[Game] Ideas & improvements (Jak 1)

[ManDude]

I'll be compiling a list of any ideas & improvements we can make to the game in this issue. Really, any idea can go even if it's really unfeasible or complex to achieve. You can add comments with your own ideas & suggestions.

Personally I'm looking for changes that don't affect direct gameplay, OR affect it strictly beneficially (e.g. fixing crashes and things like that). Anything else (audio-visually, under-the-hood technical details, etc.) is fine.

Accessibility & i18n

• [x] Subtitles toggle. The latter games have this. Same as those, press square during cutscenes or toggle in options menu.
  • [x] Subtitles language option. We likely won't have subtitles for all the six languages already in the game anyway.
  • [x] Subtitles for non-cutscene dialogue. (Yeah I know Daxter has like hours of this type of audio)
• [x] Custom language support. Allow users to supply their own audio and text files for their language and extra language options in the options menu.
• [x] Make orbs easier to see. There's an unused group-money-starbust part group for this.
• [x] Camera invert toggle (for the weirdos).

Audiovisual

• [x] The obvious - get rid of console-specific features that we won't/can't use:
  • [x] CRT offset adjust.
  • [x] Display mode (default to 60Hz).
• [x] "PS2 version" toggles
  • [x] PS2 mipmapping toggle.
  • [x] PS2 LOD toggle.
  • [x] PS2 fog toggle if you're feeling adventurous.
• [x] Custom resolutions.
• [x] REAL aspect ratios maybe. The visibility data will make this difficult to achieve properly, and I'd rather not actually have to change how that works very much since some object timing could change as a result. Might work as a toggle.
  • [x] At least support custom "fake" aspect ratios?
• [x] More framerates.
• [x] Render distance settings. Highest would have very far away fog and high LODs, lowest would just be PS2 tier. Hopefully not necessary.
• [ ] Replace low-poly level meshes with high-poly meshes.
• [ ] Fix audio mixing. Jak 1 isn't winning any sound mixing awards and that could definitely be improved a little. Klaww fight would be a pretty decent place to mess with this.
• [ ] "Improved" music quality toggle. Replaces the base music channels with their preconsole mixes. This can sound wildly different at times which is why it'd be best implemented as toggleable.
• [x] Music fade-in toggle, because I'm picky.

Technical

• [x] Enable/disable autosave option.
• [ ] More save slots.
• [ ] Delete save slots.
• [ ] Fix crashes. Nobody wants their game to crash, after all.
  • [x] Warp gate crashes.
  • [ ] DMA memory exhausting(?) - will likely be "automatically" fixed anyway.
  • [x] Don't play citadel sage cutscene if green sage is already freed.
  • [ ] Not a crash, but fix stalemate if auto-save text message appears while in the options menu.
• [ ] Add more audio channels. The PS2 has 48.
• [ ] Random bugs.
  • [ ] Unpause sfx is not affected by any volume settings.
  • [ ] Wrong particles are spawned sometimes.
  • [x] Dead Man's Gorge softlock. This one's documented on NDI's website!
  • [x] HUD text size is too small in 16x9. 16x9 fixes in general.
  • [ ] "MARKET RESEARCH" credits title not colored.
  • [ ] Pelican cell softlock.
  • [ ] Pipe game buzzer cell softlock.
  • [ ] Null art errors on particle spawners.
• [x] Always wait a bit when entering warp gates. The game starts loading the target level before Jak even enters the portal, and the port would be able to load things so fast this would look downright jarring. So we just adjust the warp gates (except for citadel's!!) to wait a couple seconds before loading the 2nd level.

