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.

Somewhat Burned Out

I've been a bit off lately. I haven't had any great ideas and there's nothing exceptional looking to come this way. Although I think TF2 is still one of the best games I have ever played, the compromise on the art style, the neverending expansion of meaningless noisy content, and the fact that my ancient computer cannot run the latest version has had me on the ropes.

I'm excited about the Vaccinator, I have to say, but even that hasn't been enough to inspire me lately. We'll see how things go after Christmas. Maybe new games will seek to inspire my tired brain, and I'll find some more stuff, locked down there in the content bowls deep under the surface.


Until then: if you're reading this, intrepid soul, send me your favorite SFM clips and items. I'm really feeling frazzed here and I could use the inspiration.

Sincerely yours,
Amin

Dominated

I really enjoy TF2, and I think it's starting to make people I play games with hate it. See, I did not play FPS games before I played TF2--well, I did, but it was a dabbling that I begrudgingly accepted while I hung out with people hungry for those fights. I certainly didn't enjoy FPS games at the time, and I still for the most part don't now, although they're much, much better.

However, TF2 has become my gold standard, and every time I play a new FPS, I'm astounded at the seemingly obvious design decisions laid out in TF2 that make everything else look like total rubbish. Recently I realized that I have never been teabagged in TF2, for example, and I realized this is because of two factors (well, maybe more). For one, TF2 has taunts, which are cooler than teabagging for just... so many reasons. I might have to watch a bit of Monday Night Combat to see if teabagging happens there, because it's the only other FPS I can think of that has taunting.

The second, and this is speculation on my part, is that TF2 has dominations. The game tells your victims when you're better than them. It even hangs a flag over your head that is designed to say "come at me, bro". I understand why it might not work in other games, games with smaller teams where often of course you know who's killing you, he's the only other guy on the map, or at least he's the only one that speaks with that particular Cold War accent.

Now, the absence of teabagging is no small thing to me; but the community feels less like a sack of soggy douchebags for it. Don't get me wrong, the TF2 community has its scumbags, just like anyone else, but it is so nice that they don't do that one thing.

Okay, so this wasn't the greatest discussion of why TF2 has better design principles than most FPS games. But thank Gabe there's no teabagging. Or Robin. Actually, I don't know who to thank.

The Day the Heavy Ran Out of Ammo

Pan slowly through scene 1. Shell casings litter the ground, dead pyro barely visible in frame. Distant Heavy laughter can be heard. Fade to black.

Fade in on scene 2, pan slowly through. More shell casings. A dead soldier should appear visible in the frame, and a scout's hand is visible, too, dead at the foot of a fridge.  A half-eaten buffalo steak sandvich is on the ground. Fade to black.

Fade in on scene 3, pan slowly through. Faint battle sounds. Pan through the scene, to freshly falling shell casings and a Heavy firing maniacally into a diverse crowd of BLUs, a Medic healing him. Boom-headshot, the Medic goes down. The Heavy looks over his shoulder, angry but not about to stop shooting.

Click-click-click--- the Heavy stops, perplexed, and lifts the minigun to shake it gently. It rattles hollowly. Experimentally, he pulls the trigger again. Clicking.. He feels the pouches on his waist.

Heavy POV, close up on his palm--there are three bullets, which roll out and clatter to the ground.

Low shot of Heavy watching them roll away. After their last clink, he sags, slightly. Then, sounds of a building deploying and a wrench whacking a building. An Engineer is building a dispenser! He hustles over to it carrying his Minigun, and watches as the Engie whacks it.

Unlike in the game, if possible, the Dispenser-deploy animation should be syncopated with the wrench swings, i.e. wrench hit, followed by 20% of the animation, wrench hit, next 20%, to imply that the Dispenser requires an Engineer's touch. This should stretch the tension nicely.

Finally, the little bottom hatch opens, to reveal an ammo belt. As the Heavy reaches for it, a BLU sticky bomb lands next to his palm.

Reaction shot of the Heavy. He defends himself from the explosion with his hand.
Heavy POV on Dispenser--it's gone, but visible through the smoke is the Demoman, grenade launcher in hand. Shift shots through the smoke to establish that he's there, backed up by a Scout, Pyro and a Soldier. They all look smug.

Shot of the Heavy, glaring at them, holding his gun, thinking.

Close shot of the Demoman raising his sticky launcher to fire another shot--slow motion--as a minigun flies into the shot and bowls him flat on his back. The scout looks on in surprise at the Demoman (whose foot is sticking up from the bottom of the shot), when the Heavy barrels across the ground punches the Scout.

Now we see the Heavy, he's holding the Scout's scattergun between two fingers. He pokes the trigger mechanism with his finger. Close up on the gun--it's too small to accommodate his finger. He looks around, and grabs the scout in a headlock, stuffs the gun in his hand, and fires it at the Pyro three times. There's an explosion of gunfire--the Soldier is holding a now-smoking shotgun.

