Hey guys, So I figure it would be nice to get everyones input whilst I'm making my new game Orbs: Battle Arena. I'd like to make it a really well polished (but simple) game, part of that process in my opinion is to get user feedback and ideas to improve upon my concept, since it's people like you who may end up playing it. For those who have not been following my posts on the game (only a couple so far!), it will be a simple game in the style of games like Marble Madness and Super Monkeyball, with a slight twist. Players will battle it out as spherical robots over a 3D arena, trying to cause damage to one another and/or knock them off the edge of the arena, scoring points for each Knock Out or Kill (to put the design in it's simplest terms). I'm now thinking about what powerups would work well for the game, here is what I have so far : Fireball - The players Orb develops an aura of flame causing small amounts of damage on contact with enemies. The player causes higher damage when using their double jump ability or when otherwise moving fast as the moving air fans the flames into a fast moving fireball! Spikes - The player gains more grip on the arena surface and causes a medium amount of contact damage Inertial dampeners - Player can activate this powerup at any time to immediately halt all movement, allows fast recovery from knockbacks. Speed Boost - The players speed rating improves allowing them to move faster Armour Boost - The players armour rating improves allowing them to absorb more damage Psychokinesis - The player can attract collectibles towards the mouse cursor by clicking near an item which can be used to stop an opponent collecting a powerup, health, or bonus points collectible and/or to gain the item for your own use. Invisibility - Causes the player to dissappear from sight for 10 seconds, or until their next collision Improved invisibility - Causes the player to dissappear from sight and reappear after 20 seconds or after 3 collisions Blast Mine - Allows the player to drop a set number of proximity mines with a 3 second timer delay, can be used to knock opponent off edge of arena and/or cause damage. ------------------------------------------------------------------ So those are some of my ideas, but I'd be interested in hearing a few from you guys/gals if anyone has any more fun or interesting ideas. Any suggestions would be gratefully received and potentially used in my game (if you don't mind!). Cheers, Steve

The few idea's that came to mind:

Electromagnet
The player gets the ability to attract the other player, or toggle to the detract mode. Usefull for pushing players out of the ring, or disturbing their movement. A shield powerup that defends against this might be usefull too.

Slimer
Causes the player ball to leave a track of slime, which is quite slippery for anything else that crosses it...


Perhaps I'll have some more later, dunno. Good luck with your game bytheway. Sounds fun. :)

Beer Controls get a bit sloppy
Mirror Controls reversed
Drugs Colours get trippy
TV Remote Playfield switches to "another channel" for a couple of seconds
Baked Beans Player can float over chasms for short period. Perhaps button activates?
Hairspray Makes things sticky / slow / more flamable
Santa Air strike by rain deer on random apponent.
Glasses + fake nose Makes NPC baddies ignore you
Coffee Vibrate - doesn't effect controls, but collisions are more intense.

ElectroMagnet - I like this idea, I think I would have it that you can alternate between attract and repel. Attract causes players and collectibles in a close radius to be pulled towards the player. Repel essentially makes the influence of your orb larger, pushing players and collectibles away if they get close. The radius of influence would be quite small, otherwise this ability could be too powerful. I'll think about the shield idea some more.

Slimer - I like the slippery trail idea, but it could be too powerful if the trail was too long and doesn't quite fit in with the game theme. I think I would rename the powerup to Waste Discharge which would cause the player to eject toxic waste, causing opponents to slip. It would not leave a trail, or would leave only a short trail. I think the name is somewhat amusing too =P.

Quote:
Beer Controls get a bit sloppy
Mirror Controls reversed
Drugs Colours get trippy
TV Remote Playfield switches to "another channel" for a couple of seconds
Baked Beans Player can float over chasms for short period. Perhaps button activates?
Hairspray Makes things sticky / slow / more flamable
Santa Air strike by rain deer on random apponent.
Glasses + fake nose Makes NPC baddies ignore you
Coffee Vibrate - doesn't effect controls, but collisions are more intense.

These are nice ideas, but don't quite fit the theme as they are, with a little playing around though they might fit better.

Beer - I'm not keen on messing with controls too much, I think having the player judder around a little bit is as far as I would go with control altering powerups... to make it fit the theme I'd probably make it some kind of robotic alcohol equivalent such as meths or toxic waste or something!

Mirror - I would probably leave this one out personally.

