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[JasonPickering]

Latest Build
1/27/13

Controls:
Move = Arrows or WASD
R = Reset

Quick prototype I threw together this weekend for fun. Drive around and try and rescue the stranded person. Collect gems and bring them back to the green base to recharge, increase max energy, or go to the next area.

It needs some balancing and all the usual juice stuff like music, titles, and instructions, but overall it feels fun. Would love some feedback.

[JasonPickering]

Tweaked the numbers to make the game a little more balanced. Still trying to figure out the best course of action now, to make it a little more fun. I want to give it some more choices, but I dont want to over complicate so there is some balancing and extra stuff to add.

[Kingel]

I think it has potential already, and there are probably several different directions you could take with it. What do you want the focus of the game to be? I think it would be easier to give feedback if your goal as a designer was more clear.

Personally, I like difficult games if they feel rewarding enough. The challenge has to feel fair, so that death is my own fault for not playing it safe enough, and there has to be something that makes me want to get greedy and take risks.

Here I don't see a good way of playing it safe since returning to recharge just means I cover more distance, and there's little (or negative) gain from attempting to gather more gems. It would be different if I'd killed myself after taking a calculated risk, but here I feel like I'm going to die by simply playing without being able to do much to help it. Especially since the cost of recharging increases for each level whereas the gains from mining do not. I end up wanting to avoid any action apart from fetching the astronaut, and then I run out of energy. Making movement (and maybe also mining) less taxing would help a lot to push the balance towards something more sustainable, I think.

It also feels a bit counter-intuitive that failing to move should cost energy, since I'm not technically doing anything (and especially since I'll spend energy when I click on the screen to give the game focus).

Destroying a rock to move past it costs energy, but so does moving past it, making the total energy needed to get past a single rock four units or so, which makes them feel like fairly big obstacles. Having mining drain a single unit of energy would still make rocks twice as costly to traverse as ground.

I think it would feel more like a calculated risk if destroying the rocks occasionally yielded an item that would recharge your vehicle (although I think that actually might have happened once, but it was before I fully understood how the game worked, so I can't say for sure).

I feel like I'm being forced to explore instead of wanting to out of curiosity, or wanting to gather items which could expand the available mechanics or make the game easier (like a laser or something which could destroy more than one rock at a time, for instance). I don't think it's going to take more than a few additions (like different kinds of functional items or new types of obstacles) to give the game some more depth.

Maybe some more on-screen feedback would help, like numbers hovering over the adjacent tiles to show how much energy it'll cost to move there. Or maybe some kind of pathfinding which indicates the fastest path from your vehicle to the tile under the cursor, with an indicator of the energy you'll have to spare when you reach that tile (although that sounds like a lot of work). I think anything that reduces the amount of mental calculation you'll have to do per move would make it feel less tedious.

Looking forward to seeing what you'll do with this.

Bugs:
Sometimes the little astronaut spawned in the top left corner, outside of the level (-1, -1).

[JasonPickering]

thanks. that is exactly the feedback I needed. Originally the goal was driving out and mining and just seeing how much you could acquire, but this felt really bland, and I looked for a different theme. Then the idea came to me of doing like a key system, where the player was sent out to get the key to go to the next level. the keys were eventually replaced thematically with the stranded people.

I am a little hazy on the theme, as originally it was going to be the soul crushing isolation, but I just couldn't make this interesting. I think now I want the theme to focus more on driving out to rescue these stranded people. I had the energy draining system, because it made exploration be costly, but I think that's counter intuitive to my goal, of exploring to find the people. One thing I have been thinking about is like you said with items, using them for efficiency purposes. I have also thought about giving the player a limited number of upgrades or item slots, and forcing them to balance that before an Expedition. or perhaps giving the player items they find scattered around.

but i think going forward i am going to drop down the cost of mining. and start thinking about items and such.

[UltimateWalrus]

neat game!  what made it interesting to me was the idea that you have to plan ahead in order to beat a stage; you can't just go charging in haphazardly.

assuming you'd want to riff on the idea of planning ahead, i think it'd be cool if you zoomed the view out or even ditched scrolling altogether, and just had large single-screen stages that the player can see the entirety of and make a plan.  i'd have the player start at level 1 every stage.  then you could carefully design each stage (rather than randomly generating) so that the player has to do things in a certain order to make it over to the person.  for example, you could put the person behind 10 squares of rock, but in order to even be able to get through that much rock, you have to complete other parts of the level first (perhaps there is a large stash of gems but you have to upgrade to even get there, so then there are multiple required steps to a level).  i wouldn't want random items within the rocks in this case; if i have to plan ahead, everything should be deterministic.

but it's your game.  maybe i'm trying to bend it into something it's not.  either way, good luck with it!   

[chriskha]

Not a bad game. I also think it has potential. The cost of upgrading and refilling shouldn't be the same, I feel. It makes it extremely annoying and hinders the desire to explore (because it's so expensive). I just want to rescue the person (get whatever is in my path and easy to get) and complete the level).

I didn't play too long into the later stages, but maybe more than one person to rescue would make the exploration necessary and prolong the level a bit, forcing decision making to traverse. Maybe you've already been thinking of that.

Also, I agree with maybe a number to show how much energy it takes to destroy some rock. Maybe for even more challenge, have slippery road that let you slide without consuming an energy!

