Unnamed 2D platform scroller project Planning phase points of interest Written up by Troy Chastain / 'Hiryuu' May 31, 2009, v1 >>> Legal crap: This document pertains to the game idea displayed by the forum 'Jul', led by members 'Tyty', 'Sukasa' and 'hydrapheetz'. Outside of this project, the members mentioned and the underlying staff they represent, the ideas and mechanisms displayed here are the work of myself and are not meant to for commercial use without written consent of the author, me. Hiryuu. Yea. In other words, don't be a dick and use my ideas for your own personal gain. I don't get any money for doing this anyways and it means a lot to me. If you're interested, get in contact with me personally via e-mail @: hiryuu_shoten_ha@yahoo.com. Although, I sincerely doubt this will go much further than this forum, it's always good to have your bases covered in this day and age. Nothing in this document is final. The opinions and thoughts expressed here reflect my current information on the project in an attempt to better the final project if and when it is released. >>> Current assumptions >>> This game will operate in a similar fashion to the game 'Mega Man' in most aspects. The character (of five) that I need to address is 'Rain' who is a character that I've created over the years for writing purposes and overall just a way to pass the time for creativity. Thus far she has not really been finalized in any commercial or non-commercial project but has been given the ability to do so in the past. Therefore, it is likely that I will base her design around what I've already written out for her in the side writing projects that I've created over the years. Although the idea of having Rain play out similar to the mechanics of the original Megaman creation it is of the opinion of the author that such a game device would be logically sound to her overall style (minus the sliding aspect but that could be worked out to dash if we went with an MMX style approach to her). Currently, Rain will use a 'Ki Buster' similar to Mega's 'Mega' or 'Rock Buster'. This allows Rain to shoot three, small energy bullets at a time on screen as well as two, larger and size-based on charge time, shots, likely taking upwards of one second charge for the first and about three seconds to perform for the second level. The five main characters are currently being delved into their own sections at the start with their own plot devices that will allow them to eventually meet at a certain point of the game. Each character's plot deals with four bosses that they must defeat before they can advance on to this meeting spot. One of these bosses are unlocked after the other three are beaten, making it a sort of climactic boss. For Rain's case, it is the opinion of the author to make the bosses in her section the spirits that she carries. This information can be found from the story 'Element' which can also be accessed from the Jul forum. The characters will have four abilities they can choose from at this point (perhaps more, depending) and will be able to choose two of the five to go in on the rest of the stages of the game (a la Megamari, a doujin Mega Man clone). Outside of this, it is also the opinion of the author that the story be flexed to work with everyone and to meet up at a certain point in constraints to what the bad guys are planning. However, this doesn't mean that I don't have a way of making a plot device to where I can get to this point. That said, my idea is, hopefully, flex enough to be used in almost any situation. >>> What makes Rain want to take the time to go kick some ass? >>> Setting-wise, I would hope there is some way to string this in with Anya, one of the five main characters, since she is the most compatible based on storyline and overall move style. If I can string Anya along for the ride perhaps the following happens (or maybe by herself): Enter your typical 'robots' or 'whatever' are attacking any particular cityscape or setting. A typical case would be to have Rain and/or Anya check out the scene and, also typically, to eliminate the baddies that are making them miss whatever's on TV at the time. Well, maybe not TV. Rain would generally not really care about situations like this but let's just assume Anya dragged her along for the ride...not that Rain doesn't care or anything (well...maybe) but it isn't in her best interest to take care of all the small problems in the universe when someone else could take care of them. Anyways, my thoughts on getting Rain to having four bosses starts here. Generally, Rain has access to all four of her spirits that she 'carries' and is able to use any of them at will, similar to how Mega Man can change weapons at will. An ability of hers, though not shown in writing at this point, is the ability to use all four spirits at once. Assume then that the situation has driven Rain, and possibly Anya (if she's in here), to the point of having to use desperate measures. All four are used by Rain, attack seems to work but leaves Rain unstable when suddenly an attack of some powerful nature is sent back through the dust cloud and strikes Rain head on, disabling