Conversation on IRC today, exploring what to do with the store in Tempo Village.
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Jetrel_bot zz_marcavis: (and DDR ) one back-burner thing we really need to consider “strongly” in the next week or so is finalizing a set of planned items for the forest shop
Jetrel_bot Some low-hanging-fruit ideas are an upgrade that expands your mana pool (as opposed to mana regen rate)
Jetrel_bot grippy gloves for those as-yet-unimplemented slippery walls
Jetrel_bot various damage-resistance defenses
zookeeper an umbrella to allow you to fall slower and also scare off berd by flapping it like indy’s dad
Jetrel_bot hah
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: brainstorming thing for us for the next week or so: shop items for the forest shop
ActionJackalope Jetrel_bot: Okay! Don’t forget, whatever he sells I want him to talk like this: Tempo Village Shopkeeper
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: entirely agreed. :>
ActionJackalope Jetrel_bot: So… are you wanting to make new items for him you can’t find anywhere else?
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: yeah, basically - I’m just fishing around for ideas
Jetrel_bot I’m kinda having writer’s block, per se
ActionJackalope What about… something that removes the grace period between falling off a ledge and jumping?
ActionJackalope Or rather, removes the time limit on it.
Jetrel_bot That seems pretty extreme
Jetrel_bot if I understand you correctly
Azure_ like DKC
ActionJackalope Ooh, or Matrix powers? An ability that drains mana but makes everything slow down except Frogatto.
Azure_ when you roll off an edge
Azure_ if you want a ledge-activated power then it should be Hover Boots instead
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: that’s a cool idea
Azure_ walking off a ledge activates a temporary platform under you for half a second or so, and you can jump at the end or whatever
ActionJackalope Azure_: Hover boots are great! …as long as you can turn them off 
Azure_ definitely be able to turn it off, heh
Azure_ I like hover boots because it’s definitely a thing you can organically lock a path until you get it, but at the same time you can use it in lots of places on your own to get advantages
ActionJackalope I just liked running around making everything slippery.
Azure_ how about a move that instantly teleports you 5 tiles forward, which can be used to go through otherwise-solid gratings, or do difficult jumps?
Azure_ might break everything
- Jetrel_bot steeples his fingers and watches the wonderful ideas seep in
ActionJackalope Jetrel_bot: Grappling hook tongue! Maybe only usable on certain blocks like Super Metroid so we don’t have to rething our entire level design, but… grappling hook!
ActionJackalope Or… the ability to shoot your tongue straight down and balance on it?
Azure_ polevault tongue
ActionJackalope Whaaaat
marcavis nice
ActionJackalope Sunglasses. They make everything dark.
Azure_ add boots that increase your height by 1 pixel
Azure_ like Castlevania
ActionJackalope Is that… good or bad?
Azure_ this could be used, for example, to get you over the threshold required to ride a roller coaster
ActionJackalope Ooh, and a fake beard so you can see R-rated movies!
marcavis ActionJackalope: hahah
marcavis in my head Frogatto is in his 20s tho
ActionJackalope RRR-Rated movies!
ActionJackalope You know, the ones where you see someone get shot, and it goes all the way through his breakfast, and right back out the other side!
ActionJackalope Azure_: Maybe even class it up, with a trenchcoat so you can hide another frog under you to look like a REALLY tall person
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: speaking of stuff, you’re actually probably a key guy to prod for this
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: I’m fishing around for ideas for forest shop items - I’m getting sick of having “writers block” on that thing, and just want to throw some damn stuff together
Phanterm for items? hmm
Phanterm well, let’ssss sseeeee
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: one low-hanging fruit would be a mana-pool size increase for frogatto (we’ve got regen boosts, but no size boosts)
Phanterm I dunno, that should be the most expensive item in the store if you ask me
Jetrel_bot Yeah
Phanterm because by that point, Frogatto would only have the fire ability
Phanterm not really enough time to get used to the mana bar enough to expand it
Phanterm that would be a nice ‘come back later’ item to get though
Jetrel_bot Yeah - there’s definitely that aspect to it - we should openly embrace having store items be “extremely unlikely” to be affordable right when you reach the store
Jetrel_bot At least the better ones, definitely
Phanterm Yeah, for sure
Phanterm Little pissant items would be nice to have, but I dunno what those would be.
