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[thatbrod]

Alright, since the stage as garnered quite a bit of support, I got permission to start a topic for a

Minecraft stage. So, here are the ideas so far!

Destructible Terrain
The stage will be made up of several large blocks. These blocks are destructible, and should have some sort of "HP" variable that decreases as players hit the block. After its HP reaching 0, the block will be destroyed and will enter "respawn" mode. In respawn mode, the block is not solid and for the most part has no effect on anything. However, after a while, the block will slowly begin to "fade in" (I'm thinking of using image_alpha), and when it's exactly 50% transparent/opaque, the block will enter "place" mode. In place mode, the block waits until there are NO objects in it's area, and return to a normal block with its HP completely restored.
 - Blocks should take more damage when attacked from below

Level Layout
The stage will be as basic as can be, there will just be some blocks taking up ~half of the screen that can be destroyed. There should be, however, a 'bedrock' layer on the bottom of the screen, which CAN NOT be destroyed. This limits the players to only being able to knock each other off of the sides of the screen, but mainly this is to ensure there will always be a place for players to fight on. Here's a sketch of a level:


Day/Night System
In order to make the stage interesting, I propose a time system similar to the actual minecraft game. During the day, the game is totally normal, so the players can focus on beating eachother senseless. When night falls, however, things get more interesting. I was thinking two (pretty big) skeletons appear on the sides of the stage, wielding a bow, and periodically they will shoot arrows into the stage. These arrows deal LOTS of damage, and also get their own <!> symbol to let players know what they have to dodge. Here's a sketch of that.


Nether!
The nether would be another great monotony breaker for the stage. Every (1~2 minutes?), a giant, swirling purple spiral appears in the background layer. It fades in and covers the entire background layer (tiles included, players excluded), then fades out showing the Nether. All visible blocks are turned into "Nether" blocks, and a new landscape should be seen in the backgrounds. In addition, blocks that are in respawn mode are reset to 0, and can not spawn until the stage leaves the Nether. Finally, GHASTS should appear in the near background layer, and shoot projectiles into the screen (no gravity), these again shown by <!> symbols. The projectiles should be on fire, and when they make contact with a player HEAVY damage is dealt. To make it easier to avoid, though, I think they should be given a "z" value (that only hits the player when it reaches 0 (starts at like, 45 and decreases by 1 every step?)) and a very slow speed to give players ample time to dodge. They should also be very linear.
 - If the projectiles are attacked by a player (when they're within a 5 "z" range) they are reflected and become completely harmless.
So anyway, after 20~30 seconds, the swirling spiral returns and brings the stage back into the regular world. All blocks that were destroyed enter "place" mode, and the stage resumes as if nothing had ever happened. Also, here's a Nether sketch.



STUFF NEEDED

• Tiles for the destructible terrain. They should be large (I'm thinking 80x80) and blocky (not too much curves/AA). 4 Tiles: Dirt, Dirt w/ Grass on top, Bedrock and Nether dirt. All of those links point to an image of the in-game version, but please let's try to make our own.
• Skeletons! They should also be pretty big, and should wield a bow and have a short animation of shooting arrows.
• A Ghast!

• Arrows
• Purple, spiral background that can rotate.
• Background landscapes. These should be made up of tiles, so hopefully this will make things easier. Also, try to include biomes to make it more interesting (Snow tiles, tree tiles, sand tiles, cactus tiles etc.)
• A sun and a moon!

So those are the ideas thus far. Discussion is always open, so feel free to post your thoughts![/list]

[Soulliard]

Sounds good to me. Destructible terrain and a day/night system are central to Minecraft, so this stage should represent the game pretty well.

Instead of having blocks respawn, what if the stage just kept going endlessly downwards? I think that would be more in keeping with the source material, and it would prevent characters from being sealed in the ground.

Plus, if the stage went on long enough, they could run into different obstacles/easter eggs once they reached a certain depth.

[thatbrod]

I really like that idea, but exploring the surface is just as fun as exploring the caves (at least, imo it is) so I think it's important to be able to get back to the surface after exploring downwards.

[mokesmoe]

It would make it hard to knock players out the sides if you could dig down.

Instead of having the blocks respawn, we could have the generic Minecraft guy come and replace blocks, kind of like in Ice Climbers, but filling the bottom too. (The game, not the character.)
It could be a pain to program well though.


