tall, influences movement with directional buttons, and can leap off at any time following typical concepts of conservation of momentum. Swinging fast enough can cause the swing to start looping over the bars.77

downtown - Assorted cars : Cars and other vehicles of assorted heights come out of a tunnel that is a part of the background and turn into the level as the main path. They can be jumped on, spun under, or just hurt you if you let them run over you. Can be used to gain height to reach bonuses/paths/whatever. Eventually they branch off again into another tunnel so that they leave the action.

Office Building - Floor Buffer Robot : A wide, player-height robot that buffs floors leaving the floor behind it with less friction indicated by sparkliness. Can also double as a street cleaner which does the same thing.

Marina/Dock - Paddle Boat : Player uses some repetitive action like revving a spin-dash in the case of a Sonic game to make the paddle boat move faster on water. Combine with ramps for weirdness. Combine ramps with flaming hoops or something for extra weirdness.

Construction Site - Fresh Concrete/Cement/whatever : Player quickly slows down while walking across it. If it builds up enough, the player gets stuck and has to do some action to shake it off.

Sewer - Raw Sewage Slides - There should always be some kind of platform to slide with though. It could be unnecessary to use since sewage is more nasty than it is toxic, but perhaps if you stay clean the whole level you could get some kind of bonus?

I look forward to peoples' thoughts.

[Slow_Motion]

I got a couple of ideas.

• The office idea has me thinking... What if you were in the ceiling and had to turn out the lights or something. For a mission or just to freak the AIs out
  
• An interactive environment would be fantastic. Likes ones in prototype and infamous where you can hurt people and fuck up the city.
  
• A park with all the ideas of the weather concept and adaptive gameplay Like if the pipes to the great big sprinkler in the park were in the sewer you could shut them down for negative alignment or a mission of some sort.
  
• As I previously mentioned with the adaptive gameplay the city can become bigger and more complex with the active construction sites and the rain causing flowers to bloom and grow and trees to get bigger and bigger and then become houses for squirrels and such. Not to mention A game with achievements can go endlessly with the amount of things you can do in a city.
  

[Ironrind]

Rooftops- Sort of a spiderman like thing where you hop from building to building. You could use the base of windows for platforms, fire escapes with ladders. You could bounce on flag poles or use laundry lines to connect the buildings. Other gimmicks could include riding on the tops of outdoor elevators, window washer platforms that move depending on your vertical impact with them. You could crash through windows, run through the room and crash back out blowing glass, furniture, paper and debris out into the city. Crash through billboards, trashcans, and newspaper stands.

Skatepark- This could have all sorts of fun things for sonic such has half-pipes, loops and corkscrews.

Subway - The subway could have scattered subway-trains that come up behind sonic.

If using an altered act 2, You could have a city blackout(at night). Signs could be used in place of arrows to direct the player or clue them into multiple paths. You could have detours for broken roads and holes in the street, or car accidents. Fire-hydrants could be used to blow water at the player moving him forward, backwards, or up into the air.

Interesting things to include could be national monuments like the statue of liberty(to climb, put in background, or whatever).

Earthquakes are a common idea, but how about a demolition which could be used to open up a new path.

[OverbounD]

You know earlier I tried to post something very similar to you Ironrind about Roof Tops unfortunately my internet stopped working and I gave up.

I had basically the same idea. I was thinking the elevator could be used to go inside buildings for brief parts of the level sort of like the indoor parts of Launch Base. I also had the idea of electrical wired which you would walk on and carried bolts of electricity down them to to dodge. Oh and smoke stacks Sonic would get stuck in spin mode and pressure would build until it blew up lunching Sonic upward.

[FanGameRevolver]

No gaiz. The city should have lots of random as floating rails, or tons of random loops and corkscrews like route 99 :3

Yeah....I really hate most of the official city zones...blargh.

The one in the original sonic adventure was pretty neat with the building sequence, and the daytime bit where cars could hurt you or could be rode as well if I recall. It also used that fountain and the bell gimmick, nice touches.

Rather then putting random stunt ramps like in city escape why not have parked trucks with a similar gimmick mounted on their backs.

A mall would be an obvious local in a city, is surprised no one mentioned it. I suppose it could be its own theme though.

Running fast and knock down weak walls or smashing through glass would be a cool feature. Nothing level defining, but neat.

Tubular tunnels underground could provide some loop action.

my ideas here arn't much but maybe you guys can build off of them.

[Strife]

To me, the time of day plays an enormous factor in a city-themed level. I tend to notice that as the time of day shifts from morning to midnight, so does the amount of focus on the background - night settings are usually accomplished by lots of blinking lights and neon signs (i.e. Casino Night, Carnival Night, Night Carnival, etc). Though that's not to say that daytime settings aren't interesting - they just give off an atmosphere that's noticeably different.

As for actual gimmicks, I think traffic lights have a lot of potential. Stuff can change or move around depending on whether the light is green, yellow, or red. Heck, one of the badniks could even be a levitating traffic light that fires a lazar when it turns red, kinda like this (middle screenshot, of course).

[Strife]

To me, the time of day plays an enormous factor in a city-themed level. I tend to notice that as the time of day shifts from morning to midnight, so does the amount of focus on the background - night settings are usually accomplished by lots of blinking lights and neon signs (i.e. Casino Night, Carnival Night, Night Carnival, etc). Though that's not to say that daytime settings aren't interesting - they just give off an atmosphere that's noticeably different.

As for actual gimmicks, I think traffic lights have a lot of potential. Stuff can change or move around depending on whether the light is green, yellow, or red. Heck, one of the badniks could even be a levitating traffic light that fires a lazar when it turns red, kinda like this (middle screenshot, of course).

[DimensionWarped]

What's a lazar?

[Asuma]

Laser. Lazer, Lazar.

[Strife]

Exactly. xD You can never go wrong with lasers.

[DimensionWarped]

Need to work on your delivery of cheesy Poop references.

[Michael B.]

You could have a badnik that throws trash at you, but doesn't make you lose rings. Maybe a badnik that throws gum at you, which causes you to slow down until you find a way to remove it, which could be used as a way to make players take advantage of the environment. Maybe it's raining and the roads/sidewalks are more slippery, or it's hailing and you need to find cover. Sonic might need to take an elevator to the rooftops. Sonic could grab on to a medical helicopter to get across a gap.

A badnik that's deadly on the ground might be a useful for crossing rooftops high in the air. It might be useful to make badniks that can alter paths by destroying things, or even make new paths available.

There are plenty of good ways to make something boring into a unique gimmick, but you do have to think outside of the box.

[Dan]

Construction. We mentioned destruction, but construction holds ideas too.

Long term game-changing stuff is one idea, like a building or complex that grows a little more each time you play, but I'm not too fond of that one.

I'm thinking more like non-passive, easy on-the-fly construction. Things you do dynamically (and somehow, quickly) contribute to a building in the works. It's hard to think of a way this can happen that doesn't look cheap. I can't even think of a good example to describe really... so I'm just throwing it out there I guess.