Design

Story

The story of this game is derived from Greek mythology, which is full of arguments between and within families. This one involves two families of gods and the unending collection of planets that are ruined and then restored in the process.

Cast of Characters

Familial interconnections in mythology are often complicated and interwoven in baffling ways.

• Eris - Goddess of Strife and Discord (Her human form is controlled by the player.)
  • Daughter of Nyx
  • Sister of Hypnos
  • Mother of Lethe
• Nyx - Goddess of Night
  • Mother of Eris and Hypnos
• Hypnos - God of Sleep
  • Son of Nyx
  • Brother of Eris
• Lethe - Goddess of Forgetfulness
  • Daughter of Eris
• Zeus - King of the Gods
  • Nephew and Husband to Themis
• Themis - Goddess of Divine Law and Order
  • Aunt, Wife, and Advisor to Zeus
  • Judge of other gods
  • Daughter of Gaia
• Gaia - Goddess of Earth
  • Mother of Themis

The Story Cycle

You are the dark goddess Eris in human form, condemned to repair the damage you caused to a planet. This story repeats in a loop indefinitely.

1. Eris causes war and destruction on a planet for her own entertainment. The destruction results in the elimination of most life and an imbalance of the elements.
2. The destruction and imbalance of elements deeply upsets Gaia. She partner's with Zeus and her daughter Themis to put Eris on trial.
3. Themis agrees to try Eris for what she considers to be crimes against nature.
4. Eris is found guilty and is sentenced to restore the elemental balance as a human placed directly on a planet she had ruined.
5. Themis incarnates Eris to a human form to prepare for her punishment.
6. Eris' daughter Lethe and brother Hypnos are compelled by Zeus to wipe Eris' memory and put her into a deep sleep. This causes her to forget being a goddess entirely and prevents her from fully understanding the nature of her condemnation.
7. Eris is delivered to the ruined planet with an escape pod.
8. The escape pod has a message that indicates the requirement to restore the balance of the elements, provides a basic weapon to use, and indicates it cannot be activated until the balance has been restored. There is a final warning that Eris’ presence itself is a destabilizing force on the planet.
9. Eris wakes up near the escape pod. She doesn't know why she is here, the escape shows the message and provides the weapon to use.
10. Driven by her desire to leave the ruined planet, Eris works to restore the balance of the elements by defeating the bosses of each biome and then a final boss in its own biome.
11. After the defeat of the final boss with the balance finally restored, Eris must return to the escape pod prior to time running out, presumably to avoid destabilizing the elements again.
12. When Eris gets to the escape pod and enters it ready to leave the planet, the now active escape pod ramps up in power to fly away. Instead of launching to space it violently explodes, wiping the human form of Eris from existence.
13. With her human form annihilated in the explosion, Eris returns to the realm of the gods. Being a goddess and immortal, her memories return (but not of what she did while in human form). Being a dark goddess she resumes doing what she does best... Causing strife and discord on another planet. This returns her to step #1 in the cycle but with a new planet.

Upgrades

As you explore the planet, you discover upgrades that improve your survivability, movement, and the ways you can attack things.

Core Upgrades

There are typically multiple copies of each of these core upgrades and finding multiple of them increases the amount of whatever is controlled by that type of upgrade. For example, finding an additional energy capsule will increase the amount of damage you can take before being killed and finding additional missile upgrades will increase how many missiles you can carry.