her, also causing a flash of light to occur and the whole typical (I like that word) affair of blacking out to occur. Depending on Anya being involved in this will be whether she wakes up with Celestria, a character created by Anya, or just some place by herself. Regardless, Rain finds that she's lost every spirit that she carries! That's no good. Hence, this gives Rain the rhyme and reason to search all four of them out. This will, in turn, put her into an even deeper series of events that she could not possibly imagine how far reach it is... I will work on dialogue against this once I have more information. I would like to start on that when I get everyone else's information on what they're going to do, what the baddies are going to do, etc. and so forth before I do any drafts on the matter. >>> Boss/Stage information >>> The four spirits, and now bosses, that Rain has are: Yukina - ice spirit Rose - earth spirit Salina - light spirit Alisha - dark spirit (final boss or Rain's arc) Based on what's given, you can kind of assume how the 'stages' where each are (since they've scattered) may play out if they are perhaps manipulated by the four. Boss motive is simply 'yay we're free' but some care more about that than others. All girls (of course), by the way. How the four will work isn't really set in stone by my thoughts yet, but here are some examples to start on which may grow into something deeper as things progress: +++ Yukina +++ As you might guess, I would expect Yukina's stage to be in some sort of an ice-based or arctic climate. There are really not a lot of gimmicks I can think of for her, or any one of these bosses, so I would assume the level design creativity would be better spent in the hands of someone far better than me. If I need to go into detail on a later date, I'll do so. Just know that level design isn't my strong point in the slightest. Yukina probably wouldn't mind being out of Rain in the slightest, since that gives her the opportunity to go kill Anya (long story). However, a decent fight with Rain might change her mind in that regard. As for boss pattern, this is where it gets tricky. Please bear with me in my descriptions here. The following information assumes that there are infinite possibilities in actually getting everything I describe getting exactly the way I want it. There are, obviously, ways of compromise...not to mention that there may be even better ideas than that which are about to be discussed. Boss room, in this case, should either be a flat space, ice and possibly slippery, or bowled in where the sides are higher than the center. Assuming we're dealing with bosses on something close to a 32 HP boss scale (per bar if there are multiple ones, which would be neat for ones later on) and running into any boss will likely cause 3-5 HP of damage, I can think of the following for Yukina to use: Movement behavior: Primarily walking (about 1.5 px/frame) except to stop or jump for attacks. Jumps will likely by half room height and third of the distance at a rate of ~2px/frame. Likely to change direction on jumping as well. On either side of the room, there's probably a likely chance to have her fire an attack though anything logical will work. Crystalune (3 HP damage per hit): Attacks from ground, horizontally, in the direction of Rain at the rate of three shards a second. Shards of ice are about 2/3 the size of Yukina and as many as 10 to 12 will be shot off from her at a time. Ideally, there would be a way to jump and attach to the wall and triangle jump like MMX does to avoid this. Additionally, Yukina will not change direction during the attack and will stop where she's at to fire this off...so jumping over her before she lets this attack off may yield better results for direct counter-attack. Will stop this attack if damage is received. Assuming Rain gets hit by this, I would hope that there is recovery/invincibility time. Behavioral change will occur at half life on this attack; attack will be able to be used in air as well as ground. Also, Yukina will fire the shots based on the last position Rain is at any given time. As such, Rain will need to be constantly moving and/or wall-jumping. Once again, Yukina cannot change direction of her attack to her behind...so getting behind her will likely be the best way to avoid/counter the attack. Yukina will be limit to a positive and negative 75 degree range for her attack to get in. Glacier Bomb (5 HP damage per hit): Yukina will jump in the air. If she decides to, before she lands on the ground she may change her animation to an attack one to strike the ground, causing a glacier of ice to form around her at roughly double her size. This will cause Yukina to be shielded for roughly a second from attacks while she is in this glacier and recover time after it fades away is about another second, at which time the user may want to unload on her. Behavioral change will occur at half life on this attack; attack will hit her area as well as one or two other places on the map, one delayed after the other. Not to mention that the height of the attack will be greater as well. Recovery time is still the