TODO list

[malytomas]

story:

• the player is a prince
• his goal is to save a princess
• twist: there is no princess, it is a trap set up by a foreign queen, who lusts for the riches of your fathers kingdom
• white rabbit?

bosses:

• each boss has a unique background music
• bosses are stylized with playing cards
• ease the killing of far-away monsters after a boss-egg has appeared

1. canonner

• cannons shoot pairs of balls connected with a chain

2. gravitron

• starts with a pool of X rockets
• periodically shoots a rocket in random direction, if it has any in its pool
• player may shoot down the rockets
• a rocket will stop after some time and turn into a pulsar
• a pulsar emits gravitational waves, each subsequent wave slightly stronger
• pulsars are indestructible
• pulsars occasionally shoot at the player (regular shots)
• every pulsar will, after some time, dissipate and return back to the pool of rockets
• the boss is indestructible if it has at least one rocket in its pool
• when the gravitron is destroyed, it leaves behind a gravitational disturbance device
  • the device is indestructible and is removed when the following boss is spawned
  • the device applies gravity disturbances to all objects, based on noise functions

3. hydra

• composed of several parts of 4 types:
  • body - slowly spinning and moving towards player
  • neck-sections - parts of neck-line that goes from body to head
  • shooting neck-sections
  • head - final piece of each neck-line, shoots at the player
• body is invulnerable
• neck-sections are invulnerable
• whenever player kills a head which has preceding neck-sections:
  • its preceding neck-section turns into a new head
  • any other neck-line (if any) grows new shooting neck-section (at the end closest to body)
• when player kills a head without any remaining neck-sections, that neck-line is permanently eliminated
• when player kills the head of the last neck-line, the body dies too
• when the hydra has more than one neck-lines, necks movement is controlled by noise functions: (neck-line index, neck-section index, time) -> angle
  • the body keeps moving away from the player (and away from map border) putting its heads towards the player for more efficient shooting
• when the hydra has only one neck-line, it moves like a giant sperm, shielding its "last head" with the bulk of its body
  • the body accelerates forward when the player is in front of the body
  • the body slows down and turns towards the player when the player is not in front of the body
  • the last neck-line works like a tail of the sperm
• summary: to kill the hydra, player must eliminate one whole neck-line at a time, otherwise the heads will just keep jumping back and forth between neck-lines

4. clockwork

• mechanics inspired by the movie "edge of tomorrow", this is to make the player feel how game monsters usually feel :D
• periodically "saves" the world
• when a time comes to make another save, it will check how much life it lost, and will reload the game instead of saving in case that it has lost too much life
• reloading will darken the game and slowly move all existing objects that also have saved variant to the saved state. new objects will dissipate and missing objects will reappear
• reloading also affects the player (in all respects, except restoring health and score)
• during reload, giant turning gears and backwards-going sand glasses are partially visible in the background
• clockwork's behavior (movement) is randomized so that it appears to behave differently after every reload

5. the queen

• spawns previous types of bosses as she is damaged
  • may spawn multiple bosses simultaneously if the player is greedy in damaging her
• periodically spawns queens guards

monsters:

• add spawning visual effect to all monsters
• make a lot of monster types have movement pattern irrespective of player position - this promotes more various player movement
• make different monster types have different weight towards monster limit

rocket

• add mutation: shield

stunner

• when reaches the player, it will explode and temporarily disable all players permanent powerups, but deal no damage

ghost

• emits strong light but is otherwise invisible

queens guard

• does not spawn naturally
  • periodically spawned by queen
• forms a formation around the queen
  • the formation is loose when the player is far from the queen
  • and close when the player is close to the queen
• when number of guards reaches a threshold, they all charge at the player
• they periodically shoot at the player
• self-destructs when the queen is killed
• looks like a playing card with a spear
  • each has a unique symbol/number

negative

• moves against gravity (has a negative weight)
  • wormholes teleport it in opposite direction
• is attracted to player's shots (has negative avoidance)
  • and slightly against their movement
• spawns with a timer, when it runs out, it dies
• when it is hit by player's shots, it has a chance to spawn more negatives
  • spawns the more negatives the less negatives there is around it
  • respawned negatives have a smaller timer (based on generation, and slightly randomized) to ensure that they will die out eventually
  • respawned negatives have similar (not same) color to their parent

frankenstain

• composed of several other monster types, all interconnected with chains

arrow

• periodically jumps (teleports) forward some distance in the direction it is facing

gps

• uses smarter algorithm to predict players position
  • prefers to go behind the players back when far and follow the player when close

player

rework decoy

• replace decoy with a ghost version of the players ship
• when activated, the ghost is spawned at players position
• the ghost mirrors all players movement (in opposite direction)
• all monsters (except black hole) completely ignore the ghost
• the ghost is affected by gravity and will be destroyed by black hole
• whenever player presses tab, the players ship and the ghost swaps their positions
• player can swap their position multiple times with the same ghost
• the ghost is destroyed after its timer elapses
  • an implicit swap happens just before it is destroyed, unless player explicitly swapped before
• there can only be one ghost at a time, if player activates another ghost, the previous one is destroyed (without swap)
• show a translucent trail between players ship and the ghost - its speed increases over time
• inspired by the lord marshal from the movie riddick

combo boost

• player may buy a temporary combo
• while active, all score increases are doubled

achievements

• fireworks
• bad timing: die in less than a second after shield ended

jokes

monkeys joke map

• only one type of a monster - the monkey

classic snake joke map

• the player plays as the snake
  • once the player starts moving, it cannot control speed and may only change the direction
  • gains additional piece of tail every time it kills a monster
  • when the players head touches its own tail (any piece after second?) it takes some life and pushes the head and the tile apart
• only one type of monsters
  • looks like the original player spaceship
  • periodically shoot at the player - the shot looks like the original players shot
  • behave like a simple monster with some avoidance

companion

• after defeating the hydra boss, player is rewarded with a companion
  • the hydra is after gravitron, so the companion's ai does not need to deal with crazy gravitational effects
• the companion follows the player and tries to avoid monsters
• player’s permanent powerups also apply to the companion
• the companion aims at the monster that is closest to the player or itself
• the companion does not participate in boss fights
• the companion occasionally has quotes for the player (giving the companion a personality)

market

• player may buy "hull repair robot" - recovers some of players health
• player may buy "universe recovery point" (save the game)
• player may buy “companion resurrection” if one already had the companion and it is dead

other

• change sound when shield powerup is about to end
• player may freely change shots spread (when they have multi-shot powerup(s)) with mouse wheel
• reduce explosions brightness
• center camera on midpoint between player and cursor
• add non-interactive items into background (asteroids etc.)
• use more of the depth dimension (wrecks, novas)
• shot piercing through monster randomly changes direction

technical

• options should be accessible during gameplay
• add version number to the main menu screen
• load skyboxes only as needed