Hey, was passing by to comment on update 3.0 (gave it a quick spin) and just saw 3.1 dropped. Exciting times - like the changes very much! Few of points to consider:
- Snake visually was bugged to me once (tile was all white) - was the only time I saw it
- I do like the idea of dangerous events being more common, which I see 3.1 has implemented
- The Geyser event is neat!
- Altar balance: Do they spawn more than 1 at a time? I think a key consideration to strategy is where the next altar is, especially if it's towards the left / VOID (vs. being on the right side). To make sure there are correct incentives score-wise for players to put themselves in danger to seek the altar, I think (a) the altars points should be much more significant than exploring points and (b) players should lose points AND be penalized by VOID closing in for letting altars be destroyed by the VOID or by other means (i.e. volcano, geyser). A UI note saying "the last altar was destroyed" would be nice. All these comments I think would work best if only 1 altar spawns at a time, with another one spawning if player either uses the altar or it is destroyed. And what this aims to do is make sure the endgame is about chasing altars dangerously, and not simply running from the VOID and slowly racking up points endlessly, with little challenge.
Anyways - sorry for the wall of text! Happy to hear what you think about the last point. I think it would really add to the 'balance' of high-scoring the game / making the "endgame" more interesting.
Congratulations again on the game and changes! Keeps getting better!
I'm happy you like the changes! And thank you so much for the feedback it means a lot!
*The snake bug i weird, I don't know why it happens, but I've seen it once as well... pretty strange. (I'll see if I can fix it)
I think your idea for balacing altars is great!
Giving the player more insentive to hunt altars, and making that hunt the core of the game, is a good idea.
Right now altars are spawned whenever the player moves 8 tiles (96 pixels) to the right, or when there are no other altars. They spawn at a distance of 23 tiles form the player, in a random direction (between -60 deg and +60 deg).
All in all the current system is pretty random, and not that good (it was my first idea).
I will try your approach :D
- Spawn only 1 altar at a time
- Spawn a new altar when the current one is either used or destroyed by the VOID
- Spawn the altars closer to the void, to insentivise a more risky playstyle
- Give the player more points for claiming an altar
- Punish the player for letting an altar be destroyed (move the void and give a warning message)
I'm not sure if I like the idea of subtracting points, hopefully giving more points at altars will be insentive enough.
Again thank you for the feedback! Your ideas are great and super helpful!
Happy to keep this discussion going, and super happy that ideas are useful!
I'll be looking forward to the updates and playing this new version in the meantime!
Btw, agreed on your comment re not subtracting points. My main concern balance-wise there was to create a system where a player would not be able / incentivized to wander right (away from the VOID) endlessly, after fully upgrading, and achieve a highscore this way - even if slowly.
I think a good way to approach this problem would be: to calculate how much missing an altar should speed up the VOID, in a way so that a player, even with the best upgrades, cannot outrun the VOID for too long without going for altars. These parameters might also be good ways of 'defining' how long the average session goes on for.
Cheers!
Hey :)
I've reworked the altar spawning system, so now there will only ever be one altar at a time.
The altars also spawn closer to the VOID and will increase the chances of "bad" events if destroyed.
Altars also give +500 points by default when "claimed".
I also added some new tile-variations. Now each tile has 3 looks as well as some decorative elements. Just to spice things up a bit.
All other changes are very minor:
- Some new sound fx
- New animation when dying
- And probably some other minor tweeks that I forgot.... I should really start writing things down as I go
And thanks for checking in,
Cheers!