same. Setsugetsuka (10 HP damage, limited): A weird name but for whatever reason a most powerful attack. May as well be called 'Ice Grave' as it employs an instant death attack. Anyways, this will only occur only when Yukina is 1) lower than 50% health 2) Rain is lower than 10 HP health. This attack will randomly occur when Yukina jumps into the direct center and will then unleash a giant Glacier Bomb that encompasses most of the screen from the center. This takes a fair amount of time to charge but not a whole bunch...so this is likely to catch a lot of people off guard the first time this happens. The only areas that wouldn't be directly affected are the extreme upper corners of the boss room. Though weapons affect her during this, Yukina cannot be stunned out of this once her attack has begun. You might not even need that latter requisite of Rain being low on health for it to occur but it would be nice to see something like Rain getting frozen only for Yukina to laugh for a few seconds, music stopped, and then have her break the attack and have Rain lose a life in that fashion. You know... Recovery time to this is a giant amount at around three seconds, with Yukina left stunned or panting at this point from the over-exertion. Will go back to normal attack routine before it is attempted again and that should be some time. WEAKNESS: Regular Ki Buster shots do double damage (two HP). 1-level charge does 3 HP damage. 2-level charge does 6 HP damage and stuns. WEAPON GET: Yukina - Modified Crystalune shot. Faster (4 or 5 per second) but slightly smaller and ammo is based like Needle Man's shot (about two seconds of a continuous, held down shot, for 1 WP, or weapon point). Unlike Yukina, Rain can move will firing this but she can only fire it in a horizontal direction either in the air or on the ground. +++ Rose +++ I'd expect something more tropical or at least forest-based for this one. Rose is a plantsy type of gal, although a lot more serious and cunning and probably the most mature out of Rain's group as it is. The only real reason Rose would ever really oppose Rain would be...well a good match. Rose and Rain have never really gone at it like you would expect many to. Same with Yukina, really (and Alisha). Rain's so nice. But apparently, Rain has to lay the beat down on her to get her point across. So be it. The boss room should be a grassy or earth flat. No need to make it any more complicated and I'll explain why: Rose is a fairly fast boss, generally dashing at about 3.5px/frame. Getting run into her will likely be a problem. I'd like to make it somewhat like Ring Man in her movement but with a few modifications... Rose thorn (3 HP damage): Like Ring Man, Rose will throw a thorn with a rose at Rain's ground position when she jumps high on either end of the room. She can also stop mid-dash and throw one at Rain's position on the ground or in the air. She will likely not follow up with a second, but it is a possibility. From this position she can either continue her dash in either direction or jump up and straight down to follow into the next move... Rose will change her behavior on this attack and half life. Instead of throwing one in proximity of Rain in the air, she will throw three in a W-spread. Also, she can throw more than one on the ground on the screen (can fire two or three now instead). Ground spike (5 HP damage): After jumping from a Rose thorn attack, Rose can choose to follow up with a Ground spike. Upon landing on the ground, she will instead burrow into it with excessive force. Rose will not be on the screen for a certain period of time. She will make her appearance after a slight rumble and an uppercut in either a 60 degree left or right fashion. Sliding or dashing out of the way of this may lead to a safe haven, but Rose can attack into you if you choose the wrong direction. The better, safer route would be to attach to the wall, since Rose's uppercuts from the ground will only be 1/3 or 1/2 of the screen height. Rose will then continue to run and may launch a Rose thorn at any time. Ground spike should not be available again for at least another 5 to 10 seconds. Behavior change for half life will be Rose burrowing into the ground even faster, much more violent. The ground should rumble even heavier as the following attack occurs: Based on Rain being on the ground or not will affect how this behaves; if Rain is on the ground send a spike up directly from her position on the ground. If she is in the air and/or attached to a wall, send a spike up from a random spot on the ground in the direction of Rain to touch with her last known X and Y position. In other words, if she's clinging to the wall, take her out. If she's on the ground blast her where she is. This will occur three times. After that, Rose will pop out in her usual fashion (though maybe faster, higher) and will continue running. It may be best to stay on the ground for this version of the attack and keep sliding...since being on the wall may be asking for your demise. Whiplash (10 HP damage): Rose's instant death attack. Only occurs rarely/randomly when 1) Rose is under 50% HP and 2) Rain is under 