/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Settings/Themes/Story \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - Settings Because the project has already been going for close to 10 years now, we're probably not going to be changing up the settings all that much (if at all). There's way too much work done to just rip out a huge chunk of the assets so we can fit in new settings. However EP3 is a bit iffy, particularly around the Umbriel setting. It was originally meant to be the "gothic/surreal" theme, however the gothic portion of that theme isn't likely to fit anymore. We might be able to do something different around this point, but that will have to be brainstormed. For those not in the know, here are the settings: [Methuselah] The starting planet, its very Earth-like with lush green flora, mountains, caves, rivers, blue skies, and newly erected infrastructure including gardens/greenhouses, roads, power-lines, living quarters, etc. It orbits a binary star system (which use to be a part of the old Doom story-line, now its just set dressing) and is extremely far from the solar system. This planet is the handywork of the terraforming crew sent there by "3-letter corporate acronym", of which Suppgal is a part of. [Bellophoron] A gas giant which floats a very high-tech but rusting/rotting and abandoned base. Like Methuselah, it is an extreme distance from Earth and the solar system; it was another part of the 3-letter corporate acronym's terraforming efforts. The base is a network of separate floating bases that are accessed via flying transports or short-range teleporters. The atmosphere of Bellophoron is highly toxic, so going outside is a big no-no. Housed within the network of bases are living quarters, hangers, labs running experiments on the planet below, hydroponics, and infrastructure to keep the base floating above the atmosphere. A Flux Gate is housed in this techbase, which explains why its abandoned and in bad condition (depending on which story premise we go with, the bad condition of the base will either be due to it being very very old, or damaged due to combat). [Triton] The first intersolar body that Suppgal reaches is Triton, a moon of Neptune. Triton is the farthest point from Earth that we are set on, and it starts off EP2. The moon is extremely cold; after being terraformed, it turned it into an icy ball dotted with craggy mountains, vast frozen oceans and lakes, geothermal vents spouting super-hot steam, and dotted with a small network of high-end labs and bases. We also see clean, super-hightech, and likely classified technology, including a massive "cold fusion reactor". Underneath the ice and rock, the enemies have just started terraforming the moon, using power from the cold fusion reactor to help them power their biomechanical engines. Something that I haven't really mentioned before, but I think would work well here, are underground subways that connect the various bases. [Daphnis] Daphnis is a moon of Saturn; its a tiny rocky body that orbits near one of Saturn's rings. 3-lettered corporate acronym setup automated mining factories here, extracting all of the valuable resources from the moon to be exported to other terraformed bodies nearby. There are also metal foundries, mills, and even weapon manufacturing factories dotted around. We'll also see lots of industrial infrastructure such as cranes, a train/track system, large gears, moving chains and pulleys, a spaceport, etc. I want to put a big emphasis on large and imposing architecture. Daphnis hasn't been terraformed by humans, so walking outside of the factories or mills will be met with a desolate desert void of any oxygen. However the enemies have found Daphnis and have already taken over a large portion of the moon using the resources extracted by the automated mines and foundries. Deep within the moon, large portions of biomechanical superstructure have snaked their way from point to point, joining up with every factory, mill, and foundry on the surface. [Umbriel] A dark moon, tidally locked with Uranus, Umbriel frames the start of EP3. Here, the enemy force has already taken root and totally upended the terraforming efforts of 3-lettered corporate acronym, replacing it with their own. The landscape is made up of very dark soil and rocks, giving the whole moon an inky black appearance. The space surrounding Umbriel is unstable, with dimensional rifts colliding and creating weird, surrealistic architecture and landscapes. Ok so, Umbriel is probably the least fleshed-out setting. This was also the case when Supplice was still a Doom project. One problem is that we're actually going backwards in progression towards Earth; we start on Triton (Neptune), then go to Daphnis (Saturn), but then jump backwards to Umbriel (Uranus). I forgot about this, but I think my original idea was that Suppgal gets dragged backwards from her goal of reaching Earth, to a dark and hostile demonic moon, to create a sort of low-point in the story. That's probably still ok for the new game. But then we have the problem of what this setting will look like. We know that we