Game Dev Bits and Bobs

Okay so we've vaguely agreed on a working title, for now it shall be referred to as "Dwarf Story" until further notice. Progress is hindered by general lethargy and procrastination, but that's all in the experience of being a game developer I suppose (here's looking at you, Gabe). Rather than actually making the game, we spend a lot of time brainstorming ideas, which is probably a good thing, I'd rather have all the ideas sorted and planned before we dove in head-first, to save work shoving it in later.

So far we've come up with a few things:

• Shoes: Work like items in the zelda games. Select your shoes and overcome specific obstacles. e.g winged sandals á la Hermes which would let you fly a short distance to overcome obstacles. Using the right shoes in the right places could help you find some SECRET SHIT. 
• Momentum: The game focuses on the physics of your character, if you hit a spiked enemy when your momentum is huge, then chances are you're going to get a full on spike facial, and die. It works to your favour too, where jumps can be made and walls can be broken using higher momentum. Jumping works differently from a game like say, Super Meat Boy, where you have a lot of aerial control. In Dwarf Story you will have to time and calculate your jump before actually making it, as you have little control after you leave the ground.
• HATS: Self explanatory. Bought from merchants, or unlocked.
• Attacks: We figured giving the dwarf an attack that easily killed things would stop you using momentum to kill things, and instead just smack them or something. So your character doesn't actually have any weapons, just a shield. He can do a few things with the shield; slide on it like snow/surfboard, ram it into enemies for a weakish bunp, or smack it into the ground for an emergency brake.
• Story: Storywise we don't have a massive amount to say yet, this will probably come after getting everything else sorted, then we can change the story to suit our ideas, rather than change our ideas to suit the story. 
• Setting: The setting will be a sort of fantasy world of course, with a few standard fantasy races, but with a few twists to make them a little different from the clichés everyone is used to. One idea I love is that gnomes are tiny, even smaller than normally portrayed, and if you're running relatively quick, you just stomp through them, splattering blood all over the place.
• Format:  Levels will be spread over about 10 hub zones, each with a different theme, also clichéd but with little twists. We haven't gone into too much detail about this, but I can see something like 5 levels per hub zone, possibly with bonus/secret levels dotted around. The levels will be of moderate length and difficulty, with difficulty increasing as the game goes on. A few levels will be in a different format, like a downhill level where you snowboard using your shield. 

I've probably missed a few things that we thought of, but this is all I could think of off the top of my head. It'll do for now, and I can forget some of this stuff, and just remember to come to this post for reference.

As a bonus I have included a page of sketches with rough ideas for some hub zones. These are of course, subject to change.