Oshka

Tom said:

I had a dream I'm suppose to make a game about Russian Matryoshka dolls. Simple run n jump gameplay like Mario with the added feature of Matryoshka doll shells.

So the player would benefit from the shells:
You could nest yourself in shells for strength
Different shells have different abilities
ect.

Pros of leaving the shells:
Enter tiny doors
Go underwater
Leaving a shell gives you upward momentum, so you could do a Nshells-1 jump (ex. quad jump).
ect.

I call it Oshka.

I said:

I like it.

Have you thought about how the dolls should look?
There are the traditional ones, of course, but there are also alternatives.

The idea of the nested shell as gameplay element is interesting- in addition to the different abilities that different shells could grant (which would open up different areas of the levels, a la Castlevania or Tomba or Megaman or other platformer/rpg/puzzle games), the "extra jumping" ability could be a huge part of the gameplay and level design. For instance, you might have the player run around and collect enough shells so that they could eventually reach a very high ledge (while solving smaller puzzles/levels with the shells they collect in the meantime).

I have a suggestion (if I may be so bold): instead of straight platform jumping, perhaps you could have the player be able to "launch" themselves from their largest shell: they could hold down a button which would initiate a little "aiming mode" (like in Yoshi's Island, when you launch an egg, or like in a golf or bowling game), release it when they believed their aim was true, and then all of the shells inside the "sacrificed" one would be flung in that direction. Then, if properly skilled, they could hold the button down again, which would stop them in midair and initiate another launch sequence. In this way, the player could propel themselves around, reach oddly-placed areas, and generally have a good ol' time.

Initial ideas for the dolls' aesthetics:
Different people (they could each be specialists of a nesting-doll strike team, or members of a family- each with unique abilities and personalities)
Different animals (easy to figure out the different shells' specializations)
Shell-bots (we could still make this steampunk)

I see the shells' walking animations as them tipping to the side opposite the one they are heading towards, as if they were being pulled around by their "feet." Like if you put a big magnet in a bowling pin and then used another big magnet to pull it around.

The dolls themselves would be easy as all hell to make art for- I could sketch them out and scan them, and then make two sprites (the head and the body) for each. Effects like battle damage could be incorporated with separate semi-transparent sprites layered over the top, as could different facial expressions (if we go with little people as the dolls). "Launching" and other animations could be accomplished with the engine. Levels could be made with small tiles (the overall style sounds as though it's meant to emphasize simplicity, so blocks might be a good way to start out and get our feet wet with level design).

I have some questions, though: How will the player get new shells, exactly? Will they just be lying around the level, or would the player start with all the shells, and then have to use them up and/or recollect them? What happens when the player comes across a shell that is more than one size larger? Will there just be generic shell icons/powerups that the player can run across, and when they do, a shell of that type of the next largest size is placed over the player's current shells? This would mean that the player would sometimes be forced to sacrifice multiple shells in order to get back down to the specialized shell they need. This would not necessarily break the game (with clever level design, that is), but it would make the levels more difficult to balance.

I'm putting this stuff on the blog.