Spiral Knights - New Level: Weatherworks

New Level: Weatherworks

14 replies [Last post]

Sat, 09/24/2011 - 03:43

Mejezfeld

My first post on this newfangled avatar thing and so far the first post I've made here through my Steam account.

Okay, so a lot of you want to see changes in weather/season effects in Haven, and a number of the levels are already basically undergoing some sort of weather phenomenon if they have the right theme (Ice themed levels get snow and Shock themed levels get thunderstorms, you know the drill).

There are "Sky Islands" but nothing where you can stand on poofy clouds or suchlike.

So... with the above in mind, what I came up with is this.

WHAT IS THIS THING SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE?
Basically, it's a bunch of levels, much like Aurora Islands and Scarlet Fortress, that can appear in any theme and has the basic "fake sky" thing in the background. Except NOW you see a lot of girders with Gremlins and other critters running around on them (think this scene from the music video for Pink Floyd's Welcome To The Machine), clouds and the various floating mechanical islands in the backgrounds instead of the artificial moon/suns. Because you're now in the place where their weather comes from. And presumably also in proximity to their sun.

It's got clouds you can walk on, I guess it can also have Greek architecture here and there (as a homage to how they portrayed Olympus in Disney's Hercules), and lots of fancy machinery that produces clouds and rain and stuff. and cyan paint buckets and lots of panels lying around that presumably get welded into the "sky" at some point. Alternatively it can be a whole bunch of girders and floors with grates in them supported by clouds to give players a genuine sense of vertigo.

ENEMIES
Gremlins seeing as they do pretty much everything in the clockworks, it only makes sense for them to micromanage the weather in the few places that DO have it. What other monsters should be there? hm, I dunno actually, perhaps unique ones? Erm... Spectralisks (Chromalisks with a weird Rainbow effect to them)? I don't need to say Constructs since they get everywhere, but obviously not Lumbers.

THEMED VERSIONS? WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THESE?
Normal/Unthemed: Windmill Workfloor (okay, I wanted to go for something with "Hurricane" but couldn't alliterate it to sound factory ish... and now I've got a level with a name that reminds me of Feelgood Inc.'s video)
Shock: StormTech Systems (probably the one place that should look high-tech at all)
Ice: Blizzard Builder
Fire: Solaris Sunlight Simulator (This could even be a puzzle-esque room where you use the rays from lightbulbs to burn/melt stuff)
Poison: Acidrain Assemblyline (Though Smog or Haze might also work)
??????: Rainbow Room (a rather brightly colored and garish room where you see Gremlins harvesting monsters, NPCs and what look like Knights to make various colored fluids that are evidently what Rainbows are made of in the Clockworks)

CONCLUSION
Okay, okay! I confess, I only did this because I cannot stop listening to this and I wanted a Clockworks level that kind of matches it

Sat, 09/24/2011 - 05:51

Oakgear

Bad enemies

How do gremlins get on clouds?
It should be flying and floating enemies.

I'm going to fix your place.
It will be mount Olympus and it's uniqueness is that you can fall!
It will be clouds with Greek buildings.
The elevator appears on a building not on a cloud.
The buildings are connected at first, but then you climb to the second height and you can fall down onto the last path.
There will be little buttons (the one used to open a door)
If you step on it there will be a stone path to a direction off of the open building (It may lead to a key or treasure boxes)
Flying monsters appear on these paths and you have a hard time of defeating them without falling a floor of clouds.
There can be other monsters on the building platforms.

The weather idea is something else for another forum.

Sat, 09/24/2011 - 06:45

Mejezfeld

nah, falling won't work too

nah, falling won't work too well in this game given the sort of height glitches we already have... especially with Phantoms and when Giant Lichen colonies try to pull off the "Field of Spikes" move in a narrow corridor.

Okay, reviewing my idea of what the levels should look like

There are a bunch of girders and platforms against an open sky littered with floating islands in the background that you can logically conclude are somehow hooked up to the fake sky (which you are, technically, standing right below), and they happen to have clouds forming/gathered around them, and there are Gremlins and Chromas running around on them

The level itself is clouds amidst ancient Greek architecture that's been infused with Clockworks tech. So I guess it also takes on a few elements of Sonic 3 and Knuckle's Sky Sanctuary Zone.

