Concept 2:4 Flying through the city

[Jamie Bailey]

This could be considered a whole new subject, but I'm thinking of how it could be used in a city. Flying could be used to mix up gameplay style or as a way of accessing alternate routes.

Sky Chase

An obvious one, part of a city level or a whole one that plays like Sonic 2's Sky Chase Zone, flying past buildings or above them. You could have it as just part of a level, find Tails in his plane, jump on and of you go for a short ride. As well as badniks, avoid obstacles such as signs, lights, characters throwing or dropping objects out of windows, oh, and don't crash into buildings that aren't in the background.

Large birds

Bird flies past, jump on for a ride, maybe have some control of the bird. Have the bird drop the player off at a specific point that may have been unreachable normally, like on the roof of a building or in through an open window or if the bird gets shot down by enemies, ride's over.

Helicopters

Jump in, take control, slice badniks with the blades. Or use guns, maybe damage some buildings and scenery for alternate routes. Or just hang from one, Sonic Adventure style.

Normal planes

Don't control them, jump on top as they fly by for a ride, or get inside with all the passengers, maybe find the pilot and passengers are badniks, bring the plane down, cause a crash to damage scenery, new route opens.

Balloons

Grab string to release it from whatever it's attached to and float upwards to new areas, move left and right to avoid obstacles, touch obstacle and bolloon goes pop. Maybe it could slowly deflate, so you float downwards after a short while. Or maybe hitch a ride in or on top of a hot air balloon, not sure why it's floating through the city streets but hey, it's only a game. Or maybe even parade balloons.

Hang glider

Like the 8-bit Sonic 2, but in a city. Glide from the top of one tall building to another.

Parachute

Slowly float down through the city, but watch out for obstacles your chute might get caught on.

UFOs

Get abducted at one point in a level, experience an anal probe, get dropped off at another point.

Unexpected flying objects

Now I'm getting silly. You enter a building, it blasts off like a rocket. Why? Robotnik designed it to. Flying cars to ride on or get hit by because it's futuristic? Hell, make the whole city futuristic and floaty and fly from one floating building to another.

[Dan]

I've been checking this month's theme in and out and basically, I got zip. I've never been a fan of the industrial/city tropes and struggle to find my own ideas for my own game.

But that last idea of yours is good I think. It's something finally different with a bit of wonder. Fitting too.. a tree or mushroom that lifts off doesn't relate as well to the player as a bus stop that mysteriously starts to hover. Futuristic is nice, but again, not majorly fresh. So, I like the random flying idea, but what to do with it... ?

Run really fast and stuff around you starts to levitate? Only a bit showy really, not practical much. Hmm.

Grind rails.. that rise and sway depending on your speed or angle of contact? I dunno, I'm not coming up with much here but something about your idea works for me.

Street lights that tear themselves out of the ground just after you run past them, then launch themselves forward, flying past you as you run, and suddenly attaching themselves to one of the many walls you're running past. As you approach, they light up and do.. something. Either fire at you or something more imaginative, such as shooting beams of light down to the ground at different angles, creating a makeshift curve to run up and connect onto that wall to start running up it.

And then the whole building lifts off, rotates with you running up/along it until you're running upside down, the wrong way, and the building is slowly sinking. From there, create some options for the character to get out of that small space and actually inside that sinking/hovering building. And those flying lamps do I don't know what.

Hmm. Some big impact... say, a building that was flying and has just crashed down. Debris jumps, and pieces of pavement stay hovering in the air, very floaty to stand on (just like real life floating pavement you see), creating bizarre, difficult new path options. You could set up a good run between sinking floating pieces of cement.

*shrug* That's all I've got for now.

[Ironrind]

If done in the future, you could have flying traffic, like in the movie 5th Element or Judge Dredd. You could hop along the tops of the cars as they move at various speeds and in different directions.