Extra

• [x] Select pause. Later games have this.
• [ ] Toggleable HUD or pause map for current area. Could just be some very rough top-down (or bottom-up) pre-render of the current chunk.
• [ ] World map. There's some nice promo material for this, too.
• [x] Music player. Should have all of the music tracks & mixes (including unused ones), unlocked as the player finds them, and unlock them all when game is beaten? Could also just add in a cheat code that unlocks all of them, or just have them all unlocked at the start (not as cool though). This would be useful for getting proper recordings.
• [ ] Current level orb counter. Press L3 or something to show the orb count and swap it from total orbs to level orbs (i.e. 129/150). Guarantee you the HUD already breaks some stuff so this should be rigorously tested.
• [ ] Total flies counter. Same as orbs, but the other way around!
• [ ] ~~Endless fish minigame.~~ This one aged poorly. Make it more noticeable instead.
• [ ] Endless rats minigame.
• [ ] In-game timers.
• [ ] "Blackout" mode. We can mess with mood to wildly alter the atmosphere of the game, and it can have some pretty cool results.
• [ ] Demo playback.
• [x] More cheats. I already have a few in mind.
• [ ] Built-in mods:
  • [ ] Low fric
  • [ ] Low grav
  • [ ] Cell randomizer
  • [ ] Hyperspeed
  • [ ] Dwarf
  • [ ] Horde

Debugging

• [x] More options. There are debug features in the game that even the full debug menu doesn't have options for.
  • [x] Make some of the options not crash the game...
• [x] Make the debug editors work. There's a few data editors in the game that are inaccessible or don't work very well (camera editor).
• [x] Better freecam controls, such as adjusting speed.
• [x] Anything we can think of that we want to debug!

[water111]

Here's some random ideas I had:

• [ ] Improve the depth-cue effect. It looks bad in PCSX2 at higher resolutions and they changed it for Jak 2 and later to have less of an effect. Maybe it can just be replaced with anti-aliasing.
• [ ] Option to skip cutscenes
• [ ] Some way to replace textures
• [ ] Improved environment mapping. The PS2 didn't have fragment shaders so they could not calculate reflection per pixel, like you would in a fragment shader. Instead it is computed at the corners of the triangle and interpolated which is slightly wrong and will look bad at higher resolutions.
• [ ] Save states. I think we could save the entire EE memory plus all the state in the runtime and restore from this.
• [ ] Collect statistics, like total distance traveled, number of jumps, etc.

[ManDude]

• [ ] PS2 loading speed toggle.

[doctashay]

Here's a few more ideas, not sure how practical they might be:

• [ ] Implement the graphics backend with multiple renderer options. OpenGL is a great start, Vulkan/DX might be a good addition later on.
• [x] This plays into the idea of custom resolutions, but making a "resizable windowed mode" would be great. DirectX has great compatibility with Windows Desktop Composition and should be fairly easy to setup the game outside of a fullscreen context.
• [ ] Some way to replace music tracks or play the soundtrack from a different Jak game if the files are provided.
• [x] Mouse & keyboard bindings with a corresponding menu to configure movements on a per-key basis. Can also be coupled with a "developer console" to quickly access certain debug features.
• [ ] Level boundary rework so all levels/regions will load at once. This may not work in Jak 2/3 due to region overlapping.
• [ ] Create a mod loader where features or addons can be patched and toggled on the fly. This can be used for many features that we may want to keep "toggleable", such as the "PS2 version" equivalents for LOD, mipmapping, etc. This may also encourage the development of community-made content for people who may not be as familiar with the project.
• [ ] A JakSpeedruns "addon" that verifies CRC and various other parts of the game data/executable. This may help the community embrace PC runs without the issue of running a non-vanilla copy. There may be other utilities we can add to help speedrunners/TASers

[LuminarLight]

I have yet to make any direct contributions to this project, but I know some things about these game. So I will comment on some of the ideas mentioned previously (extra info could be useful for contributors who are less familiar with the Jak games). And please let me know if I misunderstood something, or got something wrong.

---

REAL aspect ratios maybe. The visibility data will make this difficult to achieve properly, and I'd rather not actually have to change how that works very much since some object timing could change as a result. Might work as a toggle.