Core Upgrades

Upgrade	Category	Base Amount	Upgrade Count	Amount Each	Upgrade Amount	Total Amount	Description
Health Capsule	Health	99	15	50	750	849	Increases the maximum amount of energy you can hold. Essentially improves the number of hits you can take before being killed.
Backup Health Capsule	Health	0	4	75	300	300	Holds energy in reserve. This is partially health with extra steps, but it provides a sort of "fairy in a bottle" mechanic that can help your survivability if you lose track of how close to dead you are.
Elemental Capsule	Ammo	25	11	25	275	300	Increases the max amount of elemental ammo you can hold. Locating the elemental gun upgrade includes a capacity of 25 shots. Elemental ammo capacity can be used for any elemental ammo type for which you have the orb. You must collect the gun before these are useful, but you can collect them even without the gun.
Missiles	Ammo	0	40	3	120	120	Increases the maximum number of missiles you can hold. These can’t be used until you have at least one.
Big Missiles	Ammo	0	15	2	30	30	Increases the maximum number of big missiles you can hold. These can’t be used until you have at least one.
Big Bombs	Ammo	0	15	3	45	45	Increases the maximum number of big bombs you can hold. These can’t be used until you have at least one. These give a small upward motion while in liquid even without the appropriate suit.
Total			100 Upgrades

Health Transfers

Energy can be shunted back and forth between normal and backup manually at any time. Each manual transfer, regardless of size or direction, costs 10 energy to perform. An automatic transfer occurs when normal energy runs out. The full amount possible will be transferred until either the backup storage is empty or normal storage is full. Automatic transfers are considered an emergency situation and are performed without an extra energy cost.

Suits

The environment is dangerous and suit upgrades help you survive and get around. All suit capabilities stack when active and all suits can be active simultaneously.

Suits

Suit	Effect	Description
Base Suit	Standard Damage	You're not naked, but this suit doesn't do a lot to keep you alive.
Defense Suit	-50% General Damage	Reduces damage received from everything. It should be noted that later areas have enemies that hit at least 50% harder.
Liquid Suit	+90% Liquid Movement	Restores most of the lost movement caused by being in liquids. Water is way thinner than Mud or Lava. Doesn't change damage amounts.
Heat Suit	Heat Damage Reduction	Heated areas that hurt you, now hurt you way less (2%). Lava hurts you way slower too (15%). Doesn't change damage amounts from sources that are not environments.
Cold Suit	Cold Damage Reduction	Super cold areas that hurt you, now hurt you way less (2%). Cryo-lava hurts you way slower too (15%). Doesn't change damage amounts from sources that are not environments.
Total	4 Upgrades

Movement

These upgrades improve the movement capabilities of the player, which in turn control access to various places. I briefly considered a grapple hook style item, but I don’t particularly want to have to code it and make it behave well. It's my opinion that there has never been a grapple hook ability that was implemented in a way that was actually fun.

Movement Upgrades

Upgrade	Category	Description
High Jump	Jump	Amount of vertical movement when you jump is increased. See Jump Mechanics for more details.
Double Jump	Jump	Can jump a second time while not on the ground. Stacks with High Jump to create an even higher possible jump height. See Jump Mechanics for more details.
Dash	Speed	A short range, very high speed dash that goes left or right. Can only be performed once per jump, and only while not on the ground.
Vertical Launch	Launch	Can launch vertically from a crouch position, requires a short charge delay to activate. Consumes energy to use, will automatically stop if health drops below 100. Not usable in cat form. Automatically opens doors on impact and continues into the next room.
Sprint	Speed	Can run very fast and break sprint blocks. Requires distance to build up to max speed, consumes energy while at max speed and when breaking sprint blocks. Cannot be used with less than 100 energy and hitting 99 energy stops an active max speed sprint. It falls back to still moving faster than normal. Without this, Eris moves at her normal speed regardless of available energy.
Cat Form	Size	Allows the player to change into a cat to move through short passages. Can drop bombs in this form if available. Automatically includes a short range swipe attack and the ability to jump as high as in human form. Not effected by high jump or double jump.
Total	6 Upgrades

Cat Form

These upgrades improve the capabilities of the player when in the cat form. Cats can always jump, but they may not have claws.