want "surrealism" to play a major thematic role later in the game. Beyond that though, I dunno. Umbriel might just play middle-man to whatever weird and crazy map ideas we can come up with. [Io] EP3, and the main game, end on Jupiter's volcanic moon of Io. When this was a Doom project, Io was going to be a visual metaphor for the "fire and brimstone" hell theme. Later we decided that a biotech theme would play a larger role in the setting. So Io is now a lava-drenched biotech death star. We assume that, at one point, 3-lettered corporate acronym terraformed parts of Io in some way, perhaps to conduct research or to power strange and secret experiments. The surrealist theme will make an appearance here as well, but I don't think it will be quite as prominent. Instead the landscape will be dotted with monstrous flesh and biotech constructs, jutting out from brimstone and lava oceans. There's lots of room to play around with abstract designs here. Io is also a slightly undercooked theme, mostly because we haven't made a whole lot of headway with the biotech assets. What we do know is that the initial game will end here, likely with a corrupted version of a Flux Gate leading to some unknown destination (likely Earth or whatever is left of it). [Earth] From this point on, we're going into "DLC" territory. But I figured we should delve into possibilities since I've had some ideas juggling around in my head for a few years now. For the Doom project, if Supplice were to ever be finished, I wanted to try out an EP4 which would start out in one of two places: Earth or Mercury. The Moon was also an idea, but I wanted the final setting to take place in or near the Sun (the Moon felt pretty weak in that regard). For the sake of this quick design doc, I'm choosing Earth as the first setting for EP4. Earth's fate will likely depend on what the storyline ends up being. If we go with Cage's concept, then Earth will likely be one giant biomechanical meatball. I was thinking that maybe the space in and around the Earth would have been totally corrupted, so we could have non-euclidean architecture be a big focus. There would also likely be a big, beefy corrupted version of the Flux Gate somewhere, likely at the end of the setting. Another idea was to have Earth be in an unstable time warp, jumping from different points in time, ultimately going back into time just after the Flux Gate was activated and the invasion or corruption started. We'd give the player a chance to stop the anomaly from starting in the first place, altering history and starting a new timeline. There's likely lots that we can do here. Just so long as we can have it lead to the next setting, which is the Sun. [The Sun] An idea I had for the Doom project was to have the final bits of EP4 take place either on Mercury (near the Sun) or within the Sun itself (either on a demonic base floating within the upper layers, or in the core in some sort of shielded demon magic installation). The demons would use the Sun to power a gargantuan hell gate, swallowing the Sun in the process and punching a hole in space-time to allow the Hell dimension to take over the universe. We could do a similar thing with the new story I think. Perhaps something like the enemy is using Mercury to create a orbit-wide Flux Gate, using the Sun as a power source. Or using their superior technology, they are able to build a special shielded floating biotech base in the upper layers of the Sun, which they use the hot plasma to power a super version of a Flux Gate to engulf the entire solar system with their own version of a perfect universe ("terraforming" the universe). Having the Sun be the backdrop for a new setting seems pretty wild, but maybe its a bit much I dunno. [Nix] This would be an alternate to the Sun as a setting (could be an additional bit too). The Nix would be the 'other' dimension/universe; it comes from the Retrograde/Nix lore. This one might work better if we went with the "extra-dimensional robotic terraformer" storyline (see below). So the Nix is essentially a dimension between spaces. The Flux Gate would unknowingly be accessing the Nix to carve out paths to distant points in our universe. However it can provide access to all possible dimensions and universes. Any time a hole is opened up to the Nix, a bubble universe is created within this space, providing access to said universe. In the case of the robotic terraforming race, they were waiting in the Nix to see if one of these bubbles would pop into existence. The Flux Gate creates one of these bubbles when it activated, thus providing a path to our universe. This idea can probably be tweaked and leveraged for any of the other storylines we come up with. It would provide another good base for really strange and surrealistic settings. - Themes Most of the themes we'll explore have been set up in the Doom project. I feel like we'll be able to use most, if not all of them in the new game. And we may come up with more along the way. [Terraforming] I think the biggest theme of Supplice will probably be terraforming, or the shaping of the environment to suit ones