If I recall correctly, the PS3 version of the game(s) ignores the visibility data, or at least some of it (the game was probably running fine enough without it on PS3). I guess performance would stay fine even if the visibility data was ignored in this project?

Select pause. Later games have this.

It may be known to you, but this is already possible when game is in Debug Mode, so adding this would be very easy. This is worth mentioning, since not everyone is aware that it is usable in Debug Mode.

Option to skip cutscenes

I am sure you are aware that Debug Mode makes this possible, but it can sometimes break task progression (maybe some tasks are set when the cutscene finishes, and skipping also skips this). I doubt it would be hard to fix this issue.

Collect statistics, like total distance traveled, number of jumps, etc.

It is interesting that the game already collects some statistics, though they aren't used anywhere afaik.

Level boundary rework so all levels/regions will load at once. This may not work in Jak 2/3 due to region overlapping.

There is level overlapping even in TPL. The most obvious issue is that many levels contain lowres models of other levels. Bigger issue is that levels' main areas can overlap each other (Boggy Swamp is slightly overlapping another nearby level, if I recall correctly). I think this idea could be implemented as a kind of overhaul mod, which edits all the levels that need editing and makes the game load all of them at once.

A JakSpeedruns "addon" that verifies CRC and various other parts of the game data/executable. This may help the community embrace PC runs without the issue of running a non-vanilla copy. There may be other utilities we can add to help speedrunners/TASers

Speedrunning is not the only thing that could benefit from this. Also I feel like I need to mention that even just audio replacements can have an impact on gameplay, so those must also be verified somehow.

---

And now here are some ideas of mine:

• [ ] Hardcore mode. Similar to hardcore mode of other games, the game ends when you die, having to restart from the beginning of the game. This could be a fun challenge for veteran players. Maybe even a harder hardcore mode could be added, that makes it so that Jak only has 1 health (max health limited to 1) and game ends when he dies. The CRC verification system could be used for this, to make sure that no mods are used in hardcore mode.
• [ ] A working ingame model viewer. Similar to Jak 3's model viewer, but better. Maybe even allow changing the animation that is playing on the model.
• [x] Add submenu into debug menu that allows controlling which levels are loaded (+display commands and stuff like that). This project will remove the 2 level limit I think, so it would be safe to load any combination of levels with this menu.
• [ ] A way to allow other processes to communicate with the game. I think it is called inter-process communication (IPC)? Anyway this would be useful to me.
• [ ] Challenges. Basically people can (or will be able to in the future) make levels as DGO packages, you put this into a folder, and the game will see it. These levels should not be connected to the normal ingame world, they should be their own independent challenges. A challenge can have multiple levels in it, the author just has to connect them in some way. These can be parkour levels, arenas, or literally anything.
• [ ] Challenges that are connected to ingame world. These are supposed to make the normal ingame world more challenging. For example a random enemy spawns on top of you in a specific interval. Or a random projectile is shot towards you. The possibilities are endless.

[ManDude]

• [ ] Art gallery, for concept art (e.g. Zembillas's art), and other publicly posted pieces.

[ManDude]

• [ ] Movie player

[ManDude]

• [ ] Improved shadow volumes.

[ManDude]

• [ ] Cheat code to make Daxter blue.

[ruhphorte]

Creating seeds or hashes for texture corruptions so we can activate them in the future at will.

EX: Texture corruption that made all the water green - https://youtu.be/v3Hb71IsywE?t=879

[doctashay]

• [ ] Some sort of OpenGOAL easter egg hidden in a texture, cutscene, or the end credits

[Zedb0T]

Kuitar — Yesterday at 2:26 PM I don't have a github account so I'll post here In-game :

• [ ] Replay/demo systeme both to record normal gameplay but also with TAS capacities
• [ ] Deep debug/cheats features for glitch hunting/strat hunting
• [ ] Quick game reset (for speedrunning)
• [ ] Ingame timer (for speedrunning)
• [ ] loads of small modifications for fun challenges (hardcore/low frictions/some kind of randomizers/

