Hey all! Yes, I am making another suggestion, here, on a forum already clogged by suggestions (many of which are mine), but I’m doing my best to make sure that this one is well thought-through and based on things that have already been suggested in part by Fishlicka. (If you’re seeing this, Fish, you might want to break out the Slitherss Text-to-speech. This post ain’t short.)
The premise? Well, Fish mentioned offhandedly while discussing future updates and the notion of reworking the skill system that he was considering adding perks/modifiers that the player could opt into (“fallout style”), presumably when creating the world but possibly through the skill system, and that these would add replayability. I’ll go with the notion that they’re fixed upon creating a save file, and might be togglable through cheats/commands but not otherwise, meaning that a player can only normally opt into one at a time. Each one would impart some significant changes to the game, hopefully changing how the player approaches things or adding more challenge without simply upping the difficulty. Fish mentioned a few ideas of his own in the original thread (see here), and I wanted to run with them a little bit, as well as adding a few of my own. Each one will have a potential name and a short description of the changes beneath it.
Strap yourselves in. There's a lot of reading here.
“Hyperchondriac”
- The player is unable to become a vampire by any means. That means you can’t suck up corpses for health and Juice, ever. You won’t become a vampire after beating the creator, or by being bitten by Batty. If some alternate ways of getting the “sucking” power are added in the future, you won’t be able to get that ability through those methods either.
- All forms of health regain are increased by a factor of 4, applying mostly to health from the Holy Hammer and the Health Regen stat. Consumable items that increase health (currently only the Good Juice does this) will always give a baseline level of health that is added to the health they’d normally restore, then being multiplied by 4.
- Slight changes to the Vampire Bat’s dialogue if you use the Good Juice, where he gets confused about you not becoming a vampire and apologizes for wasting your time.
>Implementation Difficulty: Easy. I think? Yeah, probably.
Firstly, I just wanted to acknowledge that “hyperchondriac” is not a real word, and doesn’t even make sense when considering the origin of “hypochondriac,” but I’m calling the perk that because it’s funny. Anyways, exploring a way of getting back health without using the game’s ubiquitous “sucking” mechanic seems like a cool idea. Not too original or novel, by any means, but it could be fun for players that want to change things up. Also, I’m not sure if a 4 times multiplier is too extreme for health regeneration, since it might render you basically invincible at low health (since health regen already gets faster as your health decreases).
“Grungo Mode”
- All melee damage is multiplied by 2, Arm Strength is multiplied by 2, and the player starts the game with 5 levels in Arm Strength.
- The character is basically a caveman. As such, they are unable to drive or enter Signy’s Sweet Ride or use ranged or magical weapons. The player can equip these weapons, but they can only be used to hit things. (In other words, right clicking with the Ordinary Pineapple doesn’t fire a projectile - you just swing the pineapple harder. You can never get the gun to fire, not even on accident.)
- Because the player is a caveman, any form of interactive dialogue is totally changed; the player can’t complete the pop quiz at the start of the game because they can only grunt loudly, forcing them to jump out of the window unless they want to die.
>Implementation Difficulty: Moderate.
This takes the idea of “increased melee damage but you can’t use spells” to the logical (or illogical, as it were) extreme, maybe even too extreme. But, if the goal is to make each modifier change the playthrough drastically, then I think this is the appropriate amount of nuttiness. Also, the thought of Mrs. Slitherss getting progressively more frustrated as the player grunts at her questions before she just lasers you is pretty funny to me.
“Emphasis on Galaxy”
- It does not cost any energy to fly.
- You can swing weapons, use spells, and aim ranged weapons while mid-air, so long as you aren’t “flying” (i.e. holding the Spacebar/flight button).
- Gravity is disabled everywhere, and can’t be re-enabled.
- All enemies can fly a little, but they’re pretty bad at it and very slow. Enemies will still mainly spawn on surfaces, but can rarely spawn in mid-air.
>Implementation Difficulty: Moderate. (Zero gravity already exists, but control changes + mediocre flight AI is harder.)