Phanterm I mean, you could buy hearts in zelda, but those are plentiful enough with fountains and enemy drops…
Phanterm By the by, I think I came up with a wonderful idea to discourage players from killing themselves to regain health. It’s quite simple, really, LttP does the same thing…
Phanterm Just have the player respawn with very few hearts.
ActionJackalope Don’t we already do that? Or is that just a glitch I have?
Phanterm Oh?
Phanterm Maybe I’ve been using too much god mode. ______
Phanterm Well, the train of thought there was that players could always buy health at local shops. This would, however, mean making fountains a little less plentiful for players
Jetrel_bot Yeah, I don’t actually recall offhand
Phanterm If you’d like, I could vomit out ideas and you just pick through it.
Phanterm I had one idea for a second stomach a while back, but I thought it silly.
Phanterm Being able to ‘store’ anything you swallow for later, be it an enemy or a key. As opposed to just having one thing in your gullet, you can (somehow???) store it elsewhere without being fat the whole time.
Phanterm Frog singularity
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: now that is a very cool idea!
Azure_ Kirby Squeak Squad does that
Phanterm Never played it
Azure_ you get 5 belly slots for items
ActionJackalope Well, I usually respawn with less than a full life bar.
Azure_ there’s also an extremely rudimentary mixing feature with that but it’s pointless, heh
Azure_ just being able to store one without being fat would be cool
Phanterm Jetrel_bot: But it would allow players to ‘store’ ammo for their super shots, or perhaps keys for certain puzzles. Say, you would start out with one slot by default.
Azure_ then you push the button again and he fattens up and the item is real again
Phanterm So by swallowing anything, you can’t ever be skinny and store anything at the same time
Azure_ I like this idea
Phanterm However, if you were to get a second stomach or… [frog tech babble]
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: yeah, I’m inclined to think we do punish the player that way - oceanhorn did something similar
Phanterm then it becomes possible
Azure_ you can just call it the “belly compression device” or something
Jetrel_bot Azure_: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt
ActionJackalope Can that not get you stuck at a checkpoint, though? If your health is too low and you’re not good enough to be able to beat the level?
Phanterm This would also allow for some really cheap puzzles. Say, you need a key for a gate up on a cliff, but you can’t get to it while also transporting the key at the same time. So you would need this upgrade to swallow the key in one slot, change to the empty one, become skinny, and ascend to the gate in question.
Phanterm All it would take is the feature itself, and level design does the rest.
Phanterm Jetrel_bot: this also solves the issue of how frogatto can store consumable items like potions ;o
Phanterm So it becomes far more tactical which ones he takes with him and where they are stored
Phanterm Other non-consumable items could be one that activates the world map teleporters, since I think we discussed it would be better if those were disabled at first
Phanterm Though that might be a compulsory item
Jetrel_bot Yeah
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: yeah, that’s part-and-parcel of why we’re eliminating checkpoints
Phanterm Oh, so checkpoints are just straight up gone?
Phanterm I’m fine with this.
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: the save statues aren’t any different except that they’re just more rare
Phanterm That will make things much easier.
Azure_ hm, do you open shortcuts as you go along though?
Phanterm …not for the players
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: yeah, the invisible nature of them is something I didn’t like
Phanterm but who cares!
Azure_ particularly for puzzle sections rather than combat ones
Phanterm agreed
ActionJackalope Then there’s going to be a lot more time between respawn points?
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: I’d say "moderately more"
Azure_ if you die then you shouldn’t have to do a puzzle again, so you can push a switch after the puzzle to open up a permanent shortcut just in case
Azure_ but dying should make you re-do most combat/platforming
Phanterm Azure_: ;o I build those already
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: the save statues are maybe halfways between checkpoints and save doors in frequency
Azure_ sweet
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: so basically the nice thing is they’re way, way, way more obvious to the player, if the player’s getting close to a “likely death point” - they KNOW they’ve just saved
Azure_ do save points restore health?
Jetrel_bot Azure_: nope
Azure_ any teleport system built-in so you can go back to a shop or whatever?