Tools :

• [ ] Map editor (most likely through blender)
• [ ] Assets exporter (you can mostly do that for 3D models but iirc that didn't have texture yet)
• [ ] Assets importer (easy way to change textures/models/audio without having to specifically go through the map editor)
• [ ] Advanced launcher to turn on/off mods, debug features, graphic settings, browser for mods/levels (bit like the skyrim mod organizer https://i.imgur.com/3QFANWR.png )

Mods : (lot of small ideas to create fun gameplay)

• [ ] Hardcore mode (I saw it was already mentioned but that's a pretty obvious one tbh)
• [ ] Low Friction (maybe ice physics everywhere with much more acceleration/max speed/etc)
• [ ] Low gravity
• [ ] Cell order randomizer (same as the idea from the speedrun discord but built in so that you actually can only grab that specific cell)
• [ ] Other kind of randomizer (Random enemies/entities switched around/box content)
• [ ] Sonic mod (Each orb gives you like .2% of extra speed)
• [ ] dwarf mod (Jak's half size and so is his speed/moves)
• [ ] Horde mode (waves of enemies that get harder over time)

Dream features :

• [ ] Multiplayer 🥺

https://discord.com/channels/756287461377703987/801612566874554399/946850810657124383

[Zedb0T]

This here will be my personal list and I will keep it updated. I can't add much at the moment due to time constraints but my memory sucks so I will start now.

• [ ] If Gol is defeated on a save file, replace ottsel Daxter's model with human Daxter (maybe require 100%?? I would just say beaten but maybe another requirement would be neat) This could be a cool Easter egg and differentiate the game a bit from Original. Human Daxter on Jaks Shoulder

• [x] Some way for REPL to take in external input easily. (maybe possible already with AHK?)

• [ ] Menu inside of the main menu to toggle skipping selected cutscenes during gameplay.

• [ ] Toggle option for messed up textures. Bad Vis/Texture corruption/ dark glitch/line glitch. Of these Texture corruptions and dark glitch are the most interesting

(Visual warning) Dark glitch: https://youtu.be/4mQsLm2c53A Texture corruption https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y99EIPZ1vE

An ini file to enable/disable a glitch checker (disabled by default)

This glitch checker would run code like this every frame:

;;This checks to see if the *load-state* is currently misty island, it also checks if Jak is currently not in misty island and if he is not currently watching a cutscene.
;;If all of this conditions are met then you would be able to preform an idle deload ((restore-load-state-and-cleanup *load-state*)) and end up on misty island without completing jungle-fish
(if
  (and 
   (string= (symbol->string (-> *backup-load-state* vis-nick))"mis")
    (not 
      (string= (symbol->string (-> (level-get-target-inside *level*) name))"misty"))
    (not 
      (logtest? (-> *kernel-context* prevent-from-run) (process-mask movie))))
    ((sound-play-by-name (static-sound-name "ldoor-open") (new-sound-id) 1024 0 0 1 #t))
)

and alert the user/display a dialog box if they met certain conditions to pull off any unknown timesaves

Maybe have things like this run on all installations of goal, however I am not sure how intensive that would be etc.

Will edit more ideas as they come to me.

[Margen67]

• [ ] Cheat that lets you kill all NPCs including friendly ones (Samos, Keira, Fisherman, etc.)

[ManDude]

You monster. Btw can you be more specific with that? Which NPCSs would you want dead?

[Margen67]

You monster. Btw can you be more specific with that? Which NPCSs would you want dead?

NPCs you normally can't kill. (Samos, Keira, Fisherman, etc.)