[chowdy]

This game was fun! I'm excited to see where you go with this...

It'd be nice if I could see how much my moves costed me more easily. I didn't realize that breaking rocks cost 3 bars until it was too late

[JasonPickering]

Yeah I have to show how much rocks cost. I am wondering if I can work some number into the sprite. This would also give me the option of different value rocks. Which would make it a little more exciting.

Chriskha: I think multiple people later on can be great. Also I am redoing the store so that will change. I might make you auto recharge, and just purchase upgrades automatically.

Ultimate walrus: I thought about doing built levels but I just finished a puzzle game that had like 120 designed levels and really didn't want to make another one. I wanted something procedural and endless. I can still build levels with sections and puzzles though. It's easy to generate that randomly.

I started over from scratch to cleanup the code, was very slapdash. I still have to add the person back in, but the code works much better now. I also added in crumble spots. They crumble away after you step off them making them basically one way pathways.

[JasonPickering]

So big update. Completely redid the engine to deal with some of the problems I was having code wise. The shop has been removed for now. I need to find a better way to do it. so after each level you get a bonus to energy and each time you go to the shop you are revived. gems are pointless at the moment, until I figure out the shop system. Then I really need to build a map generating algorithm. its terrible at the moment.

shop system coming up soon!! feedback welcome.

[JasonPickering]

Redid the Map Generation system and added in some gem use. You need 3 gems to recharge your vehicle. this is all up to be balanced yet.

[JasonPickering]

I dropped the idea or rescuing guys, because I was thinking of making it so you didn't have to rescue all the guys and it took focus off the original mining idea. so I basically swapped out the survivors for Gems. with a much smaller amount of things to mine.

I added a cargo system also. the player is allowed to carry one gem at a time, but through upgrades they will be able to carry up to 3 at once.

I have made a large list of possible upgrades to add to the game, and I am thinking of maybe giving the player one possible upgrade more similar to a spell and selling them in the shop or giving the player the choice at the start of the game (different Vehicles) allowing for some difference in feel during a playthrough. (Think different Races in Desktop Dungeons)

Possible Upgrades:
- Solar Panels - Every 5 moves gain back 1 energy
- Start with extra Cargo space
- Point to nearest Crystal
(if I do different vehicles I will probably change the Energy Max to balance out the upgrades too.)

Still thinking about one thing though, and that's levels. If I should give one gigantic level with like 100 crystals in it or just do smaller levels you travel from place to place. I feel like the Larger Level would be better, as the player gets desperate trying to get all the crystals and having exhausted everything near your "Base". Also I am trying to think of a way to allow the player to move the base, or at least build recharge stations somehow.

Still working out the shop system. I wanted crystal collection to be the primary goal, but then I don't know if that should also be the shop currency. Having the player make the choice of buying upgrades or banking the crystals into their score, could be interesting, but I am not sure how it will feel. The other idea is going with two types of currency. I have thought about maybe doing "Tech Boxes" scattered around. these can be spent on upgrades.

I also need to figure out the recharge system. if it should be a free action or the player should have to pay for it.

[UltimateWalrus]

Personally I feel the game was more interesting when the player had to pay for recharge.  Right now, the safest strategy is to drill exactly one rock, then rush back to the recharge station, go back, drill one more rock, then go back again.  The only way to really die is if the player gets bored of this and starts getting reckless.  So I feel with the new version there are two problems, 1.)that I get punished for being bored, and 2.) that I got bored in the first place.

The limit on gem carrying and scrapping the hostages seem like they could be good changes.  But I liked the original version better as I was always on edge wondering if I'd have enough resources to continue playing.  This nervousness made it exciting rather than boring.  I feel too "safe" in the newer version and I felt like I was just going through the motions.

If you were looking for ways to spruce up the gameplay, you could brainstorm mechanics that play off the player's nervousness about resources.  Perhaps the gems are harder to get, but they give an energy boost when you pick them up, so at a certain point you have to commit to going for a gem, for better or worse, since you would not make it back to the charge station alive.  You could have enemies with simple, deterministic behaviors (kinda like some of the bad guys in Kye) that drain energy when they hit you.  Maybe you can purchase a single spare energy bottle that replenishes a small amount of energy on the go in an emergency, but it costs the same as a full energy refill, so you really have to think about it.

I hope my comments were helpful.  Keep it up!  This still looks promising.

[JasonPickering]

I have been thinking more about the recharge system and I might actually drop the recharge idea. The player would still have energy, but they would just need to get as many crystals as they could and return to base before they run out. It serves the same purpose of knowing you need to go out and come back before you run out. this also makes upgrading your energy max much more important.

I have also been thinking about either doing battery drops. where basically supplies have been randomly dumped, or doing it so crystals give a small boost to a players energy. meaning the player can see the

and I am also thinking of dropping the crystal Cargo idea, but replacing it with a regular cargo idea. allowing the player to buy Items to take out into the field to help mining.

[UltimateWalrus]

There are a lot of different things you could do with this, and many mechanics that you could implement or choose to leave out.  It all comes down to tweaking the mechanics to get the best balance and feel.  Dropping the recharge altogether could be cool, but my recommendation is that, every time you remove something, don't delete your code, but rather organize it so you can very easily switch that feature on and off.  That way you can easily mix and match the mechanics until you've tweaked it into an experience you feel confident about.