Development:Duke Nukem Forever/1996 Design Documents/Goodies

This is a sub-page of Development:Duke Nukem Forever/1996 Design Documents.

D4GOODYS.DOC details collectables an pick-ups. Last modified on 21/08/1996 at 4:36 PM.

Duke's Goodies

These are items Duke finds laying around during his adventures. He can pick them up and use them.

Immediate Use

These are things that are used up the moment Duke touches them. Well, ammo is added to the ammo inventory. Duke won't pick something up if he's already carrying the max of that thing.

Can of Coke - Increases health a lot (50%). As per Scott's request, these will be rare. Cannot increase health beyond 100%. Duke could say "Ah, refreshing" or something when he drinks it. If the can is shot, then it rockets into the sky, ala Duke 1. It would then fall back to the ground as a crumpled can. I think it would be cool if the player could juggle the can by shooting it repeatedly. Once on the ground, the player can still shoot it, juggle it, whatever. If he walks past it, he kicks the can down the hall. We could have a recycle depot or something that Duke can kick the can into. It would then reward him with a goody of some sort. When Duke picks up the can as a health item, have him throw it down as a crumpled can.

Medikit - Increases health by 25%. Cannot increase health beyond 100%. "Ahh, much better." "I needed that." "Ready to rock!" "Good to go!"

Nuclear Molecule - From the first game. Increases health by 50%. Will increase Duke's health to as much as 200%. Who thought up this stupid name, anyway?

Armor - Increases Duke's armor by 25%. Armor level can never exceed 100%. Armor reduces damage, and diminishes as it does so. It'd be nice if we could actually see Duke wearing the armor on the screen.

Shotgun Shells - Five shells for the shotgun.

Chaingun Ammo - Just a clip of ammo. Adds 25 rounds sound about right?

Grenade Ammo - One Grenade sitting loose.

Shrink Ray Ammo - A small plasma energy canister/battery. Good for 5 shots.

Flame Thrower Ammo - A small tank of fuel, good for maybe 2 or 3 seconds of sustained fire.

Nitrogen Ammo - A small thermal tank of liquid (or solid) nitrogen. Good for 5 shots, maybe?

Sonic Blaster Ammo - One cell fires one shot. (But one shot could travel thru several enemies.)

RPG Ammo - Again, one missle, one shot.

Box of Shells - 12 shells for the shotgun.

Chaingun Ammo Crate - A crate of 50 rounds of ammo.

AP Grenade Ammo Crate - A crate of 5 AP Grenades.

RPG Ammo Crate - A box of 10 missles.

Piece of Heavy Barrel - There are five different pieces which will be scattered throughout a level. A description of the Heavy Barrel's behavior is in the file with the rest of the weapons' descriptions. When Duke collects a piece, have a pop up display appear of the heavy barrel gun. Show the piece fly into the display and appear in the diagram. Then make the diagram disappear. If the gun is completed, have it float down to Duke, he is then armed with the heavy barrel weapon. Have a countdown timer appear, showing that the gun is there for 30 seconds. Duke cannot select any of his other weapons during this time. He basically has unlimited Heavy Barrel ammo during this time. "It's time to ROCK!" "Let's get it ON!" "Come get a piece of THIS!" "My name is Duke Nukem, you killed my father, prepare to die." "Good citizens, dyin' time's here."

Scanner - The first part of the map, as discussed above. For visualizing the lay of the land. This is another multiple piece "quest" item. Every level will have all three pieces, so the player has something to strive for. Scanner pieces don't necessarily need to be that well hidden, though sometimes they will be. Also, all three parts are independant of one another. For instance, you could get the enemy detector, and just see the enemy blips, but not the lay of the land. This item could be especially useful if we implement dark caves and things.

Enemy Detector - The second part of the map, as discussed above. For finding enemies. Enemies appear as red blips. Perhaps the stronger the enemy, the brighter the color of the blip. A boss on the map might appear as a white skull or something. "You can run, but you can't hide."

Item Detector - The third part of the map, as discussed above. For finding items. Items should appear on the scanner as blue blips.

Secret Level Key - One of these will be hidden in every level, in a _very_ hard to find location. If the player has not collected all of these when he beats the episode, he gets a lame ending. We could maybe have some Duke voice bits like "Cool, I guess" or "I think I could've done better." I stole this idea from Donkey Kong Country and Total Carnage. By giving the player many alternate quests, but not forcing them to take the quests, we increase the replay value of the game. When the key is collected, a display appears momentarily, showing how many he's collected total. At the end of the game, Duke could use all the keys to enter an extra level.