10 HP health. The only means of figuring out that this attack is going to occur will be signaled by Rose jumping DURING HER RUN LEFT OR RIGHT. This is not done when Rose jumps on either extreme of the room and/or uses a Rose thorn. This is not done after Rose gets done with a ground attack Rose thorn. Rain will be jumped over. After Rose sets down, she will then turn towards Rain and let loose five whips with a plant vine. Each does 1 HP of damage and ignores invincibility. If Rain is caught by any of the five, she will be stunned and will stay in her position. Needless to say, the final attack will be a shadow-move (i.e. fade to black then jump out of ground) ground spike that will attack Rain for 5 HP of damage, effectively ending her. Of course, this can be modified...this is going under the assumption of climactic death...again. If Rose misses, she'll be weak and open for attack for a good three seconds. WEAKNESS: 3-5 HP damage from Crystalune (depends on what seems fair enough). Rose will get knocked back or down if in the air. If she is on the ground in a dash, she will instead do an about face during her invincibility time and go into a Rose thorn attack after jumping. She shouldn't do one from the ground. If she gets knocked out of the air, she'll start a dash and do the very same. WEAPON GET: Rose - modified version of Whiplash. Instead of the 6-hit tirade, Rain instead gets the lesser vine whip attack. However, it can be used to attack straight, in a 45-degree angle up and to attack in a 30-degree angle downwards (based on pressing UP or DOWN or nothing at all before using the weapon). The attack extends roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen's length. Can be used twice a second. Consumes 2 WP per use. +++ Salina +++ Salina is definitely the happy-go-lucky kid of the group. Literally kid, she might not look more than nine at most. The only logical reason Salina would ever take on Rain would be to...have fun I think. Yea that might be a bit annoying for Rain. Doesn't help that the main thing to Salina is dealing with her tricky nature. The screen layout should be either a flat or a curve up from the ends, lowest on either side and highest in the center. At the start of the battle, Salina will fade out and then will reappear, split into two, at either side of the screen halfway up. Both will walk and jump around, attempting to get their hands on Rain in a 'yayyyyy fun' fashion. Neither will ever touch each other, so maybe make it in a Gemini Man like fashion without the running and without the repetitive motions. Perhaps there should be a way to determine who the real one is? Occasionally, Salina will fade out, especially when creating a new clone when she's lost all of hers or has none in current arsenal. This won't happen immediately after destroying a clone but likely will upon getting stunned from Whiplash. Cute Hug! (3 HP damage): Basically what was described above. If Salina ends up hitting Rain, she will take damage. The only difference in this and under half HP is that Salina has the ability to do this with three on screen. Explosive Light! (5 HP damage): Only one of the clones is real. If you attack the wrong one, it will cause three slow-moving beams of light to ricochet around the playfield a few times before dissipating. Getting hit by one will have Rain take damage. After a few seconds, Salina will add another one to the playfield with a spell cast on a specific area of the field. Difference in half HP version and this is that the beams will move faster and there will be five. May even give them more staying power if you want. Phantom Destruction! (10 HP damage): Instant death attack for Salina. Requires that she be under half health and Rain be 10 HP or less like the last two. Also requires that there be only one form of Salina to be on the field. Salina will stop and charge from her position for a second before taking off in a lol-like giddy rocket towards Rain's X and Y position. Hitting Rain will cause Rain to take 2 HP damage and knocked up a bit, Salina will disappear, reappearing behind Rain and knocking her up for another 2 HP damage, this will happen again on Rain's front for another 2 HP of damage before ending up having her in mid-air somewhere where a Light Explosion! Bomb goes off for climactic death explosion. If Salina misses, she will hit the wall...literally. After she falls to the ground she'll be dizzy and stunned, open for damage. Also, Salina cannot be stunned out of this attack once it starts. Upon defeating Salina, all of her clones will phase out before she explodes/dies/whatever. WEAKNESS: 6 HP damage from Whiplash. Clones will still explode in the Light Explosion! fashion. Salina herself will be knocked to the ground, stunned for a second. All clones will dissipate upon this happening. WEAPON GET: Salina - modified version of Light Explosion! Instead of shooting three or five lasers, it shoots a longer single beam. Ricochets just as well but is twice the speed of the original. Consumes 3 WP per use. +++ Alisha +++ Leader of all four spirits. You'll have to unlock it after beating everyone else. Alisha doesn't