This is just a modification of Fishlicka’s suggestion of “you can fly for free but there is no gravity,” which I think perfectly encompasses the spirit of what these perks should be like. I also wanted melee and ranged combat to be possible in some way, as well as not trivializing regular enemies that can’t normally fly. Combat would probably be a big, awkward slugfest, but hey, some people might be up for it.
“Only Got One Shot”
- When the player dies, that’s it - their save file is deleted, or at the very least they can no longer play it.
- When above the baseline HP equivalent to half-health (i.e. not a lot), any single attack or burst of damage that would be fatal will instead leave the player with a sliver of health left and a brief period of invulnerability. This ability has a cooldown, and can only be reactivated once the player reaches full health again. A small HUD icon will let the player know if this ability is ready for use. Scripted sequences are not changed by this ability (i.e. answering Slitherss incorrectly in the pop quiz will still kill you, and Swirly D will not trigger the effect).
>Implementation Difficulty: Moderate.
As I understand it, Juice Galaxy used to have a Permadeath option, but it seems to have been taken out - and, given how the player can easily die in a myriad of potentially unfair ways, this seems reasonable. This perk re-adds Permadeath as an option for players who want the challenge while also giving a bit of insurance to make dying to unseen damage less likely, and hopefully make permadeath seem more fair/appealing. (Side note: the “saved from death” mechanic that I’m suggesting is basically the “Strong Spirit” mutation from Nuclear Throne - I think it would work in this context.)
“Bathe in Juice (or dry trying)”
- The player has a 3rd meter on their HUD beneath Health and Energy that is filled by getting Juice from enemies or the environment (but not by de-leveling stats). Maybe it should be flashier-looking than the other meters, who knows.
- 1/2 of all Juice that the player receives will be diverted into filling this meter, unless it is full (at which point all Juice will go into the upgrade pool). The meter has a maximum capacity of 100 JP, but will drain at a rate of 5 JP per second. This meter starts off full.
- Completely filling this meter will boost all stats by 5 levels and stop the meter from draining for 5 seconds. Getting more Juice will reset this 5-second timer, even if it’s only a small amount.
- Using a Juice Fountain will stop the meter from draining for 10 seconds and reset it to 50 JP if it’s currently below that.
- When the meter is totally empty, the player will rapidly take damage and a crinkling/cellophane sound effect will play. This damage scales with the amount of maximum health the player has, and will kill a player from full health in 10 seconds. If the player dies like this, they will visibly shrivel up.
>Implementation Difficulty: Hard.
This is based on a bit of a discussion between “probablynotthere,” “talin o wag,” and myself. Before then, I had thought of making a perk that would benefit speedrunners, and initially I figured the player should have permanent speed and flight boosts but would have to manage this meter. I think this take on the idea is better, since filling the meter boosts all stats and can thus apply even in non-speedrun scenarios. It might be the case that the perk becomes obsolete by the end of the game, since 5 levels doesn’t mean that much when your hat boosts certain stats by a comical amount, but it’s still not an insignificant boost.
“Directed by Matthew Lagoon”
- All explosions - both player and enemy - deal 10x damage (that is, a whole order of magnitude more). Player-based explosions can have this damage increased further by the Damage stat.
- All explosions have their blast and damage radius increased by 1.5x, and knockback force increased by 2x.
- Players will be lit on fire and take full damage from their own explosions.
- Some minor sound-effect and particle changes to make explosions look/sound more powerful/meatier.
>Implementation Difficulty: Easy, I think?
Yep. This one is just meant to be fun chaos. Can you wipe the floor with everything once you get a meteor spell or Ordinary Pineapple? Maybe. Will hitting anything at even medium range, or a wall, or the floor, or running into your own bullets, instantly kill you as well? Maybe. Does the Wawsp Queen suddenly become the true final boss of the game? Maybe. Is the perk’s name a Michael Bay joke? Maybe. But hey, we’ll never know for sure until we try it out!
Hopefully, some of these ideas seem intriguing to anyone reading, and if Fishlicka gets inspired by any of these in developing his own perks or other ideas, then my work will have been a success. Have a nice day!