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(3 edits)

Highscore 505, and just because I got bored :D Details a bit later.

So… The game is a lot of fun. I know I suck at this kind of games, especially in distracted state I’m in right now :D But eventually I got the hang of the logic.

The game may make a lot of use of gameplay diversity (obviously something for the future, not for Jam):

  1. The attacks are predictable. At first I’ve had problems determining which lane I was on and was going to write about making them more distinct. But as soon as you realize that the Titan attacks only the line you are on, it doesn’t matter any longer. You just hear “Bewk!” (Is that what Tigress should say? Ok.) you just switch the line and stop moving until the animation ends. Maybe adding attacks on random lanes will make paying attention more needed? E.g. With time/score random attacks are added to the “determinant” pattern. Maybe even at some point “two attacks” may come together simultaneously (paw and bite).

  2. Jewels patterns are too repetitive. I don’t see a single reason not to make them more random, not only slash, backslash, 4 Vs and 3 lines. There is nothing bad in making them completely random, even if it means that the Player won’t have time to switch to catch all of them in a bunch. May be a good feature to diversify later gameplay.

  3. Other kinds of objects. I can think of obstacles at least, that will force Player to switch the lane. Maybe some more valuable jewels. Or anti-jewels that reduce the score.

  4. Maybe even increase the number of lanes as the game progresses? Or make it variable, that sometimes it’s 3 but occasionally 2 or 4.

Now for the main part. I’ve encountered a serious performance issue. I’ve quickly noticed that the game becomes way too easy as it progresses (instead of becoming harder as Mowou already noticed). In the end I’ve managed to link that to a severe FPS drop as the game level progresses. It may be caused by 2 bugs: 1) you don’t free/destroy some objects as they go off-screen. I.e. those wind particles and gems. So when the Player plays much, there’s just way too many things in memory or in render tasks. 2) Animations are tied to frames, not to real-time seconds. They become absurdly slow-motion after 400-500 score. So, the performance I’ve had (I didn’t make exact calculations, tried to estimate): score = 0, everything perfect; score = 150, I’ve started noticing that the game became easier - far easier than I could explain by gaining more skill; score = 250, the FPS issue started to become obvious; score = 300, the game runs at around 15-20 FPS; score = 350, lag in input (time between pressing the button and switching the lanes) becomes significant to notice; score = 400, game runs at 6-7 FPS (I’ve got not so bad setup, not an expensive gaming PC, but it’s not a cheap notebook), at this point it becomes literally impossible to lose except on purpose; score = 500, game runs at around 5 FPS, there is no more challenge, except extremely long waiting time between jewel batches and absurdly slow attack animation :D