[Margen67]

• [ ] Cheat to use weapons from Jak 2/3

[Aloqas]

• [ ] very minor, but moving the area title cards to the top of the screen so they don't cover the gameplay being displayed over Jak

[slipperytetra]

A hack that lets you play as other character models I.e Keira

[ruhphorte]

Togglable in-game timer, similar to what they have in Super Mario Sunshine

[Zedb0T]

yopie has something close to this https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/952435768989745203/976513137253683340/Untitled_1.mp4

[sebastian926]

Something that I would have always liked is that the game time would not change every... I don't know, more or less 10 minutes? An option to roughly adjust the day and night cycle, and why not one to put it in real time according to the PC clock would be cool. It would also be nice if with cheats you can change the weather of the game and put rain naturally in more scenarios as something that happens randomly. It would only be something personal, I don't know if is a good idea.

[Zedb0T]

Check to see if "emulator" or "emulators" is in the file path for an opengoal installation, and if it is make goal not function.

[Mann-Nova]

Some of my ideas:

• [ ] Swappable Physics Cheat (kind of mentioned above with low gravity and low traction), so you can have Jak II's double jump/high jump for example
• [ ] Vehicle Spawn Cheat, like being able to spawn the Flut Flut or Zoomer outside of intended areas (without crashing🤓)
• [ ] Manual Checkpoints, freecam already makes a checkpoint when you exit it, but it's usually overwritten by nearby checkpoints
• [ ] Selectable Eco Cheat, to function like a powerup (or the Morph Gun in later games) where you could use the d-pad to give yourself an Eco powerup... this could maybe be turned into an optional way to play the game by making it so Eco vents and clusters just fill up a meter (like Eco in Jak 3) that you can then expend whenever you'd like
• [ ] Playable Daxter, similar to the Dwarf cheat mentioned above I suppose, but with Daxter's animations and unique tail attack

[Foas]

The ability to change the monitor the game is displaying to would be nice. For example, when playing on a TV you'd have to change it to the primary display inside the OS settings to get the game to display there. I've seen other games with a setting like this and I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes plays on a screen different from their main display.

[The-King-of-Toasters]

• [ ] A field of view slider to back up the camera, as I find it a bit too tight.
• [ ] A new centered camera with vertical tilt adjustment. Right now it's hard to see ledges below Jak without using first-person mode. I don't expect this to happen, but if it does I recommend looking at the "puppycam" camera patch for the Super Mario 64 decomp. ports.

[EdamameTV]

• [ ] Easter Egg: After rescuing the muse from Misty Island, and 100% the game, going back to the muse could have him show a statue in the hut of Jak & Daxter (should be possible if able to change the model of the rock)

[daninthemix]

Could you just add a Cheats menu within the main game itself, not require debug mode or the button combos of the PS2 version? Have toggles for:

• Invincible
• Infinite Double Jumps

Etc. Would be fun.

[towai]

I only have a few ideas but I'll probably add more to this comment once I think of anything else

Improvements:

• [ ] Precursor Basin: Record the player's best time for purple/blue rings and have a toggleable feature to have them still spawn even if you've beaten them once (or maybe just turn it on after beating the game?) Would have to make it not do the cell spawn cutscene, but failing that we know that collecting a cell twice doesn't increment your cell count further.
• [ ] Record IL's for Geyser, FC, Mountain Pass and Lava Tube
• [ ] Have something in the progress menu for viewing your IL's
• [ ] Demo playback?? Dear god this would probably be a nightmare to try to implement

EDIT: Wow I can't believe I didn't think of this at the time:

• [ ] Re-implement the removed "crouched spin kick"

Fixes:

• [ ] Fix the dirigible being present in low-poly vistas even when the related task is completed. e.g. the view from snowy:

Additional cheat/debug stuff. E.g:

• [ ] Add a function to the orb progress screen that gives you all the orbs in the currently selected level, chiefly to make it easier to test orb resolution cutscenes. As it stands, pressing L1+R1 while looking at a level's orb count just gives you the power cell that you happened to have highlighted when you left the power cell progress menu.

[ManDude]

Could you just add a Cheats menu within the main game itself, not require debug mode or the button combos of the PS2 version?

I could if people have a little patience. :-)

[daninthemix]

Could you just add a Cheats menu within the main game itself, not require debug mode or the button combos of the PS2 version?

