nasty pole?
Out. There will not be nasty poles in the game. Neither the countrymen, geographical locations nor round long objects.
Clonk Rage is fun... 'ish'. Way too much keypressing/micro and really weird keys as well (What's wrong with wasd?!). Thanks for the tip, though, it has some fun dynamics. But you see: it has physics, a lot of it, even, and it's the physics that make it fun. Now a top-down game doesn't have all that nasty "gravity" stuff... and weird collision shapes...
This is the plan: Either Isometric or TopDown. Harder for you, easier for me. Top down is easier for us both but just doesn't look awesome enough
I'll probably implement both views to see what works and how hard it'll prove to be.
This is the story you'll be changing (as in: every part can and should be altered, this is the framework for now):
You are an astroknight leading a group of your underlings through space. You get a distress call from PR.inz-S, an AI who is now forced to crack passwords for an evil spacedragon and his minions.
You land on the asteroid they're on, but the dragon easily repels you. You and your companions decide to dig right through the asteroid, through the center, and reach the AI from that direction.
Every "level" only has a few places where the rock is stable enough to dig a stairway down: your job is to find that rock and get to the next level.
In the meanwhile you can dig up ores and gems and stuff to craft... useful stuff... or something.
You can encounter caves, where underground skilltrees grow, and ancient asteroidmonsters dwell.
Other stuff happens...
As you get closer to the Dragon's lair, you'll encounter his minions more and more frequently.
Surprise: At the start you can choose from the cast of characters which will be the AstroKnight, and who will accompany you as NPC's. These NPC's (and AstroKnight himself) will all be based on you guys, their portraits will be your forum avatars. Once we determine what kinds of stats we'll have, you get to determine backgroundstory, sprite and stats for your character.
Now to make the first tech demo.