Nice update! But I'd like to know my postion in the leaderboards as well and not just top 40 Otherwise I'm really enjoying this!
Ack! F.F.S! I'd say that's more than "a bit annoying". I'd say it's completely and utterly pointless and useless. What's the point in showing us a scoreboard, but then not telling us our own position on the scoreboard?!?! Who wants to see OTHER PEOPLE'S scores, without seeing where we sit amongst them?? "Well done. Here's a bunch of people you've never heard of who played better than you. Better luck next time."
Kinda disappointed to see the new UI additions don't retain the distinct pixel art style of the rest of the game. The Twitter integration did it so well.
Sounds quite standard to me. How many arcade games only list top 10 scores? Besides, Canabalt has a daily high score list, so every day you get another chance to enter the echelons of the free running elite.
An arcade game isn't a globally-connected personal-device that can recognise the different individuals who've played it. There are many iPhone games with global scores that can tell you your own position on the scoreboards... FDG's Parachute Panic and Kryzer, for example. And Imangi's games, to list a few more... And besides, emulating what HAS been done in the past is not necessarily the best thing. Making the best of what CAN be done is always a better option...
Yeah but arcade games are still played by thousands of other people, don't you want to know where you rank? It's essentially the same deal. Anyway, it's the daily scores that make it acceptable for me. I suppose it might be nice to know where I rank, if I'm not in the top 100 at least I doubt I'd give a crap at all... what's "14063" gonna do to brighten up my day? As long as the daily scoreboard keeps resetting and giving me a chance to earn a score that's actually worth looking at, I'm happy.
No it's not the same deal. Arcade games are played by thousands of other people, yes, but all on the SAME machine. How is the machine going to know which player is which? Multiple instances of the same (3-digit?) username could exist, and there's no unique device IDs to recognise as there is with an iPhone. Anyway, as I said: Emulating what HAS been done in the past is not necessarily the best thing. Making the best of what CAN be done is always a better option. In other words, just because someone else has cocked up the scoreboards doesn't mean everyone else should do so too. It will give you an accurate indication of just how good or bad you are at the game and how much you would need to do in order to improve. If my top score is 15,000 and I can only see scores up to 20,000, then how do I know how many places I'd need to climb in order to get on the board? For all I know there could just be handful of freak players who play really well, and maybe I'm just outside of that top-40 number, making me the 41st best player in the world? Or maybe there's another 50,000 other players in between me and that position, making me a really crap player? Who knows...?
That's assuming you're playing an arcade machine that only lets you enter 3 characters. If there was absolutely no way to tell people apart, why would anyone enter anything? Of course people know when it's their name on the list. ANYWAY as I said, I agree it'd be nice to have the option, but damn you're making a fuss... where's Squirt Reynolds and his crying baby images? I know how good I am, the game has a local scoreboard. If I want to improve I need to beat that. I can't say I'm that much of a score whore anyway, I can't imagine anyone's going to be impressed by another player's Canabalt skills.
This is a must. I do not enjoy leaderboards that don't show my ranking. This gives motivation and let'e you see how close you are to getting in the list. That gets a big "meh" from me. Please add this feature.
Game Impressions For me it's absolutely ok to just see top scores. Then I know the level I have to reach. It's all about getting in there. That's my motivation. Set down, was playing and now I'm Nr. 6. But as mentioned, the new UI elements (upper left corner) are not included very well. Too modern, no pixel style and WHY color? doesn't fit to the rest perfectly and just looks like a (cheap) add-on. Otherwise, perfect update. Love the big ships crashing!
So then why are you having a go at me for saying I would like the option? Well, if a fuss is what you call it, then yes, of course I am making a "fuss". It's a forum where people can share their thoughts about these kinda things. It's what a forum is meant for. And considering the developer is here too, I'm kinda addressing him as well as just voicing my thoughts to everyone else. And there are other people who feel the same way too, so if the old saying "it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease" is true, and there are enough wheels here that are squeaking, then hey, maybe the developer will do something about it... A local scoreboard does not tell you how good you are. If you are constantly averaging 1,000 and you then suddenly get a score of 2,000 (doubling your previous score), does that mean you're suddenly a good player? No, because everyone else is getting scores 10x better than you. YOU might not be a "score-whore", but plenty of other people are (although I'm sure they'd prefer to be referred to in a different way) — which is the whole reason global scoreboards exist. And who said anything about being impressed by another player's skills? In fact, as it stands, that ALL the global scoreboards can do for you: tell you about OTHER players' skills. What they DON'T currently tell you about are your OWN skills. And that's the where the fail lies...
