Rhythm Stick

Almost immediately after I thought my idea well had run dry, I hit on something of an idea. A rhythmic melee weapon. Basically, the weapon charges on a timed charge bar. The bar fills up, and if you can land the hit just as the bar hits 100%, you get a bonus.

The initial idea was as a training weapon, one that somehow taught new players to time their swings properly, or taught them how to engage foes at melee range, by encouraging the bonus to happen as they're swinging, or if not a bonus, at least a little celebratory noise. That way, they'd know when they were connecting with a melee swing.

But then I thought that maybe it could be a gambling thing. The bar's 0-charge leaves the weapon at fifty percent, with 100-charge giving the weapon 150% damage. Alt-fire to choose the charge. Whatever you pick, that's your melee damage for ten seconds.

Or perhaps the bonus isn't damage. Maybe if you can land it just as an enemy is using a melee attack, you counter his attack and deal a crit--a karate weapon that's ideal for melee mode!

This idea needs a little brainstorming.

Generic Melee Idea

The Leverage
Level 10 Crowbar
 +5% damage for every enemy within 100 Hammer Units
-5% damage for ever ally within 100 Hammer units 

This generic melee weapon gets stronger when you're by yourself! Of course, if you're in the majority it's not very strong.

Morgan

Morgan is the oldest TF2 unlock that I actually remember, and one of my proudest moments on the Internet. Here it is, the thing that made me feel as though I could actually write about this stuff for my own amusement. Definitely not for a living, but for my own amusement.

Morgan
While held:
66% clip size (4 rounds)
120% reload time (1.2s + .6, 3 seconds for full reload)
125% firing interval (~.75s)

While Deployed:
100 HP
35-50 damage
Cost: 25 metal
.5 attack interval
1 second deploy time
26 ammo
Can't be upgraded or repaired
Sappers destroy Morgan in one second and cannot be removed
Automatically self-destructs upon Engineer death
Automatically reequips upon wrench-hit, saving remaining ammo

The Morgan is a technological marvel. Originally developed to discourage eagle attacks in the Badlands, Dell adapted it for its modern use in worksite security. Engineers who have their hands full constructing the team coffee machine or puma attracting engine can rest easy knowing their backs are safe and sound so long as their trusty Morgan automated defense turret is around.

The Burn Ward

The Burn Ward
Level 10 Flamethrower
Victims share healing as long as they're on fire
-66% afterburn damage
Fire does not extinguish over time
Fire extinguishes on death

You might recognize this as another one of my Injury Update weapons. It was one of the better ones and I felt it deserved its own post and some concept art. If you're wondering what the deal is with the concept art, the little radar dish is supposed to be the receiving antenna that heals you whenever enemies heal themselves.

There was some concern when I initially unveiled this that enemies extinguishing themselves with healing would circumvent any use this thing had. After all, most forms of healing cure the fire debuff. So your earned healing would usually be limited to a medium medkit. There were also concerns that this would discourage enemies from healing burning enemies (unlikely given the busy battlefields of TF2).

I wanted the whole thing to encapsulate a very complicated sort of strategy. Enemies know that as long as they're on fire they're vulnerable to crit combos and their heals also heal the enemy, but killing the Pyro will sooth their pain. Entice enemies into attacking you from weak positions. The main problem here is conveying how differently this kind of fire works--making the unique nuances visible without breaking game readability.

Let me know what you think here, or on the related SPUF forum thread.

The Crawling Explosive

Version 1

The Driver
Level .08 Sticky Launcher
Grenades explode on timer or direct hit
Alt-fire causes them to change direction
appropriate downside

Version 2
The Driver
Level .08 Sticky Launcher
Can only have one bomb out at a time
M1: Fires bomb, bomb adheres to surface and crawls
M1 (while bomb is out): Bomb changes direction by 90 degrees
M2: Detonate
Bombs cannot be destroyed (?)

Now, I had this idea because I thought it was cool, but I ran into some trouble. I wanted to create a navigable sticky similar to the Bombchu from Legends of Zelda, but there aren't enough keybinds to fully control a bomb that works like that.

If you're trying to figure out how the launcher I designed works, the rear handle rotates (technically it rotates the other way) to open the loading hatch for the next crawling sticky. Once loaded, the back handle rotates in-line with  front handle, then pulls back to prime the charge.

If you have any suggestions, quips, critiques, commentaries, or insults, drop 'em in the comments sections. I love that stuff and if it's great I'll post it here on Fridays. If it's not, well, I'll weep myself to sleep.