needs. In the process of terraforming, aspects of the environment must change (be destroyed) in order to create a livable habitat. Suppgal and 3-letter corporate acronym embark on a large terraforming project far from home in order to further the human race and expand out into the universe. The enemy force, whatever it ends up being, has to do the same. In order to survive, they must change their environment to suit their needs. And they must destroy what the humans have created, even destroying humans themselves, in order to achieve this goal. [Torment] The name 'Supplice' essentially means torture or torment (in French). Suppgal goes through an almost literal hell during her adventures back to the solar system and Earth. She sees her friends killed and even corrupted by the enemy force. The human race as a whole goes through a torturous calamity as they are turned into biomechanical monsters (depending on how the story plays out). The time travel/dilation aspect is also somewhat of a torture as Suppgal essentially goes forward in time the closer she gets to Earth. I would even say that the need for the enemy force to terraform a wholly alien environment, in order for them to survive, is a force of torment. [Time Travel] This probably depends on what story we go with, but time travel is very likely to be involved. It was a focal point of the Doom project, though the implementation was a bit different. The starting point for the game takes place far into the future. However when we start out on Methuselah, in some sense we travel back in time to a planet that's devoid of any humans and technology. Back in the solar system, time has fast-forwarded to a point extremely far into the future, going so far as to create hostile aliens out of the human race (depending on the storyline). We'll assume for now that the Flux Gate is the causes of the time compression. [Reality falling apart/Surrealism] Again, this depends on what story we go with, but there will be some elements of reality-bending going on. Surrealism is an element we wanted to do with the Doom project, and I think its even more important to try this out in the new game. This would include strange architecture, non-euclidean geometry, revisiting previous areas but with some sort of corruption, liminal spaces, unusual changes in setting, etc. Playing around with portals is going to be a must for this. [Humanity] A strong thematic undertone for any of the storylines we choose will be humanity. What it means to be a human and the need to spread out across the universe and survive. And, depending on the story, what it might mean to be human after millions of years of evolution have taken place. Cage had a really cool idea for Suppgal- give her a smoking habit. Suppgal would smoke cigs throughout the game. She slowly runs out of cigs as she travels through the game. And once she finishes off the final boss, she smokes her last cig and walks through a Flux Gate and into the unknown. [Cage] not as "SHE SMOKES BECAUSE IT'S COOL AND EDGY" but just a little humanity by having a vice that is the last thing you have left that gives you any calm or comfort in the hell you are currently in - Story Ideas This is a supremely important facet of the game because it informs so much of the visual designs, lore, and themes that we'll need to come up with. I think its important to nail a really straightforward concept that can be expounded upon without too much need for exposition (a thing that Doom was great at). Also I think we want to try and be somewhat original and stay away from the usual tropes (aliens, lovecraftian horrors, rouge A.I., and definitely no demons). At the same time, we want to preserve as much of the current visual and thematic design as possible, which will limit us a bit. We do have a starting point that all of the ideas should build from. Our protagonist (who I'll refer to as "Suppgal" from this point on) is part of a terraforming crew on a distant planet. The planet is a lush green world that orbits a binary star system; its not unlike Earth in most respects at this point in its terraforming. We can go to a bunch of different places from that point, so long as we stick with the general themes and settings already laid out (derelict floating base, cold and dark super-techbase, dusty deserts with industrial factories, warped and surreal dark landscapes, and biotech nightmare planet). Time travel and terraforming are also themes that we've leaned on a lot during the Doom-portion of development. So reusing those, if possible, will make the transition a bit smoother. One last thing - the name "Supplice" is a French word meaning "torment or torture". That's another theme we should keep in mind, so long as we end up using that name for the final game. It could be the torment of Suppgal, the humans who are slaughtered by the enemy threat, or even the torment of the enemies themselves. Here are some ideas that we've brainstormed thus far: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Super distant future corrupted/former humans (general concept by Cage, I just expanded upon