Dream Runner (dino game)
A Dino game.
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A runner game with a day/night cycle.
Collect items/platforms from rooms, move them around to solve the puzzle.
By day, learn the ropes and prepare for night fall.
By night, be-ware the dreams and ghosts that haunt the rooms.
Break the loop-spell to proceed in the game.
mechanics
> platform ideas
>> a ghost platform
A platform you find and capture by night, then use during the day to reach a new height.
>> an item platform
an economy of platforms that can be adjusted as you will.
>>> Collect them from room A, place them in room B
that's the only way forward.
>> a powerup platform
>> a map/compass platform?
Especially combined with an item platform - this could be a fun thing to work with.
Pull it out, but the map tool is really loud, so it attracts beasts. Be careful where you use it!
>> a loud, bright, or smelly platform
Something that attracts bugs/beats
> in flow
collect leaves, combo jumps, avoid enemies to build flow.
while in flow, you trail/streak grows behind you. like the scarf in Alto's Adventure
> catch leaves
Leaves fall from trees, in a swinging, falling pattern.
Get to them before they land to boost your flow.
> repeating runner rooms
Until a room's complete-condition is met, it will be re-queued - to max number of tries. day goes on for each try, and when the sun sets, it's boss time.
Hope you picked up the powerup and completed the quests! Otherwise this won't be easy.
On hard-mode, you only get one try per room?
> cannonball mode
from Slipstream - play through all the levels, connected, rather than interjecting menus and restarting for each track.
> random mode
pull random rooms from the game together into mixed challenges
> zone-specific coins
Like in odyssey, there are coins, and there are zone-specific coins.
> subway tokens and subway entrances
A subway token and the subway entrance - that's how you unlock the alternate exit.
Super Mario World key + door style
zones
> The Park
A run through the grass.
Includes various degrees of tree density.
Backgrounds with fields, trees.
Other runners on the path, plus walkers. Dog walkers.
Squirrels that dodge away. Wild dogs that follow you when you're in flow.
birds, so many, so much noise. They fly away as you approach.
At night, owls hunt squirrels and field mice.
> Brooklyn
Coffee shops, restaurants, stores, delis in the background.
Some trees, leaves still fall.
Lots of NPCs watching you flow, commenting on your repeated pass-throughs.
a host/hostess where you can put a coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner order? Maybe make a reservation for that evening?
Starting to feel questy! A few zone-specific quests to hit before moving on.
At night, the neighborhood comes alive, lights in windows, lines at popular places.
Enter and run through some of the coffeeshops/straunts?
Late night, dream time, battle your demons.
> The River Front
Along the west-side highway, with the river in the background.
Other runners, cyclists, cars zip along, you'll want to dodge them!
The wind is strong near the river, and the leaves know it, getting swept up high by gusts you weren't expecting.
> Christmas Town USA
A christmas version of Union Square, of course.
Run around stalls, between stalls, and into mini games at the stalls.
Chase flash sales and catch snow flakes.
Try to fill out your Christmas list
> Downtown
Big city buildings, packed stores and restaurants.
Fifth avenue. Big public statues and transient murals. Graffiti.
Subway stops and shortcuts. Passages between worlds? Feels finding a Subway stop is finding a secret exit - leads to a new location on the map.
A subway token and the subway entrance - that's how you unlock the alternate exit.
( Super Mario World key + door style)
rooms seeem to contribute to the dream run for each zone
maybe they can be recombined in different ways? for random/cannonball modes, and mixing up boss battle interactions?
TODO dream runner - final stage - what is this building up to?
TODO repeated runner rooms - how does this play out?
TODO dream-time runs - what is the night-dream version of a runner level
boss battle ish? battle your demons?
TODO dream-time runs - how is this impacted by your day-light runs?
completing quests (collect the 8 red coins) unlocks/supports an easier boss battle?
Backlinks
An ongoing list of games I'm accumulating requirements and content for.
For now i'm hoping to get many (all) of these done in 2023. I'm not sure how crazy or realistic that is - depends wildly on scope, I suppose.
For now, it's a nice way to compare ideas - for each of these, I want to answer parallel questions. Having multiple buckets can help brainstorm (vs working on just one game).
I'm also interested in strategies for approaching each of these. For example, Beat Em Up City might be built completely on top of Super Elevator Level, as both are beat em ups, but the SEL scope is much smaller. So there's some sorting that could make approaching these easier.