Cat Form Upgrades

Upgrade	Category	Description
Cat Claws	Grab	Can grab onto most vertical surfaces. Allows climbing of some surfaces. When climbing, you can jump off or launch horizontally. If a wall can be stuck to up to the top, the cat can climb over onto the horizontal surface. This also gives the ability to attack as a cat with a short range melee attack.
Cat Dash	Speed	A short range, very high speed dash that only goes left or right. It can be performed once per jump and not at all while on the ground.
Horizontal Launch	Launch	Can launch horizontally from a wall grab, requires a short charge delay to activate. Consumes energy to use, will automatically stop if health drops below 100. Mind your surroundings, this could get you into trouble. Automatically opens doors on impact and continues into the next room.
Bombs	Attack	Allows the dropping of small bombs when in cat form. They are unlimited ammo and break bombable blocks. They can move the player through the air, but are not strong enough to move the player in liquid without the appropriate suit. There is a small delay between dropping a bomb and it exploding.
Big Bombs	Attack	Allows the dropping of big bombs when in cat form. See the core upgrade description for more details. These can slightly move the player in liquid without the appropriate suit. There is a longer delay between dropping a big bomb and it exploding.
Total	4 Upgrades

Weapon Upgrades

Your weapon can be upgraded to do more damage. This makes enemies easier to kill, allows getting past certain obstacles or opening certain doors, and in general improves your ability to survive.

Standard Gun Upgrades

All effects in the table below stack but the total damage percentage improvement is relative to the base weapon. None of these require any form of ammo to use, they are your standard blaster weapons.

Weapon Upgrades

Weapon	Effect	Description
Blaster	None	The standard gun you start with. You shoot stuff, it hurts stuff.
Power	+50% Damage	Causes your gun to be more powerful. Hurts stuff more.
Spread	2 Parallel Shots	Causes your gun to fire 2 parallel shots at once (one slightly above normal and one slightly below normal). Each shot does the full damage if it hits. They are tracked separately.
Quantum	+25% Damage	Allows your shots to pass through solid things in the environment (unlimited). Has no effect on passing through enemies.
Phased	+25% Damage	Allows your shots to pass through living things. Up to 2 additional enemies can be hurt if they are behind the original target. The same enemy cannot be hit more than once by each shot with this effect. Has no effect on passing through the environment.
Charge	+25% Damage (when charged)	Allows energy to be collected in the weapon and discharged all at once. Charging takes roughly 1 second. Damage bonus only applies when weapon is charged before release. This also allows your weapon to hit like a missile against creatures that can only be damaged by missile attacks.
Total	5 Upgrades

Elemental Upgrades

These are upgrades that provide elemental powers to your weapon. Only one can be active at a time, but effects and damage improvements are always on top of whatever other weapon upgrades are active. All elements are strong against their opposite, slightly strong against the element that is similar to their opposite, slightly weak against the element that is slightly strong against them, and very weak against themselves.

Graph showing how pairs of pairs of elements interact.

Elemental Weapon Features

Target	Effect	Description
Normal or Other	+20% Damage	When something isn't associated with any particular element or is not one of the categories listed below, you still cause some extra damage when using an elemental weapon.
Same Element	-90% Damage	When something is associated with the same element you are using, you deal dramatically less damage to them.
Opposite Element	+100% Damage	When something is the opposite element to what you are using, you deal dramatically more damage to them.
Similar Element	-40% Damage	When something is from an element that is similar to the element you are using, you deal less damage.
Similar Opposite Element	+40% Damage	When something is similar to the element that is the opposite of the element you are using, you deal more damage.

Specific Elemental Effects

Each biome has a main boss that is the strongest form of the element from that biome and guards the weapon that is strong against it. These weapons also have a special extra feature. New biomes may be added over time, the current list of biomes is: Fire, Ice, Electric, Water, Light, Dark, Life, Death, Earth, Air, Gravity, Void.