Drugs - Similar to beer, in essence, I may consider an equivalent of this idea.

TV Remote - Interesting idea, but perhaps again somewhat frustrating, I would prefer fun to frustrating.

Baked Beans - I like this idea, the ability to float and prolong a jump to reach hard areas, or perhaps to survive being knocked off one part of the arena by floating to a lower part of the arena would be pretty nice. Again I would change the name to something suitable. Perhaps a limited use jetpack might be a decent equivalent... any ideas on this one would be good!

Hairspray - A very interesting idea, but I think this might add almost too much depth to the powerups as a player would have to keep track of lots of status elements. I'll perhaps consider this one if the game feels like it is lacking depth once in the later stages of development.

Santa Air strike by rain deer - Very Worms-like in style, but unfortunately not too fitting with the robot theme. Some kind of mass carnage mode like this might be nice though, perhaps this idea could be useful as a sudden death mode!

Glasses + fake nose - I like this idea and think I could possibly use this as-is just for a little comedy (can't be serious all the time now can I!).

Coffee Vibrate - Again, this is vaguely along the lines of the beer idea, which I'm thinking on a litle more!


Thanks for the responses so far, I look forward to any more and hopefully soon I'll try and whittle down a final list and get it in my design document!

Cheers,

Steve

Got some more:

Electro discharge
Releases a shock towards the opponent, paralyzing it's controls for a short time. A little charging time for this weapon to give the opponent a visual warning might be usefull.

The Launch
Launches the player high up in the air. When the player falls back from the sky, it gains great speed and it's impact causes quite some blast damage. A top-down view for better targeting and a shadow to make the opponent aware could make some funny try-and-get-em situations.

And how about a carnage gameplay mode, where the circlular arena is continually getting smaller and/or more dangerous? With added powerups or timed events that unlock carnage mode, where every damage value is multiplied? A sort of last-man-standing mode... :)

Decrease/increase size: has the named effect on the player's orb (or alternately on the opponents), applying all the physical implications (such as the fact that a smaller orb would impart less impact force, and would gain greater volocity from any impact, etc.).

Boost: I like the idea of boost, but already planned for something like this in the game. You will be able to jump and either double jump, or gain a powerup that lets you double jump. The double jump will be like a boost mid-air which combines with the fireball powerup to turn you into a real flying fireball!

Anchor: This is an interesting idea, but quite similar to the inertial dampeners already described and I think I'd like to keep powerups very individual and well defined, avoiding dulicating similar effects. Perhaps an anchor might be a nice alternative way of representing the same powerup on a different character (like a Robot Pirate Orb!).

Tractor Beam: This is a nice idea too, similarish to electromagnetism and psychokinesis, but it does have an interesting slant that fits in with the theme. I'm not sure how the swinging the opponenet about would work though, I'll think on that a little!

Bumper: I really like this one, it would make for a nice surprise if someone attacked a player with this powerup as they could be the ones to fall off the arena.

Decrease/increase size: Nice and simple, but spot on. I'll more than likely include it (and the physical effects) but perhaps try and work it into the setting a little, maybe you could pickup nanobots to construct or destroy physical shield layers which changes your size/weight), in fact, this might be an interesting mechanism to represent health. Shells get knocked off your body as you are hit, making you smaller and harder to hit in future, but lighter and thus able to move quicker, but causing less damage on collision.

Electro discharge - Again, nice and simple, I think it would work and the visual warning would work well too. It could be a nice high damage weapon with definite signs it's about to be used to allow players time to try to dodge the attack.

The Launch - I think this might make for interesting area effect attacks which would work nicely if the game were being played against several players at a time.

Quote:
And how about a carnage gameplay mode, where the circlular arena is continually getting smaller and/or more dangerous? With added powerups or timed events that unlock carnage mode, where every damage value is multiplied? A sort of last-man-standing mode... :)

I love the idea of a shrinking arena, but I'll have to see if i can work it into my code as I was planning to use arbitrary 3D models for levels. Perhaps I could literally just scale the level mesh down whilst the player stays the same size, so the player effectively gets bigger and bigger until there is nowhere big enough to hold both players at once!

Another one:

Holo field
Displays various hologram versions of your ball, confusing the opponent. Holograms might flicker now and then, so an opponent never has to follow a hologram for too long, preventing the powerup from becoming too confusing - hopefully. :)