15 replies to this topic

[Random Terrain]

Should the game get harder until the player eventually loses all health energy?

Or should the game get harder to a point, then if the player survives the last 100 bits of seaweed that are filling the screen so fast there's barely room to move, the difficulty will reset (as if the player started a new game)?


If people like the second idea, the story could be that the player has successfully beaten that sector. The ship will move up off the screen, the seaweed tentacles on both sides of the screen will fall away, then the player will enter the next sector.


Thanks.

Edited by Random Terrain, Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:50 PM.

[GroovyBee]

Or you could :-

- Add an ending to the game when you get beyond the maximum number of levels, then "reset".
- Keep the difficulty at maximum until the player dies (typical arcade style).

[disjaukifa]

I like the sector idea and here's why. I like playing a game I know I can master. I get frustrated with a game where you are always going to lose, I feel no sense of accomplishment from playing it and thus I don't want to play it.

By making it with sectors, you know you have to master the game to a certain difficultly and then you keep on going, from there it becomes about keeping up with endurance and skill and being consistant, and the game will continue as long as you are able to go on. That becomes the challenge for me at least of wanting to play a game over and over again. I want to master it., not just getting to a point where I'm good enough that the game is just going to kill me off.

[Schizophretard]

I voted difficulty reset because if the game gets harder until the player dies then it is like it is rigged to make even the best player lose. Eventually the seaweed would be reproducing at a rate that no human can keep up with, making a potential rolling of the score an impossibility. Having it reset would add two things to roll: the sector and the score. It should be hard enough that a human can potential die but easy enough that the best player can potential keep playing.

[Random Terrain]

Thanks for the votes and replies so far.

I added a new question to the poll. Please vote for your preference.


Thanks.

[disjaukifa]

Random, it says I've already voted in the poll and I can't do any additional votes . . . I would say 1,000 bits, kind of getting through 10 waves of difficulty, that sounds like a good solid number to me. What will give a good balance of gameplay length with steady increase in difficulty without the game from easy to impossible very suddenly.

[Random Terrain]

disjaukifa, on Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:54 PM, said:

Random, it says I've already voted in the poll and I can't do any additional votes . . . I would say 1,000 bits, kind of getting through 10 waves of difficulty, that sounds like a good solid number to me. What will give a good balance of gameplay length with steady increase in difficulty without the game from easy to impossible very suddenly.

Thanks. I thought each question was handled separately. I didn't know it would block people who already voted for the other question.

[Brian O]

GroovyBee, on Thu Sep 15, 2011 10:18 AM, said:

Or you could :-

- Add an ending to the game when you get beyond the maximum number of levels, then "reset".
- Keep the difficulty at maximum until the player dies (typical arcade style).

I like this idea.

-B

[BrianC]

I like the keep the difficulty at max until the player dies idea too. I feel it should keep getting harder until a certain point, but I don't like it when games reset to the lowest difficulty after a certain point.

[Schizophretard]

I wanted to do a longer post earlier but I had to get to work. I don't think the poll should of been worded the way it was. The first option would be unplayable when it gets to a difficultly level that is beyond a human's ability to play, which wouldn't be way too high up there. I'm not sure how high of a level I have got to because I start to lose count somewhere between level 5 and 7(maybe I'll have my wife count for me sometime) but I have got to the point that it is walls of seaweed all the way up. I would clear most of the screen going up and by the time I get to the top of the screen most of the screen below me is full. It wouldn't take too many levels more before it is unplayable, so the poll is a vote for unplayable and playable. The options should of been arcade style like GroovyBee suggested and some kind of start over.

A few problems I have with the arcade style are that I enjoy the climb up, I enjoy the walls of seaweed, and I wouldn't like my sore hand not to have a break. If it got to a point where the climb is over then that part of the game play is over. The only way I could get it back is to hit reset but I would lose my score. I enjoy the walls of seaweed. I like that it gets ridiculously tough. If the reproduction rate started over then there could be a higher maximum difficultly level because to beat it you would have to only shoot 100 pieces of seaweed but if you were stuck on that difficultly level there would be no way you could survive to roll the score. So, for the game to be playable the maximum difficulty level would have to be lowered. An ability to pause and if the fire button worked the opposite(the Manatee shot automatically and pushing the button stopped firing) would help ,but at extreme difficult it would just take one mistake to take you out. When I get to the walls of seaweed my hands start to get really sore. I'm holding down that button, hit up then over, up then over... until I'm to the top, and then I hit down and over, down and over.... until I'm to the bottom. I get no rest. I have to reposition my thumb to make it less sore and there is nothing I can do to rest my hand because sitting for one second calls up the tentacle. I would rather climb up this extremely high mountain of difficulty and be reward for my climb by being allowed to keep my score, have a few minutes of a slower pace(it doesn't take that long to climb back up), and an opportunity to climb up again without hitting reset. If the extreme difficultly stayed and you could flip back to level one there would be so much more to gain than permanently staying at a lower difficultly level. I wouldn't even really think of it as starting over or going back to level one. I would think of it as being like finishing a very hard wave in Space Invaders and then doing another wave.

The idea I originally suggested to RT was reproduction cycles. The seaweed would go through cycles of reproduction and attacking it increases the rate it goes through a cycle. Once the cycle is over at the final 100 pieces a new cycle starts but with the seaweed that is still on the screen. There would be no disappearing of the seaweed that's left on the screen, an ending scene, and going into another sector. But I kind of like the sector idea. If RT chooses to go that route I would prefer that the seaweed stops reproducing when the maximum pieces of seaweed have grown. That way you would have to shoot every last piece of seaweed before you leave the sector. For plot reasons is doesn't make sense to me to leave the sector with any seaweed still in it because it could all grow back when you're gone and it doesn't make sense that it would just disappear. I can't decide if I like the reproduction cycle or sector idea more ,but I would definitely prefer either over staying at one reproduction rate for the rest of the game. I would prefer the game to have the same brilliant game play that it has from the first reproduction rate to the maximum reproduction rate ,from 2 points to 999,999 points. I would really dislike it staying at the same reproduction rate for most of the way to 999,999 points. I would feel like the fun part of the game ended somewhere before 20,000 points.