In fact now that I think about it, we should call this level the Vertigo Weatherworks- since this is supposed to be like the Sky Islands except you really feel like if you fall you are going to go a LOOOONG WAY DOWN

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 14:45

Dragaroth

this seems very interesting as a concept

I would support such a place if it were to be considered by OOO. I like the idea of a sort of Olympus esque feel to it, but pillars and such that would be seen as Olympian should have gears (steampunk esque), or be composed of machine parts, like the architecture is actually the weather generators. as for enemies, I could see special variations of chromalisks getting in, as well as an overall gremlin population hm... as for monsters...

snowman for snow
a sort of floating sun for fire
a acidic pool or hazmat for acid/poison
maybe a greek god look alike for shock?
and your rainbow-chromalisks would be nice for the actual rainbow room

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 17:34

Mejezfeld

IN THE RAINBOW FACTORY, WHERE FEARS AND HORRORS COME TRUE

Thanks for the bump and the support, Dragoroth!

Your suggestions for enemies are great, but I'd save the deity-lookalike for the special Rainbow Room. Perhaps sentient clouds/elementals for the shock room?

perhaps various recolors of those floating skull dudes in Moorcroft as a set of enemies?

I do know however that if we're gonna have a boss for these levels at all he should be sporting one of these on his head.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 19:13

Oakgear

Wait hold on?

If you are creating new brands of enemies than you need.

Another damage type to make the resistance and weakness equal again.
You can't make just make only one new one because you would need about 9! more i think to have a equal resistance and weakness count which would take over a year to finish.

You should probably have you enemies a little bit more focused on preexisting types so OOO will try and make this idea.
Perhaps for snow enemies there could be preexisting ones or perhaps you can have this idea-

In the constructs brand you have weather bots.
They can be bionicweather? something close i don't know make a name.

And within that you have a mechanical snowman
You can have a machine spirit on fire
Perhaps a machine with lots of exhaust tubes that makes thunder
A machine with a special design in which it makes cyclones.
Mechanical water robot?
An idea i'm sure of is having those 3-hit stoneblocks also be an enemy
They can symbolize earth and have a transforming robot feature

Just make sure you don't create chaos in their offices.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 19:18

Dragaroth

awright

FIRST: its fine. I schim back pages all the time looking for (semi) recent threads that interest me, and I think weren't given their fair shot
SECOND: boss wise, combining rainbow god head over there and a zeus construct would fit well with your sky/weather theme
THIRD: maybe a Kracko remnant monster for the electric areas? reference potential?
FOURTH: those skulls in Moorcraft need excersize! LETS USE 'EM!

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 21:36

Mejezfeld

acquire winnings.

Okay so the enemies are...

Gremlins (speaking of which, why don't we ever see Gremlins that use Shock weaponry? Or snipers, for that matter?)
Spectralisks/Chromalisks (maybe levels can have the appropriate elemental Chromalisks but there's a chance you can get a Spectralisk spawning in place of one of them)
Constructs (but no Lumbers, because their presence won't make much sense here. Unless they swapped their tree disguise for cloud disguises)
Rain Halo Godhead
"Elementals" (Basically the skulls in Moorcroft but with a bit more smoke/cloud and different colors. They can be neutral to everything like the RJ/Royal Minis are).
Various "weather machines" that are kind of like the Missile Launchers and other stuff in the Ironclaw Munitions levels but with... weather effects. Progress means you have to deactivate them or use the weather effects against enemies or the machines themselves...

and... you know what? This is starting to sound like a Boss level series, except that the levels leading up to the boss CAN be modified by Stratum theme :S Now how would THAT work? It CAN simply disregard the theme of the Stratum and let you access any two of the themed levels before the boss room (which is always the Rainbowmaker)... but this sounds cheap.

on top of that this calls for a unique weather-themed puzzles/mechanism on each of the levels. Most of the other levels in the game that are modified by Stratum theme (as in, aren't unique to a theme) are basically the same level recolored/slightly redecorated to match the theme.

