It's really cool to see this grow into a full game with lots of unlockables! The extra colors add a lot of vibrancy! I really love the detailed reward illustrations, but I have not found any of the costumes.
The game may benefit from giving out bonuses for cumulative smashes rather than having to get them all in a single try. This would allow more players to see the pictures and offer compensation for play sessions where a lot of things get smashed but not enough to beat the previous record. It would also let players mess around with the game for a bit whenever they have a moment rather than having to find the time to commit to mastery. The rewards getting spread out instead of all appearing at the same time will also feel better for the players and give reason to keep playing. If you feel that this would shorten the game too much, you could only count smashes after the first 10 or so.
Tutorials should probably be a separate option somewhere instead of something that you need to exit out of every time, or at least default to skipping instead of starting.
Really nice work! I love the gallery art, it just needs a somewhat more incremental unlocking mechanism to make it shine.
Y'know, I'm not sure I ever considered the cumulative points thing... 🤔 somehow 🤨 There's definitely a downside to the way the game is currently set up, where the act of clearing one full tier of unlocks is - relatively - quite the commitment - the core gameplay is kind of, sort of inspired by the barrel-breaking minigame from Street Fighter II after all, so retooling the progression with more of a coffee-break game vibe makes sense 🤔
Oh, costumes unlock when a given difficulty is cleared. That is, all images unlocked, which requires smashing 199 objects in a single run (it does look like a lot when I read it back... 😅). There's a unique costume per difficulty - three difficulty settings, three costumes - plus one extra for clearing all three difficulties - clearing the theme in a sense.
(I'm thinking the FNAF and furry communities might appreciate Morag's fourth Easter outfit... 👀)
If costumes are tied to full galleries, it's probably worth considering switching the acquisition method to something that the average player can be expected to reach. You've already got the extra costumes for highly committed players that want to clear every difficulty, but just getting one costume should be something that anyone can accomplish. If you're thinking of switching to cumulative points, you could just put all of the rewards on the same track and have the difficulties give you different score multipliers, which would allow players to get things at their own pace. The current system incentivizes trying every difficulty regardless of personal skill, which can make the hard rewards unreachable for low skill players, while the skilled players must face a slow grind to get the easy rewards. I think that your idea of making this into more of a coffee-break game is a worthy pursuit. Let players go as hard or as slow as they want, with something to show for their efforts.
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It's really cool to see this grow into a full game with lots of unlockables! The extra colors add a lot of vibrancy! I really love the detailed reward illustrations, but I have not found any of the costumes.
The game may benefit from giving out bonuses for cumulative smashes rather than having to get them all in a single try. This would allow more players to see the pictures and offer compensation for play sessions where a lot of things get smashed but not enough to beat the previous record. It would also let players mess around with the game for a bit whenever they have a moment rather than having to find the time to commit to mastery. The rewards getting spread out instead of all appearing at the same time will also feel better for the players and give reason to keep playing. If you feel that this would shorten the game too much, you could only count smashes after the first 10 or so.
Tutorials should probably be a separate option somewhere instead of something that you need to exit out of every time, or at least default to skipping instead of starting.
Really nice work! I love the gallery art, it just needs a somewhat more incremental unlocking mechanism to make it shine.
Thank you very much, Impy! 😁
Y'know, I'm not sure I ever considered the cumulative points thing... 🤔 somehow 🤨 There's definitely a downside to the way the game is currently set up, where the act of clearing one full tier of unlocks is - relatively - quite the commitment - the core gameplay is kind of, sort of inspired by the barrel-breaking minigame from Street Fighter II after all, so retooling the progression with more of a coffee-break game vibe makes sense 🤔
Oh, costumes unlock when a given difficulty is cleared. That is, all images unlocked, which requires smashing 199 objects in a single run (it does look like a lot when I read it back... 😅). There's a unique costume per difficulty - three difficulty settings, three costumes - plus one extra for clearing all three difficulties - clearing the theme in a sense.
(I'm thinking the FNAF and furry communities might appreciate Morag's fourth Easter outfit... 👀)
If costumes are tied to full galleries, it's probably worth considering switching the acquisition method to something that the average player can be expected to reach. You've already got the extra costumes for highly committed players that want to clear every difficulty, but just getting one costume should be something that anyone can accomplish. If you're thinking of switching to cumulative points, you could just put all of the rewards on the same track and have the difficulties give you different score multipliers, which would allow players to get things at their own pace. The current system incentivizes trying every difficulty regardless of personal skill, which can make the hard rewards unreachable for low skill players, while the skilled players must face a slow grind to get the easy rewards. I think that your idea of making this into more of a coffee-break game is a worthy pursuit. Let players go as hard or as slow as they want, with something to show for their efforts.