And the costumes are done! I might need to tweak the Penguin a little, but he's pretty fun.
The Snowman Costume - In the lower right image, you see that he throws snowballs. In the main image, you can see what his snowballs do. I just love the ice-cube-on-a-string effect of the frozen spiders! If you look closely, you can see that the lower block is a frozen frog. Guys stay frozen for 8 seconds, so it is possible to use them as a ladder to get places, but it's never too easy!
The Snowman's other feature is directly above the snowball picture. He can melt on command (aka "duck"), rendering him immune to bullets until he unmelts. Originally I had it just make his hit area smaller accordingly, but it turns out that Deadly Trees fire their shots at a really low altitude, and I decided it just made sense (not from a logic perspective) to make you simply unhittable when melted. Well, by bullets - enemies will still hit you with direct contact. If you jump straight from a melt (push down-up), you go 3 blocks high instead of 2.
The last bonus the Snowman has is that he doesn't slip on ice. That's very nice, although it prevents him from doing long jumps like everyone else can on ice.
The Penguin Costume - Out of the water, the penguin is slow (Kid speed). His jump is so short it doesn't even reach up an entire block. But don't fear, this isn't Santa all over again - he can air jump twice (or "flap his wings" as one might call it), for a total jump height equal to Frank's (two blocks). This isn't just an annoying way of jumping, though! It also gives him a unique capability. When airborne, he moves fast, so he can leap across really wide gaps that not even the Vampire could cross, since the Vampire always descends as he glides.
But of course, the real power of the Penguin is in water. In the water, he never stops moving, zipping along at high speed leaving a lovely trail of bubbles. He also doesn't need oxygen for some reason (gills). You can hit the button to Torpedo Dash and smash into enemies. It also smashes Crumbly Bricks and Blast Bricks, and even pushes crates. You can move any direction in the water, and he spins around smoothly. It's fun to control, but if there are spikes around, you could be in grave danger. The most fun thing is to Torpedo Dash out of the water for effect. You can go about 10 blocks up doing that, and you still have 3 wing flaps available once you get up there, to settle yourself onto something. You really need large water spaces to accomodate the Penguin's zippy movement, so that could be interesting.
All in all, these guys are fun! Unfortunately, I now need to invent some badguys, and having made a Penguin costume, I'm really questioning the idea of having Pengulons as badguys.