Is it important for you to know, that you are now rank 678 instead of 1390? Isn't it everybody's goal to reach the top?
As far as global scoreboards are concerned, then yes, there is some truth in your statement "Isn't it everybody's goal to reach the top?", but to refer to the first part of your comment, yes it *IS* important for me to know that I am now rank 678 instead of 1390. Why? Because there are some players who will never reach the top 40 (myself being one of them), because our scores are just not good enough and the same satisfaction that the good players get when moving from position 40 up to 30, us not-so-good players get when moving from position 1390 up to 678. Why is that so hard to understand?
To go back to my above post, maybe that's the point that wasn't coming across before — the part about us players who will NEVER make it into the top 40. We still like to play and we still like to get as high a score as we can possibly get, but we're just never gonna make the top band... It's all very well for the players who are sitting in (or near) that list currently to say that the scoreboards are fine the way they are, but for the rest of us, with scores that are miles away from the people in that list, the global list is something that is unattainable, and therefore useless to us. If we could see where our positions are way down that list, then we might feel it is of some use to us, because us crap players could compete amongst ourselves leaving the good players to fight it out at the top!
Oh, and if you REALLY wanted me to create a fuss, then I could go on about how online leaderboards should have "buddy lists" so we can track our chosen personal friends' scores independently from the rest of the global scores — but hey, I'll save that one for another day!
Never say never. I haven't any console or gaming computer. I was in the bathroom and got to 6 (now 7) in some tries. Very often, it's simply luck (how many of the big rockets are crashing down etc). So, also you can reach the top 40, for sure. Or you just don't want to
Although I currently happen to be listed in the top 42 (~17k) in Canabalt, I have expressed the same opinion on the global systems for other games, which is that they fall too short of ideal (given the available resources for doing more) in how they track such things and seem to cater only to those who play the best and most. There are many games that show only the top 10, such as the Tap Taps, but at least state an exact relative player standing - not run standing. One benefit of knowing a numbered player standing relative to the world is that it offsets the impact of anomalous entries (i.e. cheating or bug-related - possibly in the future) on the overall perceived skill distribution within the player-pool. If for example someone finds a way to score a million points on a song, or a way to slow the system down or something like that and run 50,000 ft, and then submits a score from several of his/her devices (or friends' devices), it wouldn't make nearly as much difference to most other players scoring just 15k feet (or 800k on song) if the latter still were given some # of relative player standing. I can think of Tap Tap songs that in the past that had 8/10 positions filled with obviously faked scores (the devs eventually deleted them), but that was mitigated by the app rightly informing me of a #18 spot, or #25, 50, etc , helping to correct for what would otherwise be interpreted as a much broader inter-player skill divide. Even when the standing was only in the 100's or more, that info made the struggle towards the top all the more entertaining. Of course all of the above ought to be considered in the spirit of absurdity hovering around all conversations about video game standings and stats, any preoccupation with the latter being respectfully regarded the way any fan's absurd preoccupation with a team's score or stat would be. It's a million times more respectable to hit a baseball out of a park than to score 17k-25k in Canabalt, but it's more engaging to play games in general than it is to watch sports, in my opinion.
Thanks! I'm just not a big fan of vibration in my iphone games. I usually like to play them in quiet, public places. I can't wait for the next update!
We originally had planned to be able to dig up your top ranking and the scores around you, but we haven't figured out yet how to do it without putting a LOT of strain on the database. I'm sure it's possible though, and as soon as we work it out it will definitely be added. I already designed the icon for it and everything Finally, thanks for the feedback everybody! I'm going to be testing a build with the vibration toggle and a music-related bug fix sometime tonight, but with the App Store's holiday schedule (and apparently sporadic downloads on release )it may not hit iTunes until January. At least you won't have too many board meetings before then? Thanks again
