Ozwomp City - brainstorming the next game

[Melooon]

This is a sister thread for my other topic coming up with Ozwomp lore! https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=1034.0

In this thread, Im gonna be sharing my thoughts for the next Ozwomp game and asking for help planning things out! It's very early stages of this plan so everything may change as things go on!

Also (assuming a final game is completed) I will be including everyone who posts here and in the lore thread in the credits!

Loose idea:

Working title (Ozwomp City)

It will be set on Earth in New Yonk city (which will be half New York and half like a Disney style castle built with random chunks of Celtic mythology) - playstyle sill be along the lines of the Simpsons Hit and Run - Ozwomp (and other Ozwompiean creatures) have found themselves stranded after receiving a very large fine from the police because the holy ognobula has been wreaking havoc with his unlicenced startup tech company selling people shoddily made dreams.

I think I like the idea of Ozwomp starting a delivery service, or possibly a rubbish collection service. That gives him the opportunity to fly around against a clock and make a mess of things while meeting new people. There should also be powerups that modify things like your speed, and your ability to create vortices or alter gravity.

There should also be some side mechanics such as setting up a Lemonade Stand! Ozwomp will be able to drive vehicles and embew them with ozwompian powers!

Im also really interested in doing a bunch of human and non-numan characters that inhabit the city both unique and generic - I really missed doing proper character writing on Ozwomps Voyage - speaking of which that was a 15 minute play game - this one I would hope would last at least an hour.

On more technical sites:
For the sake of trying new things and encouraging free software - I'll be using Godot for this game.
The style will be low-poly as in other Ozwomp games, mixed with PS1/PS2 type graphics for the earth and humans.
My initial goal is to do a very short version of this game first to test out the mechanics and get a feel for how it all works - after that I'll be easier to judge the full game.

 

[ribose]

I think I like the idea of Ozwomp starting a delivery service, or possibly a rubbish collection service.

i love this idea! some of my favorite games are about delivering mail (thousand threads) or packages (death stranding), or picking up trash (diaries of a spaceport janitor). i would love to run around as ozwomp doing little errands of some sort.

Ozwomp will be able to drive vehicles and embew them with ozwompian powers!

i think it would be cute to see ozwomp on a bicycle (increased speed?) or pushing around a wheelbarrow (increased inventory?)

what kind of help are you looking for most at this stage? feedback on existing ideas? new ideas about the lore or gameplay?

[Melooon]

Both are very welcome! I have lots of ideas, but I also get sick of listening to myself all the time  I always appreciate helpful interruptions and ideas!

Also thank you for the spaceport link! I'll have a look at that and see how they have done things - it's really useful to get reference points. Was there anything you particularly liked about that game and/or disliked or wished was different?

[teatime]

when you mentioned ozwomp starting a delivery service, i really wanted to draw ozwomp with a little messenger bag. so here he is!

of course, a messenger bag isn’t the only way to carry mail. would he keep it in a bucket? a backpack? would he hold them all in a single hand? this is more of a style question than a mechanics question, though 

[Melooon]

of course, a messenger bag isn’t the only way to carry mail. would he keep it in a bucket? a backpack? would he hold them all in a single hand? this is more of a style question than a mechanics question, though 

People seem to be very into bags at the moment, maybe picking bags could be the primary form of character customisation 

I love the drawing 

[Commodorn]

..It might be interesting to give Ozwomp the ability to do unexpected things with the mail they deliver. For example, in Paperboy, the character has the ability to throw the mail through people's windows:

The complete lack of regard for the possible consequences is incredible to me.

[kurohaato]

I've been trying to imagine what the other characters in ozwomp's little world would act like recently. From the way you've described it, I'm assuming there's npcs we interact with instead of just getting paged by the mail clerk/garbage boss. Maybe there's a little ozwompian dog that yips at ozwomp when he delivers the mail. Maybe you pass by some characters on their way to school/work. If ozwomp is a deliveryman, maybe there's some packages that New Yonk citizens need to sign for. Maybe there's some non-work fetch quests too, like the police chief asking you if you could bring donuts to the station or a little kid asking you to find a lost toy that ended up in the trash or a neighbor's mail box.

[SilkSkull]

I'd love to see ozwomp with a T-shirt cannon at one point, maybe to shoot off merch for the startup?

I also think some sort of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater parody style section would be cool with like ridicilous trick names and crazy jumps but it's just Ozwomp on foot