Hello I'm making a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up game with a friend. You start the game with 3 lives and you can also pick health bonuses or new lives during levels. The problem we are facing right now is that we don't know what to do when you die in the game (for good, not just losing 1 life). 1)My idea is that when you die for good (after losing all your 3-4 lives), is game over - you should restart the whole game. Our game has right now only 10 levels and each level lasts around 3-4 minutes. There is also a "infinite level" or "arcade level" in the menu that you can play independent of the game so I'm thinking I don't want the player to finish the main game to quickly or to easy and then forget about it. or 2)My friends idea is that once you die for good (you lose all your lives), you restart the current level, not the game. The only downside is that you lose your upgrades. He thinks this way the player will not be frustrated and anybody can finish the game even if they die for good a lot of times. What do you think ? Thanks
You could have different modes: EASY - Continues from the last completed level at game over, with anything collected. NORMAL - Starts from the beginning, with anything collected. ie: so it's easier to get further next time. HARD - Completely restart when you die, without anything collected previously. And perhaps put a different bonus level at the end of each mode, as an incentive to play the different modes.
Thank you Red1 for your input ! Yes something like what you suggest is very good, or something like a "save button" when you can save your progress into a game slot anytime the player wants (right now it only saves when you leave the game). But unfortunately we are very late into this game (is our first game and it took us a lot more work and time that we initially though) and my programmer friend is overwhelmed and doesn't want to make any new drastic changes to the game (like the difficulty thing or the "save" so...we need to decided between the initially two choices: restart the whole game or just restart level when you die for good...
Reds idea sounds best, but if I have to choose between proposed two option I'd say that restart the level sounds way better.. Unless you are targeting only hardcore players, but that means you're pushing 95% of IOS player out of the target audience.
For iOS it's probably best to let them restart at that level. iOS gamers (the casual type, not the hardcore gamers) generally have the attention span of a fly. You may be able to engage them for long enough for them to see features they may not otherwise see by letting them restart at the level they are on.
