After spending some time thinking over the (magic) baloon design I came up with the idea of abandoning the "parachute concept".

Just think of it for a while.
- If we have a parachute like the one that was used in Worms series, it would look somewhat weird but realistic. You jump, open up your parachute and float further down safely, not bothering yourself about actual height. When you land on the ground the parachute vanishes (which was acceptable for Worms) and you can move further on.
- Now we have a (magic) baloon instead of a parachute. Alright, we carry a hollow "piece-of-rubber" in our hands, then jump from the cliff, then... what then, actually? Quickly inflate the baloon with the power of your lungs? You would be dead long before you make your first three blows. Carry a pump with you? Ridiculous. Inflate the (magic) magic baloon using magic?.. Since I pose myself against any magic in Open Clonk I find this solution inacceptable (I suppose we should rather think of some engineering solutions of floating problem - and any problem in general as well - leaving some "magic aproach" only as a last resort). What happens when you land on the ground? Deflate the balloon? Let it go? Pop it? Too many questions and definitely too little realism.
- The first solution to all these problems that I came up with was about making a balloon uninflatable/unpoppable/indestructible. You cary it in your hands and use only when you jump, but...

Then I had (at least, I thought it was) a brilliant idea. I would not spend my words describing it - lets take a look at the picture:

As you can see, now we have a wearable object which is used permanently while it is put on. (We have not agreed on a concept of wearable objects yet but it would be used the same as divers helmet, body armor and other similar things). From the moment the clonk puts on this bizarre backpack the gravity for him is slightly reduced allowing to make long&high leaps and float down slowly. We can even think of some animation for baloons hiding inside the backpack and revealing out of it...

Need some feedback (hope you like this idea).

P.S. If this concept is aproved after all (which I would like greately) then we would have to suspend its discussion until better time (since we agreed to abandon the idea of implementing wearable objects in the first OC release). Thus it should be removed from the TODO list.

Well, at least a backback can be used later for some other objects :-)

Alright, here is a new magic balloon concept based on Ringwaul's and Newton's suggestions:

I had two ideas concerning its application.
1) Clonk always carries this balloon and it is thus always used when selected
2) Clonk carries a balloon by holding the round part of it (not the hilt/handle) - a bit similar to the way he carries a boompack. When used (MB pressed) the balloon quickly floats up and clonk grabs it by the hilt (thus falling speed is decreased). When on land (not used anymore) he pulls it towards himself and grabs the baloon with both of his hands again.

The hilt is a very simple object (the only thing that is not going to be modified if this concept is approved =):

Also I thought about something like this recently (though I like the first concept better):


Don't ask me about any feedback on this concept - I do not think that it is very good. But I posted my idea anyway for few reasons:
1) to ensure everyone that I haven't forgot about my responsibility of creating magic_balloon object :-)
2) to stimulate further brainstorming process;
3) in the end... maybe someone likes it...