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[Gainsworthy]

...
If you honestly think compulsory logins are harmless then I'm not sure what else to call it other than a difference of opinion. But the game pissed me off before I'd even started it. And I know I'm not the only person in my office who has complained aloud about a compulsory login when trying out a game.

Yeah, I gotta say, if I wasn't in a good mood/the game didn't have art by Dugan (talented and trustworthy), I might've bailed entirely.

Being greeted with a login screen pushes my buttons too*. But I see why you've got it! The online experience is simple, but delicious, and it helps you collect instant data about your audience.

If you're going to do it for future games (and hey, why not), make sure the login screen is looking swank - music pumping, maybe a special attract mode running in the background. It'd make it that more tempting.


*EDIT: It's the whole Facebook-connect/everything-integrated/freemium fear for me. When I see login, I see "GIVE ME DATA". Even when it's innocent, like this.

[TheLastBanana]

I really enjoyed the game itself - it looked and felt excellent all the way through, and there were some really clever level designs.
I was getting some lag on the more complicated levels, although it's likely the fault of Game Maker itself, not just the game. My only other concern is that, as you get more levels being created, it's going to take an awful long time to download all of them. It would be nice to have a "quick browse" sort of feature that lets you see a level's name, who created it, and what it's rated, but doesn't actually download the level until you tell it to do so. Or maybe it already does that and I just didn't notice.

[Gainsworthy]

I was wondering whilst trying to improve my time on level 4-2 (Contain This): now that you've got stats on Tens of Thousands of Bastards, which levels are least finished? Which levels do players stop at? And which ones appear to be popular/easy/re-run? Just curious.


In completely unrelated news, the "Don't get caught inside" section of "Contain This" is awful and horrible and it's mean and I hate it and it said a swear.

[onebitbeyond]

I haven't had time to analyse the data properly, but you get an approximate fall off of half the number of players at the end of a world from the start. So, if there are 500 people at the start of one world, you'll have 250 by the end.

There are 30,000 users, but due to a) not running latest version or b) playing offline, not everyone is posting to the leaderboards. I imagine the data would stand proportionally though.

That does mean that less than half the players have finished Bastard Begins, of course. Only 530 players have completed the last level.

Fascinating all this metric stuff.

BTW, I made ContainThis myself. Sorry for the bit in question, but I ran it past a number if people and they all said it was good to go. Because the checkpoint is right there and you only have to do it once, everyone reckoned it was ok.

Interesting ish fact: the day of launch, I made that 1 pixel more lenient either side of the player. You're 15 pixels wide, the gap is 16 pixels, and you've got 3 pixels leniency on either side of your character. That means stopping a 15 pixel character on a 22 pixel spot. Too hard?

[onebitbeyond]

I really enjoyed the game itself - it looked and felt excellent all the way through, and there were some really clever level designs.
I was getting some lag on the more complicated levels, although it's likely the fault of Game Maker itself, not just the game. My only other concern is that, as you get more levels being created, it's going to take an awful long time to download all of them. It would be nice to have a "quick browse" sort of feature that lets you see a level's name, who created it, and what it's rated, but doesn't actually download the level until you tell it to do so. Or maybe it already does that and I just didn't notice.

Really happy to hear you liked it. Yeah, I could blame Game Maker for the lag, but I really think I could've coded it faster, if I was just, well, better at coding. GM isn't the fastest though, it's true. Interpreted code, damn you! I also definitely left a memory leak in there!

I agree with the level download. I kinda didn't expect the database to get so full so fast. Honestly, I thought the game would be ignored with all the big releases around atm, not to mention Voxatron. 30,000 users in a week was a bit unexpected. I'll definitely have to do something to help that download time. If I get time (the requests are piling up).

[Gainsworthy]

I haven't had time to analyse the data properly, but you get an approximate fall off of half the number of players at the end of a world from the start. So, if there are 500 people at the start of one world, you'll have 250 by the end.

...

That does mean that less than half the players have finished Bastard Begins, of course. Only 530 players have completed the last level.

Bloody hell, there's only 530 of us? Ah wells, even the hugest AAA developers talk about the minuscule amount of purchasers who beat their games. Still, that's some neat data you've got there! I've got a Thing for metrics, I suppose. Be nice to see some kind of post-release analysis after a few months. After all, it's been little over a week? 30,000 in a week... very swank.

Interesting ish fact: the day of launch, I made that 1 pixel more lenient either side of the player. You're 15 pixels wide, the gap is 16 pixels, and you've got 3 pixels leniency on either side of your character. That means stopping a 15 pixel character on a 22 pixel spot. Too hard?

  Ah, I suppose so! If it helps, I'm very fidgety.

I think it's just that it's asking me to perform a feat that is required nowhere else in the game - up till then, everything else gives you huge leway, so long as you're clever about it (or willing to lose a few seconds). This wants you to move and stop on a dime. I'm not asking you to change it or anything! But it took me ages to beat the first time (I think I had 40 odd deaths that level), and I can't beat it again. I've noticed ducking helps, though.

[harkme]

Am I imagining things or did two unrelated topics get merged?

[onebitbeyond]

Am I imagining things or did two unrelated topics get merged?

You're totally imagining it, sorry! .