it) --- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suppgal gets hired as a terraformer by some 3-letter corporate acronym. This corporation has been working towards terraforming the solar system, and they are finally ready to expand beyond that scope with the completion of the "Flux Gate". The Flux Gate represents the cutting edge in teleportation technology, allowing massive objects to be teleported to extremely distant points in the universe. The drawback with the Flux Gate is that once something or someone is sent through, there's no coming back until another gate is built at the destination. Also communication with anyone back home is impossible because of the massive distance, so the terraforming crew is totally on their own until they can build their own Flux Gate. A suitable planet is found (Methuselah), and a terraforming crew is sent to the planet to being work. Once they arrive, the terraforming process begins without any issues. A few years pass, and the small but growing population on Methuselah have finally built enough infrastructure to assemble their own Flux Gate. The gate activates, and horrific, unidentifiable beings pour through. These shambling flesh monstrosities (Cage suggested "The Nephilim" as their name) are fused with incredible bio-tech, giving them resilient bodies and powerful weapons. The Methuselah settlements are quickly overrun, and Suppgal is stuck in the middle of an invading party. She has to fight her way out and find a way to safety, eventually coming to the realization that the only way off of Methuselah is to go through the Flux Gate. So that's the starting premise. From there, Suppgal makes a jump to a midway base on Bellophoron, a rotting techbase floating in the atmosphere of this gas giant. This base hosted another terraforming job-in-progress, but its ancient at this point and completely void of any human activity. The player finds out that outside of Methuselah, a gargantuan amount of time has passed. Suppgal finds another Flux Gate just as the base starts to fall apart, and finally makes her way back to the solar system proper. Once back in the solar system, we jump around to a few terraformed moons (Triton, Daphnis, Umbriel, and Io) and slowly realize that the monsters infesting these worlds are the corrupted evolution of humans. These neohuman/mechanical hybrids have slowly been re-terraforming the entire solar system with grotesque biotechnologies, turning whole planets and moons into living mechanical superfortresses. The biotech-terraforming becomes more apparent the closer Suppgal gets to Earth, with Daphnis, Umbriel, and Io showing the most damage. Io is totally terraformed into a biotech nightmare planet, and serves as the current frontier for the neohuman monsters (the Nephilim or whatever we end up calling them). After this point, there are some things that haven't really been fleshed out (as of me writing this). The exact origins of "The Nephilim" could go in a number of different directions. I think our initial idea was to have the Flux Gate create some sort of "time crash" where events near the gate become compressed and merged together, creating the horrors that are the Nephilim/neohumans. Another idea is that time merely speeds up within the vicinity of the Flux Gate on Earth. It speeds up to such a degree that the Nephilim/neohumans are what remains through the natural progression of evolution; they become so advanced biologically and technologically that they no longer resemble anything close to a human being. Instead they become this new species of highly advanced beings that must terraform all worlds they come across in order to survive (I sorta like this idea since it doesn't paint them as purely evil, but instead acting out within their survival instinct, just like normal humans...it gives them a touch of relatability). Suppgal's ultimate goal also needs fleshing out. At first her main goal is survival of the Nephilim/neohuman onslaught on Methuselah, and then escaping the crumbling floating base in Bellophoron's atmosphere. So for the first episode, her motivation is pure survival. But after that, there needs to be some sort of transition to putting an end to the Nephilim/neohumans, and this really needs to become apparent sometime after learning that they are corrupted humans from the super distant future. So an end goal needs to be set. My initial idea is for her to get to the Flux Gate on Earth and destroy/deactivate it; this would have to be for a 4th episode however, since the original ends on Io. