Been working hard on the collectible artifacts and its going well. In the meantime, i thought id post an email discussion i had with a great dude helping me test the game a bit. he came up with some great points about the gameplay and i thought it would be informative to post here..
1) After going to the trouble of bringing color back to a planet, having it turn grey again when it's out of health is disappointing, especially when you can't plant sprouts fast enough to make up for the health lost planting them. Once past the 5th planet, if you use all the health that planet is going to look dead again.
This is a great point. Ive felt that having the planet ‘die’ again is kind of weird philosophically too. Maybe if the planet doesnt but the heart in the middle does. Or i can find some other way to graphically represent it. Thank you for bringing this up.
2) Lots and lots of seeds, once you get moving. On the first planet they're a resource to use carefully, and after that you've got tons.
I am toying with this too. A couple options include using the seeds as ammo for a super weapon later in the game, or simply converting them to coins on game over, so they do have value for harvesting as well… Basically incentivize planting other than just for more planting..
3) Really don't like enemies who shoot at me before I can see them. The audio cues are fine, giving plenty of warning, but it's not fun when they can shoot at me but I can only throw fire in the approximate direction.
This is 100% fair game. I’ll look at their range, and I think the enemy AI may very well be one of the biggest ‘in progress’ areas i have to work on, being new to games in general. Once the game itself is complete i expect to spend another lifetime working on this making sure i maximize the enjoyment..
And a couple final observations. Feel free to tell me why these suck.
1) Not sure what you've got planned for flying saucer behavior, but I'm mentally picturing them aligning to the planet rather than the player, maybe circling it just below the edge of its atmosphere while shooting and dropping aliens.
Genius, this is a really good idea - I will play with it. I plan on having 2 different types of UFO as well, so I think one that chases you with lasers but is a little slower, and one that focuses entirely on circling / dropping sentries, it will be a nice flavour difference. Thank you!
2) Maybe there's a way to tie seeds and planet color together, giving the player a reason not to just scoop up every seed he sees while giving a boost to the gardening aspect of the game somehow?
I thought about this too - having specific plants belong to specific planets… i think what i wanted to get away from though is having the planting be an in depth process. I keep making sure to compare it to the simplicity of a game like pacman, donkey kong, asteroids.. the further i get away from it, the easier it is to fall short as basically then im stepping into a new comparison bracket where games that offer similar choices become more fun.
Its a weird line im walking on i guess and I want to make sure its fun, but i also have to keep checking myself to make sure im keeping it as simple and straightforward as possible, though again, making sure im not sacrificing the fun.. but not overcomplicating it.. but not making it boring, but not … haha.
I guess it boils down to when you crouch down, i just dont want there to be too many options confusing people.. though maybe i need to think about once you get the hang of those initial options… maybe you can use seeds some other way to upgrade what’s there.. maybe seeds are ammo for the laser towers and you gotta feed it seeds to keep it shooting for you… then all of a sudden they become a finite resource worth cherishing. .. though maybe that makes the turrets less useful.. maybe they shoot 20 bullets and ‘refilling’ them with a seed reloads their 20 shots. now there is a strategy to maintaining the turrets so you cant just plant them and let them fight for you, but you have to make sure they can actually fight..
3) Can the red dragon be beaten? I've got level 2 health and gun and he keeps trashing me easily. Maybe I need level 3 and a couple more pyramids.
Definitely, I was able to rock the red dragon and the next 2 bosses after it in a game the other day. Laser turrets help huge, also choosing to fight him on a big planet so you can use his ‘bite and run’ attack to your advantage and hit him while he runs. Always choose to fight on a big planet, it gives you a much better mobility for dodging since the platform behaviour is so much more responsive - though I am adding some upgrades to the jetpack so the higher levels also give you better response as well, so you become more mobile in space too… i havent tried it vs. bosses yet, but it feels a LOT snappier and less ‘at the whims’ of vacuum space…. I think it becomes a much more rewarding upgrade than simply the amount of fuel you get.
Also working on an update where the gun upgrades are actually 3 separate styles of gun, and your gun upgrades while you play by enemy drops, similar to a 1942 style gun upgrade.. so like level 1 / 2 / 3 can be achievable simply by playing longer and finding the random drops.
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