We COULD simply make it that the Sun/Fire level is the only "different" one whereas Smog/Poison, Snow/Freeze, Storm/Shock and Rain/Wind/Unthemed are recolors (or is it "rethemes") of each other, since the other four weather phenomenon relate to clouds in some way.

And here's ANOTHER impractical idea- All the other levels will have a themed miniboss based on the weather phenomenon of the level.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 14:30

Dragaroth

actually...

weather minibosses would be a good introduction to minibosses as a whole to the game. and I think that recollering all of the ones except for sun/fire would work well for coding purposes. I think that you could create a lumber series, but replace its trunk arm with a stone pillar, and use the leaves as clouds would work well in implementing it. It would just be a question as to what the wood parts would be... what the wood would be...
AND the chromalisks could, if you play it right, become rares in the game itself. as an idea.

I also endorse random stratum to the boss level, if this idea goes the boss route, since that would mean there will be variation when its turn comes up for a clockworks. People will enjoy going through because it COULD be different!

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 17:55

Mejezfeld

Now we need to figure out how

Now we need to figure out how to get this thing in a gate.

Though technically you could have this appear in any of the gates in place of any sort of "floating island" level, or actually any of the non-Clockworks levels at all given the function of this place.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 17:08

#10

Dragaroth

You could make the symbol a rainbow raindrop. That would be pretty fitting, given the name.
ALSO it IS possible to make the floors before the boss taken from a random selection right? I think that should be first concern based on the number of cool levels this could have.

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 02:56

#11

Starlinvf

The overall concept is

The overall concept is absolutely great, and I can't stress enough how well it simply "pops" with the design concepts used in the other areas of the game.

For the argument over how the cloud platforms would work, just look at Airman for Megaman 2. All the platforms are suspended by groups small propellers, and the clouds just sort of form around them. Connecting them could easily be done by using scaffolding in place of the usual interconnects, and larger areas could be constructed out of the tops of tall building, air ships (used by the gremlins to move around the area), Olympus palace chunks, and large platforms with weather machinery on them.

As for an idea for a new construct thats unique to the area, introduce a floating painter bot call the "Artisan Series". They exist to help with coloring the vast areas of the levels, and are armed with highly volatile, theme appropriate paints and a large paint brush arm. They use a floating locomotion, similar to how Spookats move around, and can charge across the map at fairly high speeds. In the wake of a dash, they leave behind a trail of short lived (2-3 seconds) floor hazards conforming to the elemental theme. Its melee attack is performed by swinging its brush arm that does normal damage, with a chance to inflict a stronger status effect. This could be accomplished fairly easily by tweking existing mechanics, and they'd just need to make a new model for it.

The inclusion of an air ship also opens an opportunity to introduce a moving platform mechanic. This is where the players move in sync with a mobile platform (in this case, an Airship) as it slowly moves from one portion of the map to another. On top of that, you can also dedicate an entire level to ship vs ship combat. This would work by adding switch gears to control the cannons, have enemy ships pull up along side it, and damage them by timing strikes to hit certain portions. Cannon strikes by enemy ships just create a blast hazard on the deck of your ship. All the while, scripted waves of enemies "board your ship" and swashbuckling ensues. With more advanced scripting, there could be segments where you board another ship to advance.

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 10:03

#12

Mejezfeld

ohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh

I wasn't looking for or thinking of an "explanation" for the clouds, actually, save that maybe clouds are forming around the floors and stuff and so you can't really see the floor in those places

But that airship/moving platform idea makes me adsfdsfwerargels all over my keyboard

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 10:15

#13

Grittle

mabye hova's water idea can

mabye hova's water idea can work in this level?

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/24386

Thu, 10/06/2011 - 17:16

#14

Dragaroth

well grittle

the water idea of hova would probably fit well paired with either the shock or freeze room, so that its more like a storm room than a strait up water room... these places need names dont they?
Fire/Sun: Combustion Contraptions
Ice/Snow: Crystal Contraptions
Shock/Storm: Monsoon Mechanisms
Poison/rain: Toxic Tools, infectious instruments

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New Level: Weatherworks