Sorry to hear you're giving up mike, I totally understand your frustration though (after weeks of trying to compete with your scores, let alone our soulless robot friend's). Kepa, can you shed any light on the qpawn mystery? It does seem a little odd how quickly he can beat near-perfect runs. Looking at the most coins leaderboard I assume the game can be cheated..? Anyway mike, hope to see you on the Space leaderboards. At least qpawn isn't all over the weekly ones too.
I also think qpawn mystery is very interesting. Usually, those competing for high scores want their names to be all over the leaderboards, for bragging rights or what have you, so it is surprising that qpawn is not using the in-game weekly leaderboards to show off how good he is. To me, it doesn't matter really. I only want to be as good as I need to in order to unlock everything and get a few respectable scores. I feel like I enjoy playing any game with that in mind a lot more. Granted, it feels good to top any leaderboard, but for some it becomes an obsession to a point where people get angry with the game, themselves, etc.
Oh, I'll definitely still play. I'm just not going to spend hours and hours on a level trying to get that 1 extra point so that qpawn can come in and score a bunch more within an hour or two. And I'll be playing the space levels. In fact, I'll probably ignore the OF scores, and try to beat my own scores (if I want to) and be happy with that. Good point about the coins leaderboards. I meant to look at that, because I was curious how many coins qpawn had compared to me, and he has about half of what I do. So either he is really good, and my hat is off to him (and I apologize for any speculation of what might be), or there is something going on, because as you also pointed out, it looks like the coins board has been cheated. Also, I remember seeing qpawn's name on the old score board before the big update with OF. I don't remember him dominating as he is now. It seems like as soon as OF showed up, he shot right up to the front and hasn't looked back.
We can probably check out qpawn. We're doing a "spiritual sequel". It'll be about outrunning a seemingly endless avalanche. You'll run and swing through a randomized countryside featuring meadows, grassy plains, outdoor ruins, snow covered mountains, ice caverns, dark caves, volcanic caves, secret areas, etc. Basically it will be us crossing off our entire WOOPS list we have with Hook Champ, including upgrading the art to 16 bit instead of 8 bit inspired. How much it'll cost depends on the final part of our DLC experiment, see below. Space maps are the next update, unlocked if you beat all other maps. We'll never have DLC maps you have to pay for. However, more free maps are already planned. Update 4 is getting an additional 4 new maps. There's one final DLC on the way, but it's simply going to be a cosmetic-only DLC. We're going to use the DLC popularity results to figure out our DLC plans for future games. What kind of DLC, can DLC support a permanent price drop, is DLC worth the negative connotations associated with it, etc.
Yes. One notable change: Hooks and ropes will become a cosmetic, personalization thing rather than upgrades. We're giving that a shot, especially given the new randomly generated endless-survival nature of the sequel.
Nice, will there be the hats from the hook champ or will there be new hats or abit of both? Also i like the new coat, we need glasses and shoes now. Edit@ Just remembered the cool shades, but i want to wear a hat and some glasses.
So the new game will be a mixture of Canabalt and Dino Run? Obviously with your own additions that make your game(s) so awesome. I hope your recreation of an avalanche captures the terror of the Wall of Doom. Also, what makes these Space levels so hard? Do they involve super precision like Skull, or a super fast chaser like Rat?
Each Space (we're calling it the Ghost Realm now, though it definitely looks like outer space) level has its own unique way to kill you. A Canabalt comparison is fair, as we're going for a similar mechanic to handle the procedural generation and randomness. However, the mechanic is going to be deeper. Mostly because we have the benefits of our cross-country setting and the grappling hook letting you deal with lots of different terrain types. We can have players face things like breakable walls, multiple paths to get through the same segment, indoor and outdoor segments, secret areas, long swinging segments over death pits, Rare Encounters, so on. I think the official name for the Wall of Doom was the Pyroclastic Wall of Death.
Great news that you guys are working on a second game! Will there be actual hand-made levels as well? Don't get me wrong, I love procedural generation / randomized levels but there's something to be said for a lovingly hand-crafted level. Especially since one of the huge appeals (to me, and others I'm sure) of Hook Champ is the whole speed run aspect. Especially if it's beating your best time on a specific level. Having both a randomized level / mode with the goal of furthest distance, and hand-made levels with the goal of time would be absolutely radnormous, though I know it may be asking for too much! Just curious. You'll have my support and I know you guys will do jamazing things either way.
We're going to shoot for a mix of procedural generation and lots of hand-crafted elements. As for entire hand-made levels: no, we're not going to do this. For a future mystery project, we are trying to figure out a way to do both random-generated levels and speed runs at the same time. For the upcoming game, it's just too big for us to figure out all at once.
I hope it won't be a "try to beat your previous score!" type of a game. While the idea of an endless level seems like non stop fun, levels that don't actually go anywhere seems meaningless to me. Games like Canabalt, Rope & Fly etc don't stay around too long, as your 100th game is very similar to your 10th game, except you go a few steps farther seeing the exact same type of stuff you've seen 99 times before. I think the new T-sanner is much better than Canabalt, since it has levels and each level offers something new, even if the mechanism remains the same. So you have a reason to try the next one. With canabalt, you have to repeat the same stuff just to see a little bit of something else. That's why hook champ was so good- even if people don't actively realize it, the levels feel very different, you feel like exploring and there's meaning behind it all. By the way, part of that meaning was the money to get more goodies, something else I understand is going away. This desire to upgrade made diablo what it is- if you take away to loot lust and the interesting levels, the thrill of running away fast will last only so long.
The money to get upgrades thing isn't going anywhere. It's still in. Our effort is going to be in making a game that has endless survival gameplay *and* has variety and a sense of exploration. The trick will be fostering a sense of exploration and finding new things in a genre that doesn't really lend itself to either. After this one, I am interested in games that focus primarily on exploration. RE: No time limitations / monster chasing you / reason to rush except for a bigger highscore.
I have a Problem in the last level of the Frog and the third Level of the Bull Idol. After a while playing, there is a part, in the frog level with one and in the bull level with many ropes. In the frog level, i can't get up there and in the bull level I can't get over this lava lake thing. What should I do?