like Rain. Never has, never will. How the two have been together for so long is more of the reason Alisha wanted out. She couldn't stand being USED in the way that she has, to do good and help and bleh...so wrong for her. Doesn't help that Alisha has the black-winged baddie look to her too to sell the point... Also looks like Rain too and there is NO WAY she can stand that for very long. Needless to say, Alisha would rather have Rain off dead and has absolutely no intentions of going back. By force is the only way to go. So be it. Apparently Rain sucks at negotiations...especially with her near-twin. Alisha has 2 bars of HP (64 HP). I would assume some underground level or some night level here. Should be big on that whole 'dark' thing. Boss area should be a flat. Alisha's move pattern and behavior should be fairly calculating, only moving and attacking when she sees fit. She can move half the screen and then start attacking, jump backwards in the air and attack during the peak before landing stay in any spot for a period to charge an attack, etc. Dark buster (3 HP damage): Alisha stops and then launches an attack that send four or five small orbs of dark energy at Rain, which home in on her in a wide arc. Hitting the ground or the wall will cause the attack to dissipate. Will not go away until that happens. Can be performed in the air as well. Alisha also has a 2 HP damage attack of this that is similar to Rain's Ki Buster in that it shoots five orbs straight horizontally on the ground. This attack isn't used halfway down on HP. Darkness Wake (3 HP damage): Fast (5 px/frame) slash attack by Alisha. Attacks in a fashion that causes her to immediately dash from her position to slash, hold position in the air for a moment, slash again, hold position, slash again and then head for the ground. Only used on Alisha's last HP bar. Dark Ball (5 HP damage): Alisha stops halfway in the air of a backwards jump to release a large ball of dark energy that swivels on its way down to the ground, exploding on the ground in a vertical column of energy. Getting hit by either the column or the ball generate the same damage. Halfway down on HP, this attack will modify itself to hit the ground and create a column that touches the ceiling and then create a column adjacent to it the goes all the way to the ceiling until the attack reaches the wall. This means that this attack will hit the user if they are between where the ball hits the ground and the wall. If the user jumps over it and is between Alisha and where the ball drops, this will keep them out of attack range. Dimensional Rain (7 HP damage per hit): "No mercy for the damned. No escape from annihilation!" God I love Lezard's VA work...anyways. The screen will turn black as Alisha jumps directly up in the air and generate a lot of energy. Large random chunks of black fall from the sky, impacting on the ground. To survive? Dash and dodge. After about five to ten seconds of this, Alisha will drop on the ground, stunned/panting for a small amount of time before getting back up. This is only used on Alisha's last HP bar. Causes climactic death if ended in this fashion. After defeating Alisha, that's it for Rain's arc. Meeting up with the rest of the peeps will be needed. WEAKNESS: 6 HP damage from Light Explosion! Knocked back and stunned momentarily but will quickly get it together to counter attack. She will change tactics abruptly after reaching halfway mark on HP, taking out dark broadsword and going berserk. WEAPON GET: Alisha - modified version of Dark Buster. Works similar to Rain's normal Ki Attack except it uses 1 WP per shot. Has one level of quick charge and will attack similar to Rain's 2-leveled charge for a cost of 2 WP. >>> Extras >>> +++ Rain EX? +++ If EX does become an idea, I would surmise that she will need 5 levels of HP and 2 levels of HP for second stage of it. First will be normal buster attack. After draining one bar, switch to ice. Next bar is earth, then light, then finally dark. Upon beating up Rain in her Dark form...the user think's they're pretty badass for beating her, right? Wait a minute...didn't she have the ability to use all four of her spirits at once? Rain doesn't like losing. +++ Costumes for different weapons? +++ This would probably be a fan-service opportunity among all else, but Rain's form, in the writing, actually changes somewhat. It's usually only hair color and, only in Alisha, does it have striking outward appearance. If you want some creative liberties, I guess it would be nice to see the Rose version of Rain with a Rose in either side of her hair and vine wrap on either arm and what have you for earthen or tight-fitting armor. Depends if you want to do it further than just a hair recolor. +++ Dual techs? +++ Dunno if you guys are gonna wanna do that or not. Let me know so I can get cranking on ideas. I'll need to know everyone's fight style beforehand. +++ Character dialogue +++ I'll work on dialogue later but it should be fairly simple to guess what happens on all four of mine, considering what I've described here already. As for bosses past that arc, we'll just have to see. >>> DONE FOR NOW!