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

• Eris - Goddess of Strife and Discord (Controlled by the player.)
  • Daughter of Nyx
  • Sister of Hypnos
  • Mother of Lethe
• Nyx - Goddess of Night
  • Mother of Eris and Hypnos
• Hypnos - Goddess of Sleep
  • Daughter of Nyx
  • Sister of Eris
• Lethe - Goddess of Forgetfulness
  • Daughter of Eris
• Themis - Goddess of Divine Law and Order
  • Advisor to Zeus
  • Judge of other gods
  • Daughter of Uranus and Gaia
• Uranus - God of Sky
  • Father of Themis
• Gaia - Goddess of Earth
  • Mother of Themis

The 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 Uranus and Gaia. They seek intervention by their daughter Themis against Eris.
3. Themis listens to her parents and tries Eris for what she considers to be crimes against nature.
4. Themis finds Eris guilty and sentences her to restore the elemental balance as a human placed directly on a planet she had ruined.
5. Eris is commanded to record a message to herself in the computer of an escape pod. This message describes the requirement to to restore the balance of the elements.
6. The escape pod cannot be activated until the balance has been restored and warns that Eris’ presence is itself a destabilizing force on the planet.
7. Themis incarnates Eris to a human form to prepare for her her punishment.
8. Eris' daughter Lethe then causes her to forget being a goddess entirely.
9. Eris' sister Hypnos puts Eris into a deep sleep and delivers her to the ruined planet.
10. Eris wakes up near the escape pod. The escape pod allows her to view the message she recorded for herself, and provides a basic weapon to use.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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 instead, wiping the human form of Eris from existence.
14. With her human form annihilated in the explosion, Eris to the realm of the gods. Being a goddess and immortal, her memories return and 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.

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	Description
Energy Capsule	Health	Increases the max amount of heath you have by 100. Essentially improves the number of hits you can take before being killed.
Backup Energy Capsule	Health	Gives a place to store additional energy beyond the max, each one holds 100 extra.
Missiles	Ammo	Increases the max number of missiles you can fire before running out. Can’t be used at all until you have at least one.
Big Missiles	Ammo	Increases the max number of big missiles you can fire before running out. Can’t be used at all until you have at least one.
Big Bombs	Ammo	Increases the max number of big bombs you can drop before running out. Can’t be used at all until you have at least one.

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 backup is empty or normal 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.

Suits

Suit	Effect	Description
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.
Heat Suit	Heat Damage Reduction	Heated areas that hurt you, now hurt you way less (2%). Lava hurts you way slower too (15%).
Cold Suit	Cold Damage Reduction	Super cold areas that hurt you, now hurt you way less (2%). Cold water hurts you way slower too (15%).

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.

Suits

Upgrade	Category	Description
High Jump	Jump	Amount of vertical movement when you jump is increased.
Double Jump	Jump	Can jump a second time while not on the ground.
Dash	Jump	A short range, high speed dash that goes left or right. Can only be performed once per jump, and only while not on the ground. Also works when in tiny form.
Wall Grab	Grab	Can grab onto walls and jump or launch off of them when attached.
Horizontal Launch	Launch	Can launch horizontally from a wall grab.
Vertical Launch	Launch	Can launch vertically from a crouch position.
Tiny Form	Size	Allows the player to move through short passages and drop bombs.
Tiny Form Jump	Jump	Can jump while in tiny form (instead of requiring bombs for vertical movement).
Rush	Run Speed	Can run faster than normal, continuously without an energy cost. Is the fallback speed option (from Sprint) when below 100 energy if available.
Sprint	Run 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. Will use this speed automatically if more than 100 energy is available and falls back to either rush or normal movement depending on availability.

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. Ammo is unlimited regardless of enabled options. These are your standard blaster weapons.

Weapon Upgrades

Weapon	Effect	Description
Normal	None	The standard gun given to you by the escape pod. You shoot stuff, it hurts stuff.
Power	+50% Damage	Causes your gun to be more powerful. Hurts stuff more.
Spread	3 Parallel Shots	Causes your gun to fire 3 parallel shots at once (an extra above and below). 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. Has no effect on passing through enemies.
Phased	+25% Damage	Allows your shots to pass through an enemy to hurt a second enemy behind them. Has no effect on passing through the environment.

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.

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.
Water	Electric	Fire	Ice	Can short out electrical things.
Electric	Water	Ice	Fire	Can activate unpowered 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?

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.

Shooting Options

• 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 player can crouch to fire a projectile forward at a height of 0.5 tiles off the ground (in the middle of the tile immediately above the ground).
• You can also aim straight up at any time.
• Diagonal attacks can be performed at 45 degrees either up or down while at full height or while crouching.
• 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.