#4 - Powerup Player
- Steve Kerber
- Sep 2, 2025
- 2 min read
I knew that I wanted to differentiate from others in the genre, and my idea at first was lean into my strengths, the art.
So, I set out to put together a system for when the player collects a powerup- a bunch of stuff happens for them:
1. they get some kind of improved mechanic or stat upgrade
2. the in-game player art changes to reflect the item
3. the pause screen now displays some stuff about that item, 3 slots max (legs, body, head)
a "dress-up" image of the player with sprites layered on top, for each item they have collected
a description of the item and brief text about its effects
a repeat of the sprite for that item which was found in the world
display the stats of the player which are impacted by the item, if any
Like this:
All of this is similar to Binding of Isaac, I know, but my hope is that the items are bit more precious since you only get three.
It's so fun to come up with new ideas for powerups! Here's a glimpse of my bulletin board of ideas:
The actual mechanics however... I'm still working thru a lot of them.
For example, I have items that increase the player's speed or HP or amount of damage done- great, easy enough and fun. But this one from the image above, bean-filled toy - I wanted it to be like a grenade that explodes projectiles in all directions (like sad bombs from Isaac).. Not so easy to make that happen. Though eventually I got it to work, it took me like over a week.
My events here:
