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[Valter]

There's a point in Mighty Jill Off in which you have to evade four spiders for an agonizingly long time. So I think if players came away from that game remembering only one thing, the spiders would be it.

Ideas:

Carp (Support, Dwarf Fortress): flops around for a while like a magikarp, but if it touches someone, it will latch on and do constant damage for a while.

Konrad (Support, Battle for Wesnoth): stands back and grants a "leadership bonus" to one of the players, boosting damage slightly until he takes a sufficient amount of damage.

Meatboy (Support, Meatboy): Runs around and makes everything he touches slippery.

Ring(Item, Braid): Once a player throws the ring, a field goes up that slows down your actions depending on how close you are to the ring.

Gun(Item, Karoshi): ...It's a gun.

Big Sword(Item, DROD): Powerful weapon with long reach.

Pterodactyl(Support, Dino Run): Grabs a player and flies around the top of a level for a bit, effectively removing player from the battle for a short time.

Axe (Item, Banana Nababa): allows you to throw axes in an arc above you for a short while.

Ikaruga Shield (Item, Most Shmups): Allows the player to restore health/increase power, whenever an enemy attack comes near but doesn't hit him. It could just be there for a while and go away. Or it could stay with you until you press a button to use it, releasing all the power that you stored while holding it.

If we end up deciding not to include Lemeza (La Mulana), I think we should add several of his items to the mix, like the flares and floor-sliding knives.

ALSO: GARDEN GNOME (support, Garden Gnome Carnage): ...Okay, maybe not. This is still my favorite Game Maker game of all time, though. We should include him somehow.

[Soulliard]

There's a point in Mighty Jill Off in which you have to evade four spiders for an agonizingly long time. So I think if players came away from that game remembering only one thing, the spiders would be it.

Just wanted to make sure. 

Carp (Support, Dwarf Fortress)- I don't think most people would get the reference. After all, it would just look like any other fish.

Konrad (Support, Battle for Wesnoth)- Seems a bit too similar to the hologram. Plus, it defies player expectations by being killable, unlike all other support characters. And its effect is obscure.

Meatboy (Support, Meatboy)- Great suggestion! How could I forget Meatboy?

Ring(Item, Braid)- I like the suggestion, but the engine really isn't built to handle this sort of thing.

Gun(Item, Karoshi), Big Sword(Item, DROD), Axe (Item, Banana Nababa)- No weapons, please. We don't want Kovski to have a heart attack. The axe might work as a thrown item, though.

Pterodactyl(Support, Dino Run)- Good idea. We ought to try to include a Dino Run reference somewhere.

Ikaruga Shield (Item, Most Shmups)- Might be a bit obscure, and I'm not sure how well it would work.

Items from  La Mulana- I have difficulty envisioning a scenario where we would have permission from GR3-Nigoro but wouldn't add Lameza.

ALSO: GARDEN GNOME (support, Garden Gnome Carnage)- Maybe. He could spin around in a circle or something.

[Valter]

I sort of want to include a Battle for Wesnoth reference somewhere, just because Wesnoth is a fairly prominent indie game. I suppose the problem is that it operates on an entirely different basis from most of the indie community. Wesnoth and Toribash are both games that appeal to strategy/fighting game fans who are bored, but not as much to the indie community as a whole. So I could understand them being left out.

Instead of the ring, which would be hard to implement, you could include some other obviously time-related item, like an hourglass, which reverses movement as though the player is going backwards in time.

The carp is the thing that immediately comes to mind when I think of Dwarf Fortress (besides temper tantrums and fiery explosions). I suppose the next most obvious item would be the booze bomb (sort of like a molotov cocktail), but I think that was already suggested for the Dwarf character? The next most obvious would be the crossbow (notorious for its ability to puncture upwards of three major organs with one bolt), but you just mentioned the no-weapons policy.

No-Weapons does limit the possibility for references somewhat. Just out of curiousity, what's the reasoning behind it? Is it because some characters are melee or ranged based already, and adding weapons would make them obsolete?

[Soulliard]

Mostly because each weapon would require at least one additional animation for each character.

It also takes away from the uniqueness of each character; the character's move list is its biggest distinguishing factor. Finally, there would need to be some way to drop the weapon, which makes the controls more complex.

[William Broom]

I like the idea of the carp, but they are kind of hard to distinguish as uniquely DF-related. Perhaps if they dragged the player toward the nearest edge of the stage, it would be more apparent.

Another possible DF item is a piece of refuse that spreads purple miasma across an area of the stage. Although that would be functionally very similar to the electro mine.

[Zaratustra]

I thought items were going to come from games that didn't have a character already?

[JLJac]

What about making Curly an item? She is strapped to your back and fires in the opposite direction with her nemesis.

[godsavant]

What about making Curly an item? She is strapped to your back and fires in the opposite direction with her nemesis.

Goddamnit, I just thought of that!

[Valter]

I thought items were going to come from games that didn't have a character already?

I don't think we need to restrict ourselves like that. It doesn't really serve any purpose to avoid good ideas for items just because they come from a game we already have a character from.

And I like Chutup's Miasma idea. It wouldn't be hard to draw up, either, just a big purple tilde.

[Soulliard]

What about making Curly an item? She is strapped to your back and fires in the opposite direction with her nemesis.

This is a great suggestion. It might even work better than Curly as a playable character.

I don't play DF, so I'm not really sure what the miasma does. Otherwise, it sounds like a suggestion that could work.

[Valter]

Basically, like a smoke cloud. You wouldn't be able to see well in it, and maybe your damage would be reduced.

"Miasma" in Dwarf Fortress is just a cloud of purple gas from whenever something rots. Refuse management in DF isn't all that great yet, so it tends to show up often.

[Soulliard]

Gotcha. 

To separate it from the electro-mine, it could be picked up and thrown again.

[KennEH!]

What about making Curly an item? She is strapped to your back and fires in the opposite direction with her nemesis.

I dunno I kinda wanted her to be a character.

[PlasmaMan]

Trilby should have a laser sensor item as a thrown item. When thrown, it either moves up and down a wall or along the ground. When it detects someine, a rent-a-cop steps out of an invisible door in the background and alternates between firing a gun and cowering.

[shig]

I think that would work better as an stage hazard than an item.