Ways I May Develop This Game Further

This post is all about ways the cloud game could be developed further. There are many issues, such as bugs, that I won’t cover here. Rather, this post is about the big-picture design of the game.

Issues that need solving
One issue with the game right now, is that movement is not very interesting or engaging. This game needs PLATFORMING. People like to jump around and avoid spikes. Unfortunately, the main character is a cloud, and there aren’t a lot of spikes, or walls to collide with, in the sky. Any platforming in this game would need to be done in a way that flavorfully still makes you “feel” like a cloud.

Another issue: people in video games like to move FAST, and this game encourages the opposite of that. You have to rain over things multiple times to make them happy; so there’s the gameplay loop of “move slowly, stop & rain, move slowly, stop & rain, etc." I think this is fine if you're a slow, thoughtful player; but for the action junkies, it's less than ideal. If only there was a way to super-charge a raindrop, so that it could take out an objective in one hit, then you could strafe past a bunch of enemies at high speed, taking them out as you go...

One idea I have that could solve both this issues, is adding an ability of the main character to charge up a super raindrop, which does a lot more “damage.” And when it’s fired, it launches you a bit higher in the air, so you can get over mountains and tall buildings. I imagine the controls might be like Star Fox 64, where you can rapidly tap the “fire” button to fire at a steady quick rate, or you can hold and release that same button to release a charged shot. I could even make it so that you could aim it a bit, if doing so “feels” right.

Charged shots seem like such a flexible mechanic. In Star Fox 64, the charged shot is favored by the less talented players, due to the auto-aiming it provides (but the tradeoff is the lower DPS). Meanwhile in cuphead, the charged shot is favored by talented speedrunners due to its higher DPS, but it's harder to control. These are opposite implementations of the same mechanic, and both implementations work great. To me, this really speaks to how customizable this mechanic is.

(Side note: I've considered aiming mechanics, where the direction your raindrop goes depends on where your cursor is. I don't really think this is the answer. If I had to include mechanics that take into account the mouse's position, I'd rather it be that the player's movement follows the mouse.)

I’m hesitant to add too many mechanics to the player character, but I think there is room enough for a super-raindrop mechanic + collidable mountains, and this could really add to the depth of the game without being confusing. I imagine the gameplay loop of “rain on everything in a small area, do some platforming to get to the next area, rain on everything, do some platforming, etc.”

Could we go 3D?
So, one thing I mentioned in the previous section, is that I’m considering a mechanic which moves the character higher in the z axis. The game might be getting to the point where it’s tricky to communicate all this z-axis info with strictly 2D art. What if the game used the same 2D sprites, but everything existed in a 3D world, similar to paper mario?

That would much more clearly communicate where everything is in all 3 dimensions. It’d probably look cooler as well. But ultimately, I think this idea is a trap, for two reasons:

-I’ve already coded the game in 2D. Not only would I have to do everything again, but everything is harder in 3D.

-I would really need to redesign how I’d want the perspective to work. I can't just copy Paper Mario, because paper mario is almost side-view, but the cloud game is at a 45 degree angle, split between top-down and side-view.  If I made my game in 3D and placed the camera at a 45 degree angle, like it is now, then the camera wouldn’t be aligned with the game world. I’d have to choose whether the sprites were aligned with the world or with the camera, and I could see both options causing issues of the game looking weird.

But I wanna go faster!
Many fun video games have a mechanic where you get launched quickly across the map. I could consider something like this for a tool within the player character’s arsenal, but I think I’d rather leave it as an environment object that you come across occasionally. Like, you’re kind of a sentient cloud spirit; what if there were sentient wind spirits scattered about every once in a while? I think it could be fun and skill-testing if you could activate the wind spirits somehow, and after a certain amount of time, you get launched away from them. So you need to perfectly set the angle between them and you. Ideally, you would pinball from wind spirit to wind spirit. In fact, I could see there being a variety of "spirits" that you encounter as the game progresses, such as lightning, snow, etc, each with their own unique skill-testing mechanic.

Other Things To Rain On
As I suggested in my postmortem, I have a LOT more ideas for the "enemies" in this game, many of which feature unique mechanics. Some of them could be moving around the map. Some would require you to rain on them to herd them in a certain direction. There are some things that are too crazy to describe here. Rest assured, this is a mechanic pool with a lot of depth to it.

Creativity Infusion
As a mostly solo dev, I have the challenge that I'm the only one coming up with ideas. I'm okay at generating mechanical ideas, but I'm often at a loss for how to creatively build up the art & world & writing of the game. So far, my cloud is a pretty standard cloud, and it's exploring a pretty standard world. I want the game to feel crazy and entertaining, and I really lack the worldbuilding skills to make this happen. I think bringing in a really creative artist could do wonders for this issue.

Conclusion
I do think this game has legs. Will I develop it further? We'll see.