Specific Elemental Effects

Element	Very Strong Against	Slightly Strong Against	Similar to Weakness	Special Effect
Fire	Ice	Water	Electric	Allows burning of certain environmental barriers.
Ice	Fire	Electric	Water	If an enemy would take lethal damage, they are instead frozen in place and can be used as a platform.
Electric	Water	Ice	Fire	Can activate unpowered electrical things.
Water	Electric	Fire	Ice	Can short out electrical things.
Light	Dark	Death	Life	Can light very dark areas.
Dark	Light	Life	Death	Can dim very bright lights.
Life	Death	Dark	Light	Can create a barrier out of new life.
Death	Life	Light	Dark	Can wither certain environmental barriers.
Earth	Air	Void	Gravity	Allows downward shots to form a small pile of dirt that can be used to get slightly higher.
Air	Earth	Gravity	Void	Allows upward shots to form a small tornado that pulls you slightly higher.
Gravity	Void	Air	Earth	Crushes things?
Void	Gravity	Earth	Air	Explodes things?

Item Drops

These are the things that drop when enemies are killed. Their purpose is to refill various consumables.

Item Drops

Drop	Category	Amount	Description
Small Energy	Health	+5	Small increase in current health up to allowed max health. Overflow redirected to backup.
Large Energy	Health	+25	Large increase in current health up to allowed max health. Overflow redirected to backup.
Huge Energy	Health	+100	Very rare massive increase in current health up to allowed max health. Overflow redirected to backup.
Small Elemental	Elemental	+10	Small increase in current elemental ammo amount up to allowed max capacity.
Large Elemental	Elemental	+25	Large increase in current elemental ammo amount up to allowed max capacity.
Missile	Missile	+2	Adds missiles to your current count, up to the max number of missiles.
Missile Bunch	Missile	+5	Adds missiles to your current count, up to the max number of missiles.
Big Missile	Big Missile	+1	Adds a big missile to your current count, up to the max number of big missiles.
Big Missile Bunch	Big Missile	+3	Adds big missiles to your current count, up to the max number of big missiles.
Big Bomb	Big Bomb	+1	Adds a big bomb to your current count, up to the max number of big bombs.
Big Bomb Bunch	Big Bomb	+3	Adds big bombs to your current count, up to the max number of big bombs.

Loot Tables

Enemies have different loot tables that associate item drops with a weight. The weight controls the odds of each item dropping. At the time the enemy dies, the required loot table for that enemy is loaded and then adjusted based on the player's current needs. For example, a player that is already full of missiles won't see missile drops most of the time. This results in a reduction of time sunk into farming for supplies and an overall better player experience.

Base Loot Tables

Loot tables are set up in a way that only configures possible items. Any item that is not explicitly configured has essentially no chance of dropping.

Example Loot Table

Drop	Weight	Effective%
Nothing	5	5%
Anything	5	5%
Small Health	50	50%
Large Health	10	10%
Small Elemental	15	15%
Missile	15	15%
Total	100	100%

Player State Adjustment

Adjustments for player state are made by item category. (Health, Elemental, Missile, BigMissile, and BigBomb.) Anything the player already has their max capacity of is removed from the loot table. Using the above loot table as an example, if the player is full on health, the two possible health drops are removed from the table. This changes the probability of the remaining options automatically.

When Player Has Max Health

Drop	Weight	Effective%
Nothing	5	12.5%
Anything	5	12.5%
Small Elemental	15	37.5%
Missile	15	37.5%
Total	40	100%

There is also a special adjustment made if the player is below 50 health. Loot tables in that situation are modified to favor health drops over other things to try to help the player recover. Note that a loot table that doesn't have health drops will not be affected by this. The way it works is that each health item in the list has 20 weight added to it. Using the same example above, that would change the table to this.

Critical Health Loot Table

Drop	Weight	Effective%
Nothing	5	3.6%
Anything	5	3.6%
Small Health	70	50.0%
Large Health	30	21.4%
Small Elemental	15	10.7%
Missile	15	10.7%
Total	140	100%

Special Options

The special categories of "Nothing" and "Anything" are for making loot feel more exciting. If a loot roll lands on Nothing, then obviously there is no drop at all. (Sorry.) If a loot roll lands on Anything, a loot reroll occurs that uses a table that has every item being both possible and equally likely. Nothing and Anything are not part of this special table. This results in every in the game being capable of dropping every item. It may not be especially likely, but it can happen.

