doodle/TODO.md

TODO

Alpha Launch Minimum Checklist

• Open Source Licenses
• Doodad Scripts: an "end level" function for a level goalpost.

Blocker Bugs:

• Sometimes the red Azulians don't interact with other doodads properly, but sometimes they do. (i.e. they phase thru doors, don't interact with buttons or keys).

UI Cleanup:

• Doodads Palette:
  • Hide some doodads like the player character.
  • Pagination or scrolling UI for long lists of doodads.

Nice to haves:

Release Launch Checklist

Features:

• Single-player "campaign mode" of built-in levels.
  • campaign.json file format configuring the level order
• Level Editor Improvements
  • Undo/Redo Function
  • Lines and Boxes
  • Eraser Tool
  • Brush size and/or shape
• Doodad CLI Tool Features
  • doodad show to display information about a level or doodad.
  • doodad init or some such to generate a default JS script.
  • Options to toggle various states (hidden, hasInventory?)

Shareware Version:

• Can't draw or edit doodads.
• Can only create Bounded maps, not infinite ones.
• Can play custom maps but only ones using built-in doodads.
• Can not place custom doodads in maps.

Built-in Doodads:

• Buttons
  • Press Button
  • Sticky Button
• Switches (4 varieties)
• Doors
  • Locked Doors and Keys
  • Electric Doors
  • Trapdoors (all 4 directions)

Doodad Ideas

In addition to those listed above:

• Crumbly floor: Tomb Raider inspired cracked stone floor that crumbles under the player a moment after being touched.
• Firepit: decorative, painful
• Gravity Boots: flip player's gravity upside down.
• Warp Doors that lead to other linked maps.
  • For campaign levels only. If used in a normal player level, acts as a level goal and ends the level.
  • Doodads "Warp Door A" through "Warp Door D"
  • The campaign.json would link levels together.
• Conveyor Belt

New Ideas

• New Doodad struct fields:
  • Hidden bool: skip showing this doodad in the palette UI.
  • HasInventory bool: for player characters and maybe thieves. This way keys only get picked up by player characters and not "any doodad that touches them"
  • ``

Path to Multiplayer

• Add a Player abstraction between events and player characters.
  • Keyboard keys would update PlayerOne's state with actions (move left, right, jump, etc)
  • Possible to have multiple local players (i.e. bound to different keyboard keys, bound to joypads, etc.)
• A NetworkPlayer provides a Player's inputs from over a network.
• Client/server negotiation, protocol
  • Client can request chunks from server for local rendering.
  • Players send inputs over network sockets.

Far Off Ideas

Level Styles (Top-down vs Side Scrolling)

It might be cool to support multiple "styles" of level, apart from the current 2D platforming-with-gravity style.

For example a top-down perspective level would let the player freely walk in both axes and would probably have a full set of unique Doodads drawn in that perspective.

Migration path: a GameStyle enum would be added to Levels and Doodads as an integer type, default 0 is the current 2D platformer style, 1 for top-down, etc. -- so existing levels and doodads would default to 0 on upgrade and new levels/doodads would use the new value.