Game Projects

Beacons and the Map

You start out with a Map that extends in all directions and shows you where beacon locations are.

Beacon tiles always only contain the beacon and every tile adjacent to it contains enemies. When the enemies are defeated in one the tiles, the beacon extends an arm there. When all arms are completed, the beacon will work. This will show map information in a square or circle around the beacon -- structures, items, keys, Ponds, etc. Beacons on the map indicate the shape of the beacon mapping and also color-codes its range with red being low and green/blue being high. Obviously scanning can overlap other scans.

Beacons are also where you respawn when you die. Activating one will automatically reset that to your spawn location, no touching needed.

Mana Mining

If a location has enemies and isn't adjacent to a beacon, then once the enemies are defeated, you can mine the terrain.

Mining a solid will change the tiles adjacent to it to a hue shifted in the positive direction from the solid you touch.

Replenishing mana requires touching mining certain hues (maybe 3). The requirements are different for each room, and some are tricky to perform depending on how the room is set up. Thankfully, mana mining changes aren't permanent -- if you leave and come back the puzzle resets, though once you've successfully mana mined a room, you can't anymore -- it'll return to normal generation I guess. The floor should go grayscale to aid you a bit.

Mana Mining will replenish all your mana chits. The downside is you can't use that room for mana replenishment anymore.

Ponds and Fishing

Pond rooms will occasionally form. These don't have enemies, instead you can fish here.

Ponds have ^ syms representing fish that will move around the water (but won't go entirely to shore ever).

Touching a water tile will stop fish movement and make a pole (ldash or |) appear and go out a bit. You have to press the opposite direction to make it go the other way. If you hit a fish like this you've caught it. It takes a bit of skill.

Fish will replenish your Health. They are however a limited supply. Once all fish are caught on a pond room the pond itself will also disappear and be stricken from the map as well.

Keys and Doors

Rooms that aren't ponds, structures, beacons or areas around beacons can contain Items of various types, locked behind a door of a specific color. Opening the door requires the appropriate Key.

Keys are scattered around, but they're thankfully more common. They can't be collected while enemies are present, and the color will be grayed out accordingly (though the correct color will appear on your map).

Structures

As mentioned, Structures will occasionally form. They're basically solid shapes that model shatterloop ones, spread out over several rooms. Each tile of a structure has a color associated with it and will vaguely take on that color but be whatever value of gray (20-80L) the structure is otherwise.

Doors will be scattered around the structure. Opening one of them with a key will remove the appropriate doors and structure tiles from the structure.

Unlocking them all will remove the structure (and strike it from your map) and give you a random Spell. Spells do various things, costing chits.

Item Types

Keys, as mentioned. They'll never be behind locked doors, while the others always will be.

Weapons -- you can have as many of these as you want and switch out between them.

Armor Fragments -- Adds a random armor upgrade to your armor. These reduce damage, protect you partially or fully from certain types of attack, etc. A fully upgraded armor is a beautiful thing.

Heart -- adds more health

Chit -- adds more mana

Enchantment fragment -- adds more enchantment slots. Enchantments are basically permanent spells, but you have limited space.

Junker -- allows you to combine two weapons into a new weapon. It's seeded by the weapons in question and you see a preview beforehand. Can definitely make things worse, or better. Junkers can also work with armor Fragments and spells. You can use a junker exactly once on one of these categories and then it disappears.

Crystal -- allows you to upgrade one of your spells. Your choice.

Goal

The overall game goal is collecting stars or something, which are scattered rarely around the map.

I'm thinking they'll be behind multiple doors and with maybe some kind of handcrafted boss that you have to defeat.