Special "Anything" Loot Table

Drop	Weight	Effective%
Small Health	1	9.1%
Large Energy	1	9.1%
Huge Energy	1	9.1%
Small Elemental	1	9.1%
Large Elemental	1	9.1%
Missile	1	9.1%
Missile Bunch	1	9.1%
Big Missile	1	9.1%
Big Missile Bunch	1	9.1%
Big Bomb	1	9.1%
Big Bomb Bunch	1	9.1%
Total	11	100%

Controls

The player is expected to be reasonably agile and controlling Eris should feel responsive, but it has to follow a standard set of rules. The standard unit of measure is a tile, think of it as a small square amount of space.

Attacking

The primary form of attack is through the use of a projectile weapon without melee attack options. When in tiny form attacks can be performed using explosives. All tile measurements are actually relative to the player, but are described as from the ground for easier explanation.

Shooting Options

• When NOT Moving:
  • Standing:
    • The standard aim will fire a projectile forward at a height 1.5 tiles off of the ground (in the middle of the 2nd tile up from the ground).
    • The spread shot fires 2 projectiles at 1.0 and 2.0 tiles off the ground.
    • You can aim straight up.
    • You can aim diagonal attacks at 45 degrees either up or down.
  • Crouching:
    • The standard aim will fire a projectile closer to the ground at a height of 0.7 tiles off the ground.
    • The spread shot fires 2 projectiles at 0.4 and 1.0 tiles off the ground.
    • You can aim straight up.
    • You can aim diagonal attacks at 45 degrees either up or down.
• When Moving:
  • The standard aim will fire a projectile forward at a height 1.5 tiles off of the ground (in the middle of the 2nd tile up from the ground).
  • The spread shot fires 2 projectiles at 1.0 and 2.0 tiles off the ground.
  • You can aim straight up.
  • You can aim diagonal attacks at 45 degrees either up or down.
  • (You cannot move while crouching.)
• When Jumping:
  • The standard aim will fire a projectile forward at a height 1.5 tiles off of the ground (in the middle of the 2nd tile up from the ground).
  • The spread shot fires 2 projectiles at 1.0 and 2.0 tiles off the ground.
  • You can aim straight up.
  • You can aim diagonal attacks at 45 degrees either up or down.
  • While not on the ground, you can fire a projectile straight down.

Exploring

The player is roughly 2.5 tiles tall and 1 tile wide. Most environments have vertical clearance of at least 3 tiles and gaps will be at least 1 tile wide. This includes doorways and hallways.

Movement Options

• While standing at full height, the player can move left and right.
• While on the ground, the player can jump or crouch.
• While not on the ground, the player can still control their left and right trajectory.
• While crouching, the player can shrink to tiny form. Moving or jumping while crouching will result in standing up first.
• While in tiny form, you can move left and right, remaining in tiny form.
• There are many movement upgrades that add to this list when they have been found and are enabled.

Escape

After beating the final boss, a mad dash must be made to the escape pod.

• All save, recharge, and map stations are disabled.
• All doors are changed to blue regardless of previous requirements for opening them.
• There will still be environmental difficulties such as water and lava.
• Enemies are no longer present.
• Uncollected items will still be present in the world and can still be collected.
• This event will be timed.
  • No free movement abilities will be granted, so it may be difficult to finish on time.
  • The available time will be calculated by the number of rooms required for the escape, plus some comfortable padding.
  • The calculation assumes all available movement abilities have been collected, but it should be possible to finish with some missing.
• Failing the escape
  • Will place you at your last save prior to the final boss.
  • You can avoid the final boss chamber and instead go to gather more uncollected upgrades.
  • If you try the escape again immediately, the final boss will already be defeated.
  • The final boss will be reset to alive if any additional upgrade is collected.
  • If the final boss is already dead, the timer will start again when you enter the final boss chamber.
  • The escape pod is not active unless the timer has been started.