NH's FIRST COLLAB!

So could we do sort of platformer things through, say, a restaurant? Where the goal is to kill a number of mob enforcers at the back, quietly-ish, but it would also be possible to try to kill everyone in the restaurant if that's the direction the player wanted to go? (just really, really hard) And scaring people (accidentally?) would bring out more mob folks, or make the level harder in some other way? :) ((just as one scene/level sort of thing)).

And is AutoTank going to hurt us for talking about a platformer so much? ;)

Ok, here is my attempt at a storyline.

Your name is Egar, Corporal in the generation army. You are part of the special sniper unit named AIM. You are off fighting in a war against a neighbouring nation. Your wife [I don't know what to call her] cheats on you with Al, the head of the Mob. The war ends in victory for the generation army and you come home. Not too long later, you are walking down the street when the mob attack you, killing you. You leave your body behind and you see yourself being beaten even more. Rage fills inside you and you find yourself in your army gear, with your trusty sniper rifle on hand.

Nobody can see you, and you listen in on your wife's conversations. You find out exactly what has happened and set out on your path of revenge.

Thats all I've got so far. As you said before about the ethereal forms, while in these forms your enemies can see you, and you take part in melee combat with them. I like the idea of the five levels thing.

oooh, that's an idea - you can either do the level in stealth, like an assassin, or do it in a mad style, killing innocents too. Was that what you were hinting at earlier, Kaolin?

Great storyline, Jack - very dramatic

I was playing a game on NG before, and it gave me an idea. This is building up on what I said in my last post about the ethereal forms. Make it sort of like a thing thing style shoot em' up at that point. Only, using your powers as a ghost, you wouldn't shoot bullets, but use some sort of powers to do with that.

I'd kind of rather Egar (Edgar?) didn't have as much a clue as to what was going on, to start. Storyline ~ piecing together clues from level to level.

So animation has you grabbed, beaten, killed--and you watch, a helpless, smoky form with a thin shining cord attaching you to the body--until they're gone and the cord snaps and you find yourself in your gear (but the gun doesn't work ;) or you have exceedingly limited ammo).

We should probably also work out some small tutorials at the first step for how you can interact with the environment so far...

And you have to maneuver through ye olde alley/downtown/whatnot until you catch up with the mob guys at the end of the level, kill them, and _find out_ that they're mob guys. Maybe they can't even hurt you at this point, but you have to be careful in using your powers so you don't kill yourself by overextending...

If we really get some serious level design going on, we could possibly make the paths through the game a little free-form (based on the clues you've gotten so far). You could from this point, for instance, go home OR track down one of the addresses that you got off the mob guys.

Or we can make the player go one "obvious" route (home to his wife, first, say).

At home: no sign of damage but signs your wife hasn't been there for a while and was expecting to come back soon (say... mold growing on some dirty dishes in the sink or something like that).

BluMess wrote:oooh, that's an idea - you can either do the level in stealth, like an assassin, or do it in a mad style, killing innocents too. Was that what you were hinting at earlier, Kaolin?

Yup! :) With the option of doing something in-between as well.

AutoTank wrote: This is building up on what I said in my last post about the ethereal forms. Make it sort of like a thing thing style shoot em' up at that point. Only, using your powers as a ghost, you wouldn't shoot bullets, but use some sort of powers to do with that.

Yeah, exactly that--"you're limited to energy attacks, gusts of wind to distract people, that sort of thing. large gust of wind to push someone off a roof to their death...". :)

So it's basically a shoot-em-up either way you go, but more of a Hit Man style where you don't have to kill everyone, but you can.

Sounds awesome . But this is getting more and more complicated as it goes along. Which is going against what we originally believed.

That's just what I thought.

I think we should keep this simple - have some basic ghost-like powers (e.g. floating, passing through certain materials) but keep the objective quite obvious. Otherwise the player won't know what to do.

You could keep the gust of wind idea, but it's triggered by turning on a fan or something more related to the level - this would keep the controls easy to use

To keep it simple, I think we should do it in a similar way to Fable - you gradually get more good / evil depending on how you carry out a level. Maybe being good gives you one ability, while being evil gives you another, making the game replayable

The more complex parts of the game would relate to the level design, making it challenging and maybe we could throw in a few collectable items, such as coins or army medals

I think we should scrap the sniper idea, and go with a full thing with the ghost powers and stuff.



. Its not nearly finished as you can see, thats not the full drawing + it needs to be shaded and details need to be added, but I just felt like posting it.

Sounds good
So, we're settled on the basic gameplay?
Platformer / shoot 'em up, based around a ghost looking for vengeance. He can choose to become good or evil as he progresses


That character is amazing, he looks determined and agile.
One thing I'd comment on is his ears - maybe we could put them a little lower or scrap them?

Yeah I think thats settled with the gameplay .

About the ears, I didn't notice it. I'll change it now.

Hmm. I really don't like the moralistic good/evil thing--I liked the physical/ethereal thing. I think it fits the context better and is more natural than adding good/evil to what's going on...

collectables--how about pieces of heart? ((your wife's heart and yours--different effects?))

As far as things getting too complicated, I didn't think they were--but maybe I was offloading the difficulty on the level designers? Very basic story with a twist, fairly standard gameplay with a twist...

Collectables, the souls of the people you kill? I'd rather have the physical/ethereal thing too.

I think you were just putting in too many different moves personally But does the ghost hold weapons or not? I'm a bit confused about that :S

I meant the physical/ethereal thing, I just forgot how it's spelt lol
The difficulty on the level designers just depends on how easy it is for us to make levels without delving into the script a huge amount

AutoTank wrote:Collectables, the souls of the people you kill? I'd rather have the physical/ethereal thing too.

Ooh, yes. Much better! :)