Jetrel_bot Nope.
ActionJackalope Yep. And hopefully the checkpoints being physical objects will help prevent respawn weirdness? Like, the one in conveyance (or maybe crossing thereof) that can respawn you endlessly in the rapids?
Jetrel_bot ActionJackalope: it’ll sure help, since it incentivizes us heavily to put them above solid ground
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: anyways, I’m increasingly sure based on this that we probably want to provide a secondary, visible “item box” in the HUD - one for the attack, and a second one for the “active item” - kinda like minish cap
Phanterm Yeah, I like it
Phanterm The HUD as is is not intrusive, but you could add one or two more elements and still be fine
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: yeah - one major reason why I took such a scalpel to it, last time I did
Jetrel_bot to make room to add stuff
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: at some distant future point, I’d love to make our “shops” more thematically tied in with the game, rather than having random-ass “videogame bullshit” for sale at the corner store. :T
Phanterm haha
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: a good example of us already achieving this would be nene and mortimer
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: IKR?
Phanterm Well, one thing at the back of my mind was holding out on the default ability upgrades, i.e. stronger spit distance / tongue length, until later on after the player has acquired most/all of the other abilities.
Jetrel_bot Phanterm: excuse me a minute, I’m gonna go down to the gas station to grab some extra HP, brb
Phanterm grab me some Xp lite while you’re out
- Jetrel_bot brings back some Enchanted Mangoes™
Azure_ Jetrel_bot Phanterm: at some distant future point, I’d love to make our “shops” more thematically tied in with the game, rather than having random-ass “videogame bullshit” for sale at the corner store. :T
Azure_ Link Between Worlds has the main item shop run by a former adventurer who was too cowardly to go any further
Azure_ so he’s just selling all his previous gear to you
Azure_ I like that detail
Jetrel_bot Azure_: yeah - that’s really a brilliant twist … and I think there’s a related thread there
Jetrel_bot Azure_: which is basically that to feel properly immersive in a story like that … you actually wouldn’t buy them in a store at all
Phanterm Jetrel_bot: One thing that was really cool about Mother 3 was the fact that item shops initially had no currency.
Phanterm You walked in and everything looked very RPGish, and when you get the item he’s like, 'what? just take it. if you need it, take it! don’t worry about it!'
Jetrel_bot heh
Phanterm But later on, currency gets introduced by a foreign empire, and everyone starts becoming materialistic in your little village
Phanterm So you go back, and all of a sudden he’s gone from this really nice fellow to a greedy miser
Azure_ in the back of my head, I’ve had this idea in my head of a game where the protagonist is from a rich family, so you just start with like a billion gold
Azure_ and all the items are still normal price
Jetrel_bot Azure_: … so basically instead of buying them in a store, you’d buy them from the “old adventurer” 's garage
Phanterm lmao
Azure_ so it’s basically like everything’s free
Azure_ Jetrel, that’s basically what happens
Jetrel_bot Azure_: which specifically wouldn’t be set up for a garage sale, but would just be a case where he’d be like "oh, really - you’re adventuring? Hey, come out to my garage, I might have some stuff to sell"
Azure_ yeah
Jetrel_bot Just would feel way more organic - and gets done in a number of games, just not in your typical cookiecutter RPG.
Azure_ Link Between Worlds handled it really well and pretty similarly to that
Phanterm yeah Jetrel_bot, LBW is one of the only Zelda games I can think of where rupees are actually valuable
Azure_ it does pretty much everything right, I love it
Phanterm I mean, consistently
Azure_ all my complaints with the game are little nitpicks like hitboxes or one specific room
Azure_ if you need inspiration for adventure games then definitely check it out
Azure_ in any case, “an old adventurer” is a pretty good way of handling a shop that has adventuring gear
Azure_ alternatively, at least once, I’ve seen a game with a big shop but only a small set of available things to buy, saying "here are the things which caught your interest:"
Azure_ which also explains why it’s all adventuring stuff
Phanterm You could always have weaker version of existing items at a cheaper price than ones bought 'new’
Phanterm from an adventurer’s yard sale
marcavis Phanterm: almost-new tongue extenders!
… :S
Jetrel_bot worrisome.
… :S