The Heavy throws the Scout at him.

TF2 FANFARE, ROLL CREDITS

Brute Medic

Working on a concept idea for a kind of hulking Brute Medic unlock, wherein the Ubercharge turns the Medic into a temporary melee-class killing machine reminiscent of L4D's Tank or Bioshock 2's Brute Splicer.

Currently, I'm considering the following buffs for the Brute Medic:
AoE healing--the brute medic is still healing allies as long as his charge is in place
Barehands Melee Attack (+50% Damage)--the brute medic's method of attack replaces the Secondary Slot while the charge is active. Switching away from it allows you to interrupt the charge
Megajump--to allow the Brute Medic to get in and out of combat quickly and chase foes
Knockback Resistance--allows the Medic to tear up in combat mode, much like the Demoknight
Damage Resistance--also devoted to giving the medic some staying power in close combat

Obviously, this idea is left-field crazy, but it has its basis in a couple weapons/classes/characters in a few games. The Big Daddy suit for Bioshock 2's multiplayer, for example, and the Tank in L4D share qualities of fortitude and power in a limited sort of capacity. If you have some ideas for ways the Hulk could change, let me know on SPUF forums or here, on the blog!

SPUF Runner-up: Kayohgee

Bio
Quite literally a "Baby man", the mercenary known as the Heavy in TF2niverse-159354 is the result of an experiment in which a prototype Mark IV "Manndroid" Exo-suit was given a single infant pilot (as the capsule was originally built for chimpanzees and was therefore unsuitable for an adult human).

The pilot's name, gender or (brief) personal history are a mystery, as are its motivations. While it clearly enjoys its work, whether the infant believes it is "playing" with the other mercenaries or is truly psychopathic at an impossibly young age is unknown. What is known, to allies and enemies alike, is that he or she has proven to be one of the most efficient killing machines in the Mann Co. army, and is indisputably the second deadliest baby on Earth. With a suit constructed out of solid Adamanntium and an arsenal of weapons at its disposal, the Heavy's only true weakness is its mobility. While the Mark IV is capable of travelling at speeds exceeding those of an ordinary human, its infant pilot consistently scores well below the accepted minimum on the "Ability to walk" portion of his or her yearly physical and tends to precariously stumble around the battleground, a featherweight away from toppling over.

Weapons
Primary: Dual Miniguns - one mounted to each arm.
Secondary: The BaBa - this consumable calms the Heavy, boosting his accuracy for a short time, but afterwards causes him to nap for six seconds.
Melee: The Rattle of Steel

Voice Lines
While the Heavy is only able to babble, his or her telltale gleeful laughter is often heard while mowing down entire waves of opponents.

Editor's Note: I preferred that this be a monkey to a baby, not just because shooting at babies seems wrong somehow but because it generates a little bit of diversity in character. I left it as a baby for the purposes of this posting. But seriously, who couldn't love the idea of a Monkeynaut Heavy?

SPUF Character Contest Runner Up: The Medic

 Dexter is in his mid-twenties. He's of unknown European heritage but he has become accustomed to the US. He is tall and fairly skinny, with blond hair and blue eyes. The attack from the RED Spy has left scars on his left arm and left cheek. His mercenary uniform comprises of a short-sleeved shirt, a grey tie and trousers with heavy military boots. He wears short, blue gloves and bands on his arms showing his mercenary class. Attached to Dexter's belt is an unusual machine, that creates a magnetic healing field. The machine is attached to his Medigun, which is worn on his back when he's not using it.

Dexter's weaponry consists of multiple scalpels that he wears on his belt, his Medigun, which is a heavily modified shotgun with two firing modes. The first mode fires a beam of healing plasma, controlled by a magnetic field. The second mode fires buckshot, which, when it hits a wall, releases a healing gas. Dexter also carries a revolver for when he needs to go on the defence.

Quotes:
When healing a team mate:
"Oh dear, silly you, getting yourself injured again..."
"If only friendships were this easy to fix..."
"You're all fixed up. Try not to do that again."

When killing an enemy:
"You'd think I'd be easy to kill, what with me only having a revolver..."

When injured:
"Might be a wise idea to pull back and heal up..."
"If only this device worked on me..."

When close to death:
"It's a good thing me and Dell invented the RESPAWN machine..."

Domination lines:
"Hah! You let yourself be killed by a doctor?"
"Pfft. You weren't even close!"
"Only one person got close to killing me, and you're not him... Okay, two people..."

Domination line against Spies:
"Seems like you've lost your touch!"
"C'mon! Last time we met, you nearly killed me!"

Domination line against Engineers:
"You traitor!"
"That will teach you to focus entirely on killing!"

Editor's Note: I liked the original nature of this character. It departs a bit from the very detached framework typical of TF2, creating a very specific character with a closely generated backstory. There's a bit of thought here, plus there's lots of voice lines, which I always like to see. Good work.  Check out The Medic's blog!