(the main thing that that set lacks is something that's efficient at doing damage, but I guess if they're all equally inefficient then I guess that's balance betwixt the weapons)
Enemy ideas which I have had:
* Previously mentioned environmental hazards. Certainly big ol' lakes are a good thing to have.
* Spikes. You could walk through these (maybe?) but certainly not fall on them. Umbrella wouldn't be able to shield you.
* Water enemies which rob you of breath rather than health (or maybe both).
* Things that breathe/are made of fire.
* Invulnerable enemies
* Enemies that explode when they die/when they feel like it
* Enemies that eat ropes/umbrellas/other fabric.
Ofc, none of these really fit our criterion of working interestingly together, only that of (maybe) working interestingly with the weapons that you're given.
I dunno. Enemies are hard.
Enemy ideas which I have had:
* Previously mentioned environmental hazards. Certainly big ol' lakes are a good thing to have.
* Spikes. You could walk through these (maybe?) but certainly not fall on them. Umbrella wouldn't be able to shield you.
* Water enemies which rob you of breath rather than health (or maybe both).
* Things that breathe/are made of fire.
* Invulnerable enemies
* Enemies that explode when they die/when they feel like it
* Enemies that eat ropes/umbrellas/other fabric.
Ofc, none of these really fit our criterion of working interestingly together, only that of (maybe) working interestingly with the weapons that you're given.
I dunno. Enemies are hard.
* Grappling Hook - Slow, fires in an arc, does big damages, and can attach to things. Has a rope trailing it which you can climb (maybe even hold onto as you throw?).
* Block Gun - Medium speed, fires in straight lines, does damage based on relative speed. You can ride on the blocks and use them to push enemies or to flip switches. Gravity probably doesn't apply to the blocks. They shatter once they hit walls. Maybe grappleable.
* Parasol - Firing toggles between openmode and closemode. When open, it increases air friction and can act as a shield against some enemies. When closed, it can be used to bash things. Perhaps when open it drags behind the player while other weapons are being used. It is a mystery to me why anyone would ever have it in closed mode.
* Ricochet gun - Fires a bullet that bounces once. It'd be like a pistol but with more interesting properties.
* Stake gun - Like the block gun, but fires stakes instead of blocks of matter. These probably would move quite quickly, would stick in to walls, and would do pretty good damage. Impossible to ride upwards, unless you wanted to get hurt. (Obviously one of this or the block gun would be used, not both).
* Wind gun - Doesn't do damage, but applies velocity in a cone. This could probably be used to make the self levitate or to propel oneself while wielding the parasol, but then it could become OP.
* Blunderbuss/shotgun - Exactly what it sounds like. Would have crazy knockback and severely limited ammo.
The main concern I have with these is that (with the first two at least) it seems like pretty much everywhere could be accessed at once. My initial idea for fixing this is to have environmental hazards of some sort which would diminish or change the usefulness of each weapon. The parasol, for instance, would be way harder to use underwater, and the grappling hook would be harder to use if there were walls which hurt you if you hit them. And most of the weapons would probably crumble when hit with fire. There would then be upgrades for each weapon that would help get around some hazards (a steel umbrella wouldn't burn up) but perhaps these upgrades could have negative effects too (a steel umbrella would suck at making air resistance). I'm not sure I'm even 100% for the idea of bracketing progression, but this could be a way to do so if that's what we wanted.
Also I just had the idea that a closed parasol could decrease air friction in the direction it's pointed, and that you could fall onto people while holding it to do some nice damage. Iunno though.
Alsolso, I think that Grappling Hook, Block Gun, Parasol, and Wind Gun would be a cool set of weapons. You probably have other ideas for weapons though, but I don't know them yet.