Plan brainstorming regarding game characters and abilities. Mostly posted for my memory’s sake.
Character overview: Differing from the current plan, all characters call wall-cling, and all can wall-jump.
Frogatto alone can use his tongue as a hookshot.
Nene alone can grip the ceiling with her feet (c.f. chuchu in kirby3), and can glide.
Pato alone can multi-jump - perhaps “indefinitely but in a gradually lowering arc”.
Items: all characters can lift enemies and certain items; however, they’re differently versatile in grabbing and throwing them. The current plan called for different characters being able to grab different sizes, but I think we’re going to ditch that; any plan where some character is completely incapable of something which is otherwise in regular game parlance gets really awkward. If we do different sizes, it’d be in a zelda-style permanent upgrade which any character can get.
Frogatto can stick out his tongue and swallow enemies. He’s the only one who has significant reach at doing this, and he has the most powerful throw. He has no direct-damage melee ability, although several of his moves can 'flip" opponents (sending them into their ‘thrown’ state).
Pato has several direct-damage melee attacks, including combos (c.f. kirby superstar) which deal heavy damage. Pato can jump onto and grab nearby enemies, and then can throw them “respectably far” (tbd if it’s weaker or stronger than frogatto’s).
Nene has a direct-damage ranged attack - a gun. On average it’s less damaging than pato, but the range compensates. Nene is able to grab enemies by jumping on top of them, like pato. Unlike pato, she is barely able to throw them further than point-blank range.
Abilities and Powerups: Each character has their regular state, and several “powerup” states. We’ll start with these unlocked by default, but we almost certainly want them to be quest-items. Like in cave story, you can cycle through the available types with a button. Only in their regular state is their regular ability (tongue, gun, punches) available; in their alternate states, this ability is replaced with their power.
Each player has a reservoir of “mana” which slowly recharges (slowly enough that you can’t recharge during combat, fast enough that running through a short level or so will mostly recharge it). This can be sped up by fountains or grabbing blue cubes. Their regular attacks do not drain this. Their special, type-specific attacks do, each at a different rate - and it’s all one common pool, for all the different types.
swallowed=held, in the following list. All characters have the same benefit when holding an enemy.
fire-type: whilst swallowed, player is surrounded by fire, and will harm/ignite anything.
F frogatto breathes a short-range blast of continuous fire
N projectile hugs ground and cascades upwards, like torch in GnG
P pato lobs a large fireball in an arc
spike-type: either no effect whilst swallowed, or the character is surrounded by spikes.
F tongue has a spiked tip and deals damage instead of grabbing.
N nene fires fragmentation grenades. These bounce, and when you release the fire key or a timeout gets reached, they send spikes in the 8 cardinal directions.
P pato extrudes spikes in a wide area around him (c.f. kirby)
time-type: slows time whilst swallowed, like the current “reflex” powerup.
F pauses all enemies temporarily (like clock in castlevania).
N nene fires a rapid-fire, automatic weapon.
P pato fires an ethereal “punch” (e.g. a shot) which passes through walls
grav-type: decreases gravity whilst swallowed.
F frogatto does a super-jump, like kirby’s high-jump ability. During this he is briefly invincible, and deals damage during impact
N nene fires a homing round.
P pato slams the ground and flips all enemies in a very wide AOE for an unusually long stun duration.
ice-type: whilst swallowed, player is surrounded by cold, and any enemy coming in range gets frozen into a kirby-style ice-block.
F frogatto fires a slow “ball” of cold; it has a reasonably long range, and explodes in a lasting (a second or so) AOE. The ball or AOE freezes enemies.
N nene fires otherwise average shots which pass through walls and freeze enemies.
P pato can trigger a “frost nova” around him; all enemies within 3-4 tiles get frozen