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Extra-dimensional robotic beings terraforming other dimensions and merging with humans/animals --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm going to be a bit cheeky here and bring in some old Retrograde/Nix lore for this story idea. Though I wouldn't say this is the most original of ideas... In some alternate dimension, a race of mechanical beings (referred to in the Nix lore as "Lonnen") have completely terraformed their entire universe. Nearly every planet, every star, every lifeform, and every scrap of matter has been taken and converted for the growth of their species. However their resources have started to run low because there's not enough matter left in their universe to go around, so they desperately begin searching for a way to break free from their dimension and enter a new one. Enter 3-letter corporate acronym in our dimension. The story from here is very much the same as described above in Cage's concept; the corporation is working towards terraforming the solar system. After many years, they developed the "Flux Gate", a high-tech teleportation device that allows massive objects and people to be teleported to extremely distant points in the universe. However once something is sent through the gate, there's no coming back until a gate is built on the other end. Communication is also impossible when the destination is an at extremely long distance. Suppgal gets hired by the 3-lettered corporate acronym as a terraformer, and is sent to a distant planet called Methuselah. All goes well and, after a few years, the inhabitants of Methuselah are finally capable of building their own Flux Gate. However once the Flux Gate is activated on Methuselah, horrible biomechanical creatures pour through, quickly overwhelming the inhabitants of the planet. So basically the premise is very similar to Cage's concept; the origin is a bit different, but things would progress in more or less the same way. I think the main difference here would be how the Lonnen would work for the visual designs of the enemies and other objects. We would probably focus more on mechanical designs and less (or zero) on biological designs; biomechanical stuff would still be the main motif. We would also mix human-tech and maybe more alien-tech together (higher-teir enemies could look more alien). The Lonnen in the Nix lore were originally more steam-punkish in design (since the overarching theme for that game was alien steampunk). We could possibly go with that aesthetic, but I'm not sure how alien it would look (or maybe it doesn't have to look alien at all). Also worth exploring is that the Lonnen would take over all life on Earth, so we could do some animalistic biotech designs. I don't think we would need to include the time-travel stuff with this premise. We would include the dimensional hole/tear stuff though, so we could keep the surreal/abstract themes intact. We would need to flesh out the ultimate goal for Suppgal here as well. At first its survival (EP1), but after that we'd need new motivation. The easy answer is to have Suppgal make her way to the Flux Gate on Earth and deactivate/destroy it. Again, like with the previous idea, that would have to be resolved in a EP4 since we're geared for the game to end on Io in EP3. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Reality becoming warped/wounded/falling apart (concept by Bouncy, I'm copy/pasting it here because laziness) --- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [BouncyTEM] okay, concept. so, demons are out, aliens are pretty basic, lovecraft's been done enough by quake and dusk. here's my thought - we have a lot of advanced techbases with supplice as is, so, perhaps, while studying the secrets of the universe, they punctured a hole into reality and now the universe is bleeding, and its laws are dying. all sorts of nasty possibilities - people mangled beyond recognition (probably the unfortunate survivors of the immediate shockwave), ideas from people's thoughts, dreams and nightmares made manifest in all the worst and most broken ways, paradox beasts that are the embodiment of the universe's scar tissue...and as one progresses through it becomes more of an event horizon, everything beyond warped beyond recognition as reality bleeds. (also a fun little potentiality where your efforts against it are also what's making the fights harder and harder - that you're fighting yourself indirectly.) leaves a lot of open interpretation and debate, too - which parts of your journey are concrete, and which are being made up by your head processing the unprocessable and filling in blanks where there is genuinely nothing? I like the idea of when it starts out it's the mass psychosis, panicked thoughts and nightmares of the entire setting, but by the end it's a purely personal journey being reflected by a baleful mirror of a place where physics died - and your belief in them is the only thing holding them together. (Additional Thoughts) I see this concept as giving a twisted meaning to "I think therefore I am"...or that reality becomes so broken that mere human thought can be given tangible form. Or maybe that would just be a side-effect of whatever anomaly this is? We could think of it as these human thoughts and ideas creating a multitude of dimensions, and because the universe has become so damaged, these dimensions are colliding with each other, creating all sorts of untold horrors. Well, that's just how I'm interpreting this concept (Bouncy can correct me here if not, heh). I really like interesting concept just because it seems pretty original, and it opens up the door to so many different possibilities. I think we would need to really flesh out the theme more if we decide to go in this direction, but I'm open to it. Something else to consider is that we could combine this basic concept with Cage's main concept. It could be a part of the "corrupted future humans" plot, where the epicenter of the anomaly is a chunk of space-time that is horribly broken. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Weapons \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - BFG9KL: will likely be a problem. Definitely in name, but probably in behavior too. I would say we can keep the current visual design for whatever weapon we end up replacing it with (behavior wise). Pillow is amazing at coming up with reality-bending superweapons, so maybe he will have some ideas. - Berserk: Would it be a problem? At the very least we should probably rename it. Could also change it up so its more powerful but with a time limit. - Rocket Revolver: I would like to change up the Rocket Revolver and rocket ammo. Since I wanted to replace the current rocket sprites anyways, I think we could change them to explosive fireballs. Then the ammo type can be changed to "fuel" (and not capped at 50/100, probably go 400/800 or 500/1000). We've fiddled with this idea a few times in the past, but now I would like to make it an official change. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Monsters \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - So first thing, I think we can keep the following since they are already unique from Doom: --- Braindrone (concept) --- Encephalord (concept) --- Cereborg: Pretty much done save for the sfx, and its a totally new design. I think it could fit a wide variety of themes too. This guy is actually an old Retrograde/Nix concept. If we wanted to make it a little more complex, the old concept had an attack where it would blast an electrical beam downwards from its two fins, doing a small amount of radius damage when it impacts the ground. --- Encephalord (concept): Visually, I would definitely focus on biotech motifs for this thing. --- Flamer: Would need a new visual design, but the concept should still fit. --- Turret/Bioturret --- Vespur: Would also need a new design (since I believe its based off of the Imp's sprites). Dunno if it'll fit? But I love the concept of this monster and would like to keep it. Could say its some sort of bio-nanomachine mist? But we'll have to decide if all of those enemy concepts fit whatever theme/lore we come up with. - These enemies are a maybe?: --- Cacolyte: Technically was never a "baby Cacodemon" to begin with, it just sorta fit that role well enough. But its a very "demonic" design, so I'm gonna say it might need to be replaced. Could possibly get away with using it as a base for a slightly different~ish design (would need to credit/pay Vader!). --- Cacopod: I like the idea of the Alien's face-hugger pod as a concept, and I would really like to keep it. Dunno if the visual design will fit in though. --- Gaunt: This guy feels very demonic, even in its working design. But I really love the concept of an enemy that uses the corpses of monsters to summon other enemies. So I would like to try and keep this concept around. --- Spite: ^^^ Kinda the same as the above, and these two are linked (the Spite is what's summoned by the Gaunt). The visual design is probably the biggest hurdle here since its essentially a "suppliced" Lost Soul. Again, not entirely sure what our overarching theme is going to be just yet, but maybe it would work out better if it were some sort of biomech skull or something? --- Yeti: Since we're making this a commercial release, this guy is probably out of the cards now. Unless we can somehow get permission from the original creator. Or maybe make our own knock-off yeti in a way that doesn't get our asses sued :P - There's a general theme that I think we should follow for the enemy roster. Doom's roster is one of the best things about its design, I think. I sorta break it down like this: --- Peons/Minions: Low HP, slow, don't do a lot of damage and are fun to kill and gib. Should still be somewhat dangerous, especially in groups (Zombieman, Shotgunner) --- Troopers: Tougher and a bit more dangerous, might have more varied attacks (Imp, Lost Soul, Chaingunner) --- Meaty Melee Guys: Higher HP, usually fast, only attack is melee (Demon, Spectre, Revenant could fit here too) --- Big Tough Dudes: Much higher HP, might have slower attacks but they hit hard (Cacodemon, Baron, Hell Knight) --- Fast Annoying Attackers: Not as much HP as the big dudes but will usually have an annoying attack and will generally be quite fast (Revenants) --- Moving Turrets/Long Range Dudes: Generally high HP and slow, but they have attacks that are harder to dodge because of multiple projectiles or will repeatedly attack (Mancubus, Arachnotron) --- Ultra-Bastards: Annoyingly high HP, hard to stun, and has an attack that is either hard to dodge or requires a different strategy to deal with from the normal projectile attack (Archvile, Pain Elemental) --- Big Bad Bosses: Highest HP, can be fast or slow, hard or impossible to