NUKEM letters - The letters N, U, K, E, and M will be scattered throughout every level. When one is collected, a display pops up momentarily showing which ones have been collected. When all the letters are collected, Duke gets automatic 200% health and 100% armor.

Dollar Bills - Some enemies drop these, I suppose, and some may be found just lying around. You saw them in Duke 3D, and I think we can put them to good use. When the Dollar is collected, a small display appears showing how many Duke has collected. Some levels could have a suspcious guy in a trench coat. He's a gun dealer. "Talk" to him by activating him like a switch, and he'll take some money and leave behind an item of some sort. Usually just one of the guns, I'd think. Also, when Duke talks to a girl, he'll always hand her money, so the player is actually paying to see her show her chest. When Duke dies by explosion, we could see some of this money drop to the ground, of course. When money is on the ground, the wind could blow it along a little bit.

Special Items

These go into Duke's inventory, to be selected and used later. Duke will collect a few different "special items" and keep an inventory of them. One special item can be active at a time. They are selected using the "]" key.After being selected they are displayed in the weapons quadrant of the HUD. Pressing Enter uses the item.

Holo-Duke - Press Enter, and Duke puts down a holographic decoy, and the enemies attack that. Unlike the Duke 3D version, we might as well make ours use itself up entirely in one go. This means that while Holo-Duke is out there, the player can then select the cloaking device and sneak away invisibly. This also means that the player can carry any number of each item.

Cloaking Device - Press Enter, and Duke becomes cloaked and can move about virtually unseen, though he'll still need to watch out for environmental hazards. You already have this feature in the game, this is just an alternative idea for implementation. Again, once this has been activated, it'll disappear from Duke's inventory, then go until it runs out of time (4-8 seconds?).

Shield - Turn this on, and the item immediately disappears from Duke's inventory. The shield surrounds Duke, protecting him from all damage until destroyed by absorbing too much. I say this because I wasn't sure if I wanted all special items to be time based.

Claymore Mines - Duke 3D had these, and they're good for DeathMatch games. Of course, those worked as weapons rather than items. Player presses Enter, then walks a ways, pulling the trip laser behind them. Press Enter again to set the other end of the trip laser. It would of course have a set length limit. Enemies whose cross the trip line get blown to smithereens. This wouldn't be very useful in one player mode.

Portable MedKit - When used, it heals Duke of some damage, just like a medikit. This will work a bit differently from Duke3D's. It won't have a percent amount to reduce by. Instead, the MedKit is gone when you use it, and it will heal up to 30% damage.

I/R Goggles - Allows Duke to see in the dark for a limited time. This is an issue which I don't think I brought up before. Why not have some dark areas like caves and such? The lighting might not be a versatile as Duke 3D, but we could have dark areas, with the occasional hanging light, flashing lights, and such. Perhaps in addition to the IR Goggles, we could have a flashlight or miner's helmet item to light the way. All three of these items could have a beam that cuts through the darkness, and is aimable using the mouse cursor.

Spray Paint Can - Allows Duke to spray paint grafitti. A joke item, of course, but probably could be a lot of fun for the player. Could mark items with phrases like "Nukem 4-Ever" and so on.

Annoying Little Dog - Use this item, and a little dog follows Duke around and yaps at the enemies for a short time. Not -quite- Shadow Dancer, but chicks dig cute. "What did I do to deserve this?" This might actually be useful in dark areas as an enemy detector.

Super Dog - Puts out a veritable army of Annoying Little Dogs.

Crates

Like in Duke 1, we could have crates everywhere that Duke can shoot. Most would give up goodies of some sort or another. There should be various means of causing a crate to appear. They can be placed on the level editor. They can be spawned during the game by walking into a certain area, throwing a certain switch, shooting a certain target, or by killing certain aliens.

Goody Crate - Drops any of the goodies in the game. Select what the crate contains from the level editor.

Trap Crate - Shoot the crate, and a small bomb pops out. Ticks off a second, then it explodes. Alternatively, we could have it puff out a freezer cloud, potentially freezing Duke. Alternatively, and enemy could hop out and attack Duke.