If you attack just as a fireball is hitting, you could knock them towards other players, or, if that would be overpowered, just off into the background. It would be a neat trick for those who have done it in Minecraft. (and it would be disappointing if they tried and it didn't work.)

[Dailyman]

you know, it's possible that a player could get stuck under the regenerative terrain. say that blocks regenerate above the player? what if the player got boxed in? not like this is a big problem or anything, just sayin

[-Frikman-]

what if they stay there stunned taking low damage over the time until someone free them or they reach high damage?

[Widget]

Given that the block they're stuck in won't regenerate until they move away they could just dig out by themselves, right?

[capn.lee]

perhaps blocks should be weaker from underneath so a single ^S move could break you free?

[mokesmoe]

What if blocks don't regenerate, and once you go down a bit, you reach stone. Once you reach stone, a couple Minecraft people with shovels appear on either side and dig away the remaining dirt, leveling the field again. The stone would still be breakable, but would have more HP. Every x squares you go down, the Minecraft people would appear again (but with pickaxes).
It would be like a scrolling level, but it scrolls at the pace you move down.

We could also have a few pre-generated x-high chunks of stone, with ores in them that are harder to mine, or even caves.

We could have obsidian lower down, that once you mine it, you go to the nether.
However, at this point, I think adding the nether to this stage wouldn't be worth the effort.

[Edspear]

Howdy fellows, it is my first time posting on this forum so be gentle. Here's my idea regarding the minecraft stage. I think that a digging down element should be intrinsic to the stage, players should just dig down and down and down into the stage. And basically at the bottom of the stage rather than bedrock maybe we could have obsidian, once players mine one block of it the entire line of obsidian just disintegrates and drops the players into the nether. so after 10-30 seconds in the nether the purple swirly appears covers up all the nasty ghasts and stuff and then the players are teleported back to the surface the blocks all back again. This would integrate the nether into the digging mechanic and would be a creative way to have the blocks respawn. So what do you think?

[mokesmoe]

If knocking people into blocks could damage the blocks, it could solve the problem of it being to hard to KO people.

[thatbrod]

These ideas are nice, but I don't think that players should have to work so hard to get to see all that the minecraft stage has to offer. If the only way to get to the nether is by destroying the blocks below you, then players may focus on that instead of actually fighting each other, which is bad.

Also, yes if you're walled in by blocks, the block won't ever re-spawn on top of you so you can just escape by breaking the block above you. (Having blocks weaker when struck from below is a great idea, btw)

[Hangedman]

Maybe just have a couple of layers of blocks to fight on. Below the platforms of blocks, is a bit of cave you can see.

After X time, a creeper wanders through the cave and explodes, destroying the platforms and dropping everyone into the cave below, which has different rock platforms.

Below that is a layer of rock and a layer of portally stuff, through which they fall again at some point into a nether area with ghasts shooting fireballs and lava pits.

A bit less of a 'scrolling through the same 3 areas' stage and more of a sudden death stage: the longer the match goes on, the harder the terrain and hazards get.

[Soulliard]

Howdy fellows, it is my first time posting on this forum so be gentle. Here's my idea regarding the minecraft stage. I think that a digging down element should be intrinsic to the stage, players should just dig down and down and down into the stage. And basically at the bottom of the stage rather than bedrock maybe we could have obsidian, once players mine one block of it the entire line of obsidian just disintegrates and drops the players into the nether. so after 10-30 seconds in the nether the purple swirly appears covers up all the nasty ghasts and stuff and then the players are teleported back to the surface the blocks all back again. This would integrate the nether into the digging mechanic and would be a creative way to have the blocks respawn. So what do you think?

Maybe just have a couple of layers of blocks to fight on. Below the platforms of blocks, is a bit of cave you can see.

After X time, a creeper wanders through the cave and explodes, destroying the platforms and dropping everyone into the cave below, which has different rock platforms.

Below that is a layer of rock and a layer of portally stuff, through which they fall again at some point into a nether area with ghasts shooting fireballs and lava pits.

A bit less of a 'scrolling through the same 3 areas' stage and more of a sudden death stage: the longer the match goes on, the harder the terrain and hazards get.

I like both of these suggestions. They sound like they capture the feel of Minecraft pretty well.

[Hangedman]

The reason I suggested the creeper was because a ton of randomly textured destructible blocks, neat though they may be, may have a performance impact or just make for clumsy gameplay.

Also, not everyone can attack down, if I recall correctly.