For the second part of the poll I would vote none of the above or all of the above because I'm unsure what level it is that feels like it is almost unbeatable. My suggestion would be to save that detail as the very last part before finishing the game. The changes that have been made like the double size health energy indicator and the lowering of the points to get the health canister with a guidance system has made survival easier and therefore higher levels more reachable. When the hidden corroded canisters are added that would make even higher levels reachable. After everything has been done and finely tuned I recommend a version to be released that doesn't have a maximum reproduction rate so people can test it. You have a high score competition, see what is the highest level that has been beat, see the average highest level that has been beat, and then pick somewhere in the middle between the two. Or you could cover all bases by either creating a menu or game variations with the select switch to let the player make these type of choices.

[Random Terrain]

I wanted to let people know that I haven't abandoned this thread. I'm just trying to get other parts of the game working properly. I'm also working on new sound effects. I'll be back to discuss this stuff later, so please keep voting and posting and we'll 'fight out' a good solution that hopefully most people will like.


Thanks.

[Schizophretard]

In the original thread you said:

"The way it is now, the range is 0 through 14. The higher the number, the harder the difficulty. The game starts out at 1 and increases by 1 every time the player shoots 100 pieces of seaweed. The difficulty will never go higher than 14.

But 14 might be too difficult. I'll have to play with the numbers. The limit will probably have to be lowered."

I just played a few games and even though I kept on losing count I know I had to have reached level 14 because most of the time when I was losing count I wasn't sure if I already counted a number, so I think sometimes I was counting the same number twice and I was still making it up to and a little over 14. If it helps gage it any, my high score in those games was 10021. Around there is where the walls of seaweed form(which is fun), it is reachable, and if the reproduction rate got much higher the difficultly level will start to be unplayable. So, in my opinion, level 14 is about right for the maximum difficultly.

So, far there is one vote for level 10 and two votes for level 20. Where the game is now is around the middle of that, so that is another reason it is already about right. Level 20 is winning but the reproduction rate increasing 6 more times after it already produces walls of seaweed would probably be unplayable or very close to it.

Level 20 does sound like a nice round number though. I don't know how the math is working behind the reproduction rates ,but if it is possible maybe it would work well if the level 14 reproduction rate or around there was stretched to level 20 and then you divided that rate by 20 for how much it increases each level. It would also be kind of cool if you divided each level into 5ths, so when you hit 20 pieces of seaweed and the score bar changes to a different shade of green it makes the reproduction rate gradually increases to the next level instead of jumping to it.

If you choose to go in the direction of different colored wrothopods and different colored flashing score bars for level indicators then you will need four different colored wrothopods and five different colored score bars to do a level 20 with level 14 reproduction rate. Also, you might have to do some fine tuning of the wrothopods timing of when he shows up. There have been times when I beat a level and was expecting a canister but the wrothopod would come down before my canister. It felt kind of like the boss of the level and I had to get passed him before I can have my canister. I kind of liked that. Maybe something could be adjusted to intentionally do that to be a welcoming with a new level, so you can see his color and see the blinking score bar to see which level you're on. Since the levels go by faster and faster I wonder if he shows up less and less for each level. How does his counter/trigger work?

Anyway, I'm playing with the idea of maximum difficult of around level 14 stretched to level 20, each level divided into 5ths of reproduction, cycle through different colored wrothopods and score bars evenly up to level 20, fine tuning the wrothopods, and then it does the exact same cycling after level 20 but still has level 14 reproduction rate for an arcade mode to test. Then the same thing as the arcade mode but flips back to level one reproduction for your sector idea to test.

I think all this should be saved for last after you get done with everything else. But once everything is ready I would like to see an arcade mode and sector mode something like above for us to test. And hopefully after the tests and everything seems ready, I hope you have both in a menu(arcade mode/sector mode)

Anyway, here is an idea for you or maybe for a poll. I would really like to see how well I do with the Manatee and how the controls would feel with auto fire and hold button to stop shooting for the wrothopod. Could this be done? Could it be an option in a menu?

[Schizophretard]

I lost count again but this time it was because I was really getting into it and I beat my high score. The new one is 14176. That had to be past level 14. I was thinking about my last suggestion and I realized that if it just started over at 14 then right when it started to get intense I wouldn't get much time to enjoy the walls of seaweed. So, I'm finding myself stuck in between an arcade mode and a sector mode. On the one hand I'm wanting to stay on level 14 longer but on the other hand I'm wanting to have a sense of accomplishment other than a higher score, I'm wanting a break other than letting myself die or hitting reset, I'm wanting the enjoyment of climbing back up through the levels....

I think that since this is already an arcade mode we won't know exactly how a sector mode would feel until you did it. When the time comes and if you're still open to a sector mode, maybe you could leave how it works as is, have it go into another sector as you described in your first post at 2,000 pieces of seaweed, those interested test them both out, and then you go from there.

[theloon]

I voted "..until player loses all health energy." Not because I enjoy that - just that it feels more Atari-like. Would prefer more game variation the further you get. Although I know this might not be possible due to space constraints.

[Random Terrain]

I took a while, but I finally fixed a problem I was having with the game. Now I can finish adding a couple more sound effects and adjusting a few things and it should be about time to upload the latest unfinished version for people to try. (After Schizophretard looks at it first.)

[bomberpunk]

i voted for the game to reset at the max of 2,000.