Game idea
Had this idea in the car while driving earlier, want to jot it down while it's fresh in my head.
It's vaguely similar to Ikaruga, in that you can switch your ship's color and not be hurt by things of the same color.
But instead of being a shield to the matching color, you have four modes.
You have two collectors -- a positive collector and a negative collector. Only one collector can be active at a time, and they take time to warm up and cool down. When the collector is fully powered, it will draw in like-colored energy within a certain radius of your ship. A collector drains power while active; gathering like-colored energy recharges the ship. Unlike-colored energy is neither attracted nor repelled by the collector, but colliding with it drains energy and damages the hull.
When neither collector is at full power, the ship automatically and instantly raises a shield. This shield is a neutral state. Colliding with either color of energy drains the ship's energy, but less than colliding with the wrong color with a collector open, and doesn't deal damage to the hull.
If the shield is down, colliding with either color of energy in this state directly damages the hull. The ship automatically lowers the shield if the ship's energy drops below a certain threshold, or the player can explicitly lower the shield to conserve energy. (The reason for the threshold existing is to prevent the player from winding up in a no-win situation by being unable to deploy a collector.)
A few other ideas have gone through my head in relation to this. One was to have the ship's thrusters drain energy; I don't know if this would work out or not. Another was a set of powerups that would speed up the charge and cooldown of the collectors.
It's vaguely similar to Ikaruga, in that you can switch your ship's color and not be hurt by things of the same color.
But instead of being a shield to the matching color, you have four modes.
You have two collectors -- a positive collector and a negative collector. Only one collector can be active at a time, and they take time to warm up and cool down. When the collector is fully powered, it will draw in like-colored energy within a certain radius of your ship. A collector drains power while active; gathering like-colored energy recharges the ship. Unlike-colored energy is neither attracted nor repelled by the collector, but colliding with it drains energy and damages the hull.
When neither collector is at full power, the ship automatically and instantly raises a shield. This shield is a neutral state. Colliding with either color of energy drains the ship's energy, but less than colliding with the wrong color with a collector open, and doesn't deal damage to the hull.
If the shield is down, colliding with either color of energy in this state directly damages the hull. The ship automatically lowers the shield if the ship's energy drops below a certain threshold, or the player can explicitly lower the shield to conserve energy. (The reason for the threshold existing is to prevent the player from winding up in a no-win situation by being unable to deploy a collector.)
A few other ideas have gone through my head in relation to this. One was to have the ship's thrusters drain energy; I don't know if this would work out or not. Another was a set of powerups that would speed up the charge and cooldown of the collectors.