stun, might have immunity to other things such as fire or explosives, and the attacks are always either extremely damaging, hard to dodge, or require some extra strategy (Cyberdemon, Mastermind, Icon of Sin) The visual designs for the new monsters will mostly hinge of the main theme/story and lore we come up with. But I think the above is a good general framework to work off of. Something else to consider is that we want to introduce these monsters episodically. So we can have specific themes set in mind for certain monsters (ie. a heavy, industrial looking monster would be perfect to introduce in the Daphnis setting). - Brain/Eye/Flesh surrounded with two metal rings that rotate/wobble around the flesh in the center. Rings align in order to focus a beam coming from the flesh in the center. Maybe also have an attack where the rings fire out projectiles in random directions from ports running along their rims. Would fill a similar role as the Cacodemon. - Strange melee monster, totem like in design and attacks with an electrical field around itself. Teleports around instead of moving normally, able to teleport to any spot near the player, including up walls or down in pits. Probably should be a floating/flying monster (could give it movement, but just make it slow). Maybe only let it attack when it sees the player; if it has no line of sight, it doesn't move. Somewhat thinking of this guy as a Archvile replacement, but maybe not quite as evil. - Cannonade: a concept that comes from Retrograde/Nix, this guy would be our "Cyberdemon". The concept for the Cannonade is a bulky, wide and tall metal beast set on piston-like reverse-joint legs. It has massive explosion cannons for arms and gear-like teeth that frame a red-hot flaming gullet. It fires a volley of large explosive fireballs as its main attack (in the Nix lore, it could do this while walking, though I don't know if that's feasible in GZDoom). It had other behaviors, but I will need to tweak them to make it easier to work in GZDoom. I'll expand more of this guy later on. - Heavy, bulky metal tank-like walker. Very slow and has next to no painchance. Must open up its armored metal body at the creases to reveal multiple missile launchers, also exposing its flesh. When it opens up, it morphs into a sort of evil skull/face design. Can dish out a ton of damage if the player is not careful, but can be taken down very easily while its attacking. I'd think of this guy as a less boring/grindy Baron of Hell. - Two spiked/studded hemi-sphereical "wheels" attached to a central disc filled with flesh and one gigantic vertical eye peering from within the area between the wheels. This would be a melee ramming monster that charges the player, doing damage upon impact while pushing the player around. It would also have a relatively weak projectile attack that comes from the giant eye (probably only used when its at long range). The damage it does while ramming would be done in quick increments, pretty much as long as the monster is in contact with its front and while its moving. - Ceiling monsters of some kind? /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Powerups \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - Do we get rid of the sphere designs for these? If we keep them, its pretty obvious where they were inspired from. Dunno what we could replace them with though... - Would like to use a Heretic/Hexen style inventory system for all powerups. You pick it up, it goes into your inventory (maybe use mini icons to represent them on the HUD), and then you can activate them whenever you like. - Berserksphere (mentioned above): might need to tweak it, but we'll see. My initial idea is to make it do way more damage but have a time limit. - Daisysphere will definitely have to go. Could possibly come up with some sort of in-joke or maybe even a story/lore bit for a new version of this. It's supposed to be a joke powerup, but that can always change (ie. morph ovum from Heretic). - Soulsphere/Megasphere: These will need to be renamed at the very least. Soulsphere was highly inspired by the D64 sprite too, so it might need a total redesign. - Radsuit: Probably rename to Hazmat Suit or something. Worth noting that this also gives the player resistance to explosives/fire, so a new name could take that into account. - Litamp: Probably rename to Night Vision Goggles. - Automapper: Probably rename to Cartographer or something else, dunno. