Well, this is as good a place as any to share this, but this was my own idea of a mod I've been rolling in my head for a while, until I think of a better name, I am calling it
Dreamworld DuelWhat is dreamworld duel?Dreamworld duel is a kirby’s adventure themed deathmatch mod that is designed as something of an inverted saxton hales. All the classes consist of midbosses and regular enemies from the Kirby franchise, and when a game starts, one player in the map is selected to become the Kirby. The game is in a kinda-sorta death match style mode but where only one side can freely respawn as many times as they need.
Goal of the gameThe Kirby and the bad guys have their own win conditions, the bad guys must see to the death of the Kirby to win, whereas the Kirby is tasked with surviving for 3 minutes while gathering as many points as possible by fragging enemies.
Playing the KirbyAs the Kirby, you are generally a lot more flexible than the other classes in terms of abilities, this is because everyone is out to get you, and while the bad guys will respawn after being fragged, the Kirby has to be fragged only once to lose. You move at a reasonable speed and you are capable of temporary flight to better navigate the stage as well as get out of tight jams.
The Kirby starts with a count of 5 hits, and upon taking damage gains a brief period of invincibility, this is primarily so that the Kirby cannot be taken from full to zero health in less than a second due to being surrounded by enemies. The invincibility after being hit will give the Kirby a chance to try and fight off the crowd or escape if he/she is overwhelmed.
As the Kirby, your main and only attack is your signature inhale, a line of sight vacuum attack that instantly frags an opponent that comes in contact with the front of you, afterwards you will then acquire the copy ability associated with that enemy (which would serve as an alternate class). With the copy ability, you gain a new main and alt fire as well as some changed physical attributes such as how fast you move or how high you jump and such, you cannot gain another ability till you lose your current one, either by taking enough damage or willingly dropping it.
Abilities have their own HP (usually 2-3 hits) that is lost when the Kirby takes damage and cannot be healed, and once depleted, removes the ability from the Kirby.
Available abilities:If this mod goes through, then I’d likely start with some of the more basic and fundamental abilities, but later on may add more, including abilities from later games in the franchise or even new ability ideas from the fandom. The mod would start with the abilities:
On thing to note is that abilities of the same element will be combined, such as fire and burning, Ice and freeze, and perhaps Throw and Suplex (though I highly doubt we could program that in smoothly). Some abilities in the future would also have to be adapted for the style of the game, Stone for example may not be too reliable in a multiplayer FPS, even as a means of invincibility.
Items and powerupsAbilities aren’t the only means of survival for the Kirby, when enemies are killed they are likely to drop an assortment of goodies that can help the Kirby out, these include
Food: restores various increments of health
Mic: grants the player an emergency AOE attack that decimates weak enemies and hurts midbosses a good deal
Spicy curry: temporarily boosts speed and causes the Kirby to radiate fire all around him
Mint leaf: temporarily grants infinite flight.
Vitality Heart: Fully heals and grants an additional hit point to the Kirby, going up to 8 hits at max. (activates on pickup)
Playing as the EnemiesAs mentioned before, the default classes are all various midbosses and enemies from the Kirby franchise, most being from Kirby’s adventure. All available enemy classes will be ones that offer copy ability, that way players can’t Blackball Kirby out of a weapon by collectively choosing ability-less enemies.
Each ability will usually be represented by both a midboss and normal enemies, fire being represented by
Fire Lion and
Hot Head for example. Some exceptions will exist however;
such as they’re being only a midboss for the hammer ability.
Each enemy has it’s own strengths and traits but also clear cut weaknesses or flaws that can be covered by other enemy classes or exploited by the Kirby, for example, Fire lion could be very fast and jump high, but his main fire is a melee attack and his alt fire a flame charge with a punishable after delay, and if he were to miss, then he may throw himself off track as well. No Enemy has a perfectly reliable method of attack. On the other hand, hothead could spew a short ranged but wide flamethrower, or hark fireballs, but at the cost of being rather slow in movement. While intricate Teamwork shouldn’t be required, the idea is that presenting a variety of threats to the Kirby is what would make the mod challenging and interesting.
Something to also consider is that while midbosses are usually stronger than their normal enemy equivalent, they are also worth more points and tend to drop helpful items more often, thus can inadvertently be more of a benefit to the Kirby if the player isn’t that good.
About pointsAt this point, I haven’t really though much about how points can influence gameplay beyond the game keeping a players highest score on the corner for bragging rights, the main intent was to give the Kirby an incentive to actually try and fight enemies as oppose to being outright avoidant, since if fragging doesn’t exactly further your chances of winning, than there would be no real point to it. thus camping would ensue.
Perhaps points could also be a win condition, or alternatively, earn the Kirby an “extra life”, thus they can be fragged one more time before losing the round.
StagesWhile talking about custom stages would be getting ahead of myself, stage selection should be something of great consideration, since the Kirby can fly, it should be important consider that any map should have no place that Kirby can go where no one else can reach, in fact this concern made me almost consider having
Missile as a starting ability for the mod, just as an excuse to have
Bombar and
Shooty/
Bang-bang as enemy choices since they can fly (yes I know Shooty doesn’t give missile)
And that's my mod idea, hope it interests someone.