New skills Tether - hit an enemy, inflict a visual bind for a few seconds, end effect depends on which form the player is in when it ends - light form: blind enemy (make them walk the other direction) - shade form: instakill after a certain enemy HP threshold, slow otherwise Reality Break - light form: make all enemies double their drop rates - shade form: instantly kill all enemies, halves drop rates Shatterstep - light form: for X seconds, create a platform below your feet when jumping, allowing for multiple jumps in the air - shade form: when jumping, create aoe below you upon landing Skill upgrades Dash - Refund cost upon successful stun/kill - lower cooldown - more range - build up movement speed stacks with every dash, lose stacks upon getting hit - more damage against targets that are stunned (inflict mark?) - leave behind afterimage (enemy taunt) Ranged Attack - hold to charge, release for stronger attack (more damage and stun) - faster speed, higher charge cost - slower speed but more damage - upgrade light form: pierce and slow - upgrade shade form: aoe - for every enemy kill collect stacks that increase damage, lose stacks upon not finishing enemies Tether - light form: higher hp threshold for kill; if used against boss: slower attacks - shade form: longer fear; if used against boss: slower movement speed How to obtain skill upgrades - vendor (smith? trainer?) that can upgrade one spell (selection can be changed but requires paying for it every time) - item (gem?) that can be slotted into armor to unlock a skill upgrade - ring to go with necklaces (no synergy to not force those even more like armor already does) Ascended armor - select one awakened armor piece as the main piece and one as the sacrifice - select X number of traits from the sacrifice to merge onto the main piece - sacrifice gets destroyed in the process, creating an Ascended armor piece - cost: many coins/rare resource? Further ideas Quests: Repeatable - usually has a loot pool of items but the player also gains resources to buy stuff from this loot pool (as some sort of pity system) One-time - fixed reward - essential or useful for progression Boss Tokens - bosses drop an item (unique per boss) that can be "collected" (diary) to fight them again - token can be brought to a specific NPC to upgrade it to fight harder bosses Rework for Charge -> Flow, butterflies (for lore) instead of Lanterns Regions 1st region: Shade mode is a thing, but not widely used. Player gets used to FLOW. First easy quest. 2nd region: Shade mode is needed for a handful of interactions, but not really for combat. First boss fight. First ability. Town 1. 3rd region: Shade mode is required to access areas or NPCs. New boss which unlocks region 4, but is optional for now. 4th region: Access through third area boss. Shade mode is required to traverse (unique environmental effects). Boss fight that has special targeting projectiles if the player isn't in shade mode. New ability. Fast travel to 5th region/Town 2? 5th region: Alternate to 4th region in terms of progress. Light area. Town 2. Quest board/NPCs/player housing (for accessing the diary) Ability changes (ideas) Ranged: - pierce - less dmg for less flow cost - faster/ramp up traveling speed/scale damage with speed - more damage to specific enemies - bigger but slower - other directions (up/diagonal?) - hold button to charge/release, first enemy hit will be marked for ? seconds, further shots will home in on marked enemy Ground slam shade: - knockback - dmg immunity when hitting 1+ enemies Light step: - dmg up for ? seconds after/when touching platform - speed increase after/when touching platform Companion (fairy) - interaction/guide - ability: fairy bond teleport? Fairy bond - reinforce bond with fairy companion: allow fairy scout mode (fly and look but no interactions) and later on teleport to companion if it flies ahead in this mode - access to this bond mode takes a few seconds (channel) to not make the light step ability unneccessary - fairy can make light at the expense of the player's flow - fairy holes (environmental features/shortcuts) where player can teleport through with bond teleport Fast travel - items found all over the map (rune stones) which can be slotted into special devices to link those together as fast travel points Enemies design/behavior? - slow patrol, move/jump in player direction - slow patrol, doge backwards and leap at player - stationary, shoot at player, burrow to somewhere else nearby Quick recharge - player can collect something in advance to refill charge mid-battle with a quick press of a button Death - what does the player lose? - upgrades to lose less? Lore - player character is a being of light and dark, created by a forbidden love between a light and dark being - gods? -> forbidden child <- banished and sleeping -> woken up long later by fairy companion (this is where the game starts)? - parents of player character sent companion to support and guide the player back to their parents - flow/charge is not inheritently dark or light, it is simply a resource that exists in the player character and a few other things in the world World change - mid game progress: unique weapon that the player can choose to take - world changes if weapon is taken - if weapon is not taken, player can still explore and return later to take the weapon unless they trigger a different event which would also change the world (but differently compared to when they'd take the weapon) -> do they still get that weapon but in a different variant?