I could if people have a little patience. :-)

And infiinite jumps too? :o)

[ZornTaov]

Surprised nobody has suggested this, but:

• [ ] Implement the PSN Trophies. https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/6498-jak-and-daxter-the-precursor-legacy
• [ ] Implement a screen to view list of Trophies and which ones have been received, and show the descriptions to each trophy when selected.

[yodika]

Here is a few idea's it depends really I might add more soon:

• [ ] Reformat whole program code to be more sorted through an intergraded system
• [ ] The intergraded system would be a port of ps2 system probably or even just a full dump and rework, if possible and and volunteers or interested they can also direct hook the ps2 to pc for debugging mode which would complete full transition of intergrading the system for fully optimisation and accessibility
• [ ] The system would be very fast and easy to mod and change as the current rebuild is probably too slow and if this was done successfully, it could be a much needed solution.
• [ ] The input and output ratio be in a flux/dynamic for transfer of files and other components.

Oh here is simplified text of this if it's easier to read:

Reformat whole program code to be more sorted through an intergraded system. The intergraded system would be a port of ps2 system probably or even just a full dump and rework, if possible and volunteers or interested they can also direct hook the ps2 to pc for debating which mode. which would be completedful of transitional and possiblity of slow and possibly changing too And if this was done successfully, it could be a much needed solution. The input and output will be in a - precedent for transfering files and other things.

• [ ] older game build adaptions
• [ ] character animation combining for faster movement and more fluid control
• [ ] trigger tester
• [ ] sound tester
• [ ] story script viewer
• [ ] story script connecter
• [ ] layer rendering mesh for compoents blurring and smudging, for a sharper look and more detailed information and possible lead for new textures
• [ ] multiplayer instance/client
• [ ] code loop viewer for failure code that does not trigger and isnt not used, extra code that was from previous builds and archived mechanics etc.
• [ ] archived data interpreter and connecter
• [ ] code snippets for faster debug cheats and edits
• [ ] website/pastebin with codes to be used for modding jak tpl
• [ ] tutorial and guide for jak tpl open goal client and settings within map and menus.
• [ ] voice recorded tutorials
• [ ] templates for both code and level design.

[yodika]

New idea:

• [ ] add glitch for jak 3 and ratchet clank 3 combination from ps2 disc swap, with blue matrix screen with continue with circle button with jak 3 music playing the background

[doctashay]

You can just edit your previous message with new ideas instead of making a new post.

[yodika]

Oh didn't know that, does it shoe notifications on discord if it's been updated as well? Or just when posting a new one?

[towai]

i already have a post in here, but as an accessibility thing this is something that i'd really like to see in the game sooner than "nice stuff" like speedrun timers and such, so i think it stands on its own:

• [ ] Have a black backing for subtitles, of user-configurable opacity. This would improve readability considerably for some scenarios. I tried drawing boxes to the screen (based on the profiler code) for a start a while ago, but I didn't understand debug drawing even the little I do now so I couldn't hack it. I think I saw some GOAL code for getting the visual width of a string when I was poking around, so this should be possible?

i think i'll put anything i come up with further that has to do with accessibility in this one.

[Niickeriino]

• [ ] Quit to desktop option from ingame menu, not just main menu

[ZornTaov]

Quit to desktop option from ingame menu, not just main menu

Definitely this, since the ND opening cutscene is unskippable.

[yodika]

• [ ] Quit to desktop option from ingame menu, not just main menu

That would be very nice!

[Zedb0T]

Quit to desktop option from ingame menu, not just main menu

Definitely this, since the ND opening cutscene is unskippable.

