Post by mike schneider in Gameplay Discussion

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Really loving the game so far, it's definitely got that "one more round" pull to it.

One thing I noticed was that for quite a while I didn't understand how losing health when you fall through a hole worked. Because your heart meter is hidden while you're falling down, it didn't occur to me that I could lose more than 1 heart while falling--the red indicators didn't fully signal to me what was going on. Even now that I understand that, it always feels like a surprise whether or not I'm going to die when I fall through a hole.

benedictfritz8 years ago

Because your heart meter is hidden while you're falling down, it didn't occur to me that I could lose more than 1 heart while falling--the red indicators didn't fully signal to me what was going on.

Great point -- the number of hearts you lose is tied to the distance that you fall, but those distances are opaque.

The mystery of how much damage you take is in that sense somewhat intentional. We want to punish not planting checkpoints, and not fully knowing how hard that punishment will be is in the ideal case part of the mental calculus that makes deciding whether or not to plant a checkpoint suspenseful/interesting/difficult. The feedback probably isn't quite there yet to make that feel fair yet.

aeiowu8 years ago

what ben said ^ but also, for checkpoints I usually find you can avoid multi-damage falls by planting one checkpoint per area, usually around mid way (crystal rooms are spawned midway). actually doing though is a different story because you're always like "oh man, but i need an extra heart, or etc." definitely a feel thing, but that's sort of the feel i've arrived at.

Randy O'Connor8 years ago

You can lose more than one heart for falling!? Wow, did not know/notice this. It also sounds like you're punishing the player twice, which does not make sense to me. I already have to cover that distance again. I like planting crystals and thorns, and one of my favorite aspects of play was the risk/reward balance of knowing the farther I go only planting resources, the more I'll have to redo if I screw up.

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