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Picukups \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - Box of Rockets: will need to be changed to a large fuel tank or something (maybe a heavy-duty looking cylindrical container with a glass viewpoint to see the fuel sloshing/bubbling in it). - Incendiary Charge: ^^^ Same as the above, though I sorta already did this with the current sprite. - Cells: dunno if the visual design of these will be an issue or not...I somewhat based them on the Doom 64 designs. They could be totally redone at this point though, I don't care. - Armor/MegaArmor: Maybe change the colors on these? Then we could change the name to something like "Light Armor" and "Heavy Armor", or maybe something more interesting if we can think of anything. - 3rd Armor type?: Was thinking about an armor type that completely shields all HP damage, and would upgrade on top of either green/blue armor. Could be made into a powerup instead of a traditional armor pickup. - Skullkeys: Don't think we'll have a problem with these as far as copyright goes, but maybe Skullkeys won't fit the theme of the game? Maybe replace them with Biotech keys? Or even if the skulls looked more biotech? /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Decorations/Obstacles \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - Demonic Bust/Flaming Bust: Probably won't fit anymore, but I could see them retained with some design tweaks. - Ethereal Eye: Most likely won't fit anymore, but maybe it could be altered so it has some sort of biotech theme? - Hanging Hooks/Gore: Will these makes sense with the new enemies? I feel like the "guts hanging from meat hooks" is a very demonic thing. - Marble Columns/Pedestals: Not sure these will fit in, unless we do some sort of techno-gothic theme (and even then, I think they would need altering). - Spikes/Spears: Same thing with these as with the hanging meat hooks. - Candelabras: Probably will need to go? - Candles: ^^^ Ditto. An idea to replace them might be to make them tiny little gas-powered torches? Maybe biomechanical in nature somehow? - Hanging Lantern: Just ditch this thing, it doesn't fit the theme anymore and it doesn't look all that great. - Torches/Tall Torches: We can probably keep the idea of a flame torch, but we'll want to get rid of the demonic elements. Maybe turn them into an industrial gas torch and/or make them biotech themed? Maybe even some sort of organic light source could be neat. I'd consider making candle-sized torches too, and maybe even a torch-tree design to replace the candelabras. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Hazards \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - Explosive Brimstone might be a little weird, although I could see it working out ok in the Io setting. Maybe we should tweak it so its some sort of hand-made hightech brimstone bomb? Same behavior, just different sprite. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Gameplay \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - "Smart" ammo pickups: something I was curious about were ammo pickups that only allow you to pickup what you need. So in Doom, if you have 45/50 shells and you pick up a Box of Shells (worth 20 shells), you end up losing 15 of those shells since your max is 50; those 15 shells melt into the ether. With this smart ammo idea, you'd only pick up 5 of those 20 shells, and the ammo sprite would reflect how many shells are left in that pickup (or would give you an approximation). Another example would be the cells; lets say each cell ammo pickup has a % or gauge on it. You only need 10% of that pickup, so when you walk over it it takes 10% and updates the gauge to show that 10% was taken. I have no idea if this is possible with ZScript, but I thought it would be a really nice Quality-Of-Life change. We could do something similar with Stimpacks/Medikits. - Inventory powerups: I mentioned this above, but I think if we moved all powerups to be activatable inventory items, it will make their placement and usages a bit easier to work with. We set the maximum to 1 for each (probably), and then make mini-icons for each one for the inventory selector on the HUD. - Bosses: Originally I wanted to have a boss at the end of each setting (so 2 bosses per episode). Now that we've got to come up with entirely new designs, this might be too much work. So now I'd like to try and have a boss for each episode at the very least; maybe 4 if we have two in the final episode. Something to consider is that we can have a "boss" early on that reappears as a normal enemy later. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\ Graphics/UI/etc \/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ - M_SKULL definitely needs replacing (it was a placeholder anyways). This can now have any number of animations instead of just 2. - Need a new mouse pointer gfx. - Statusbar needs to be made wide-screen friendly. - Need to make new screen border gfx (the little graphics that frame the screen, can be seen when you shrink the screen size). - Supplice skull design: I think we could tweak this design a bit to better match the biotechnical theme. I could see it being some sort of Terminator-like metal skull, or a hybrid bone/metal skull where those strange teeth are actually little mechanical pistons. - Have a bit more focus on "real" environments and settings. I think things can and should be somewhat abstract, but we have a good opportunity to do visual storytelling. So this includes things like the living quarters and gardens/greenhouses on Methuselah. I thought having train yards, cranes, and similar things on Daphnis would be really cool. Bello will have hydroponics and poisonous atmospheric areas. So and and on. Any other ideas you guys have are welcome!