You can skip the ND opening cutscene

[Computerfan23]

So i have suggestions for accessibility features. Since i am a visually impaired gamer, this is important. I will try to list some features. First, having the option to have a screen reader be able to read menu options and other text. If possible, have a way to tell us which direction we are facing like a heading. This could be done via text to speech or by having a sound tell us. Next, it is important for blind and visually impaired players like me to have some indication where actors are like npc, ledges, platforms and climbable surfaces are. This could be indicated by having specific sounds or other indicator. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for us to navigate. We need to know where enemies and objects are. If we have no indicator for those, we will have a hard time to progress. Some way to know where walls are would also be a good way for us to navigate. Those are a start for some accessible features that could make playing this easier for visually impaired and blind players.

[dallmeyer]

For Jak 2/3 - toggle for minimap always oriented north, instead of following the direction Jak's facing

[Poldovico]

How about falling back to English when a string is missing in a different language? EDIT: Meaning for menu text, subtitles, kind of all the text?

[ManDude]

Confusing, and a bit of a hassle to set up right now. Not very useful either, since in the end all languages have to be completely filled anyway.

[SirYodaJedi]

A couple of QoL enhancements for the camera control:

• [ ] Center Camera - press a button (such as R3) to attempt to reset the camera behind Jak's back. The camera would quickly swivel in the closest possible route to behind him. Most debugging would probably involve how the camera handles walls and routes that it isn't allowed to go.
• [ ] First Person from Character Orientation - toggleable option in camera settings to start first-person view from the direction the character is facing, rather than the direction the camera is facing. This is how Mario and Zelda handle it, so I'm probably not alone in finding it more intuitive than vanilla J+D.

[InicusQvist]

• [ ] Full mouse support for all menus (main menu, pause menu, etc).
• [ ] Analogue stick support for all menus (i.e., I can flick the stick up or down, or left or right to change selection).
• [ ] A quicker menu cycle, such that if I boot up the game, or I quit my currently-active game to go back to the main menu, it can be super quick to go straight to that main menu. In practice, this would just mean that not only is the Naughty Dog logo skippable, but also you can press start (or any key) to immediately open the main menu, and you don't have to wait for the black background behind "Jak & Daxter" to disappear to show Sandover Village and "Press Start" before you can open the main menu.
• [ ] Furthermore, I think a nicer main main would not "pause" the flyover of Sandover Village and bring in the UI clutter around the edges of the screen just to show the main menu, but would just continue the flyover animation seamlessly while the main menu appears and operates over the top of that nice clear view of Sandover Village.
• [ ] Unlimited save slots.
• [ ] A fully-featured key-binding and axis-binding controls menu in the options, which allows you to change any of the controls and assign them to any button on a keyboard or gamepad, or any axis on an analogue stick or mouse. This entails implementing a conventional mouselook system and sensitivity sliders for all axes.
• [ ] Of these bindable controls, there should be full camera controls. By that, I mean the addition of an actual vertical (pitch) axis to the third person camera controls, for looking up and down while in third person. The current "vertical" control is actually just a zoom control for moving the camera closer or further away. That should still be a control, but there should be the option to bind it to some other axis or button so that we can have a proper, conventional vertical "pitch" camera control bound to the vertical axis of the thumbstick and/or mouse.
• [ ] When the camera swoops into a "locked" preset location and orientation (such as when you walk into a villager's house), it would be a nice touch if you could still turn the camera slightly, within certain limits, to glance left, right, up, or down a little bit with your analogue stick to look around that person's house, and when you let go of the analogue stick the camera would rotate back to its preset orientation.

[SirYodaJedi]

• [ ] When the camera swoops into a "locked" preset location and orientation (such as when you walk into a villager's house), it would be a nice touch if you could still turn the camera slightly, within certain limits, to glance left, right, up, or down a little bit with your analogue stick to look around that person's house.

Perhaps "tilting the camera" would be a better way of doing it. The way in which camera control in 7th Gen Lego games would be a good point of reference here; when the game locks the camera perspective, you can still tilt the right stick in a direction to slightly angle the camera in that direction, but the camera returns to the original position if you let go of the analog stick. This allows you to quickly glance in a direction, without changing the intended camera perspective.