I can't find 8 coins in 2-4, but I will chalk that up to my lack of exploration. I am throuigh 4-1 so far. Add me on gc Drunkhobo. Currently I just go to a level get all the coins first completion then finish the speed time and move on. I will go back to work on speedruns and skulls etc. later I think. I am not really a big exploration guy, but it can be fun like in super quickhook etc. A great game well worth the $2. I might buy the first one if I thirst for more.
Coin SPOILER: Pretty sure the coins you're missing are the ones hidden in the wall. When you go on the floating block jumping around spikes, wait until it goes up, and look at the left wall for a small indent. There's 8 there.
Thanks for the heads up, Nick! Mos 2 is right up there with some of my all time favorite iOS titles. Just love everything about it.
The glowing eye thing... Intendro... Spoiler There's somewhere in that level you need to take the eye to. Do this & complete the level and then go to 1.5. There's a barrier in that level made out of three doors with a symbol of an eye on them. One of them will now be raised. I've found one of the others which I'm happy to share if you wanna know and now I'm hunting the third! I hope the 'invisible' blocks will be unlocked somehow via this.
I'm also thinking there must be some trick of this kind you must do in order to beat the speedrun time in the last level. It seems impossible to beat it using the normal path! Spoiler There's a strange thing that looks like a door in the middle of the way, covered in smoke. Maybe it's a shortcut and there's some way to open it!
Wow, that sounds like a tough secret! I finally joined the group of 5 that were persistent enough to pass 5-6. Some really tough levels in this game. If anybody wants to know anything about how to get faster times on levels, just ask. Each level comes down to key moments that determines the separation in time between players. Something else: I've raced against peer ghosts that don't show up on the leaderboards (ETsc2 and Felipe Cancian Be....). I'm assuming it's a developer/tester. They had the fastest time in a few levels.
Anyone found the other glowing eye thing? Spoiler I found one in the final level but it was already in its pedestal and didn't seem to open the final part of the gate on 1-5.
Hoping to complete the game this weekend 5-5 is giving me some real trouble but oddly enough I bet the speedrun will make it easier like on a couple of the 4th/5th stage levels. Big kudos to the developers on the level design. I am really enjoying all the variety in the later levels.
Are you sure? Spoiler Are you talking about level 5-6? I know there is an empty pedestal just before the area with the giant boulders. Instead of falling on that area, go to the left and an empty pedestal will be there. I can't find the glowing eye in this level, where did you find it?
I don't know what these eye things are that you are all talking about, but we've submitted an update to Apple that should fix a few things... We've also added some extra checkpoints and hints to the first couple of levels because we see that a lot of people are finding it pretty hard at first, so a bit of handholding until people learn the controls seems like a good idea.. Keep exploring! <0>
Hi Physmo! As one of those people who quit in the first world, I don't need more checkpoints or hints. I need checkpoints that keep working. That's my main gripe with this game, and the main reason I basically gave up on it for now. It's the difference between hard and frustrating for me. It's not that I don't know what to do, it's just that I lack the skill to do it perfectly on the second try and the patience/time to start levels over and over and over. The game seems brilliant and I would love to play more, and the checkpoint system is already there, so that makes it all the more frustrating that the checkpoints are not useful at all for me. Which is okay of course, not every game has to be for me, but since you mentioned many people getting stuck early on, I thought I'd mention what would keep me playing and that it was definitely not that I lost interest or thought the game wasn't good.
Hi Lena, We have thought about making the checkpoints work forever but were worried it might make things a bit too easy. One of the reasons we designed them to only work once was that we don't have lives in the game, so only having them be single use added some challenge in the absence of lives. But.. a lot of people aren't making it very far in the game so I'll put the question to the forum... Q: Would making the checkpoints work infinitely make the game better and more accessible? let us know what you think! Nick Spoiler <0>
Ahhh that's odd Felipe, the pedestal in that level already had the eye in it on my first play through the level. I have the other two though and only 2 gates are opened... Maybe the update Nick mentioned may fix that!.... On the point of making checkpoints infinite... It definitely would make the game more accessible but I think it'd take away from the achievement you feel when finally beating a level. That's coming from someone who has beaten all the levels though. I dunno about anybody else but I love these sort of super hard platformers precisely because they're hard!
Thanks Nick! I appreciate your willingness to think about this again, no matter what you eventually decide. I figured you didn't want to make the game too easy, but it's also painful to see that the vast majority of people don't even finish the first world. I know that for the few people who manage to finish the game as is it will take away from their feeling of achievement if you make the game too easy for them, so I understand it's a hard balance. Personally I tend to feel that those very hardcore people will want to 100% anyway (or at least could do that to get their challenge), so if you penalize using checkpoints by for example making the speedrun times impossible to achieve if you use the checkpoints, it's still very challenging and people still have to finish the game without checkpoints to 100% it. An "easy mode" with some restrictions (no speedruns/skulls?), while keeping the main game as is, would also be fine in my opinion. Or a badge for "finish level in one go". I always think asking people here on TA for their opinion about difficulty is somewhat problematic because this is not a random sample of gamers. You always see TA people at the top of the leaderboard for many games. Almost by definition, people who are interested enough in gaming to frequent a forum about it, are very likely hardcore gamers who have a lot more experience playing games and are less likely to find a game too difficult. You said you were adding hints, but to me, hints are what make games too easy. Where's the fun in that? I like figuring things out by myself, even if I'm not that good at it. I like checkpoints, I like the ability to skip difficult levels for the time being, but I don't like games holding my hand and solving themselves. Not saying you should not have them, just to give a different perspective. I only say all these things because I do love the game. If I were ambivalent about it I wouldn't bother to talk about it and just play another game. I just finished 1.4 in one go without checkpoints (and without coins or skulls, but hey) and felt really good about that and figured, ha, I probably have mad skills anyway and then I played level 1.5...
I feel very mixed on that question: On one hand, I always find that difficulty is as much a homage to old school games as pixel art and chip tune. On the other, it is really disappointing that so many people quit before 2-1. To me, that sounds like they simply want the game to have no challenge at all to it. So many games these days are walkthroughs with infinite checkpoints and no feeling of accomplishment when you do finish. Idk, I trust your judgement, Nick. Do what you think is best for the game. I hope you don't take offense to this, Lena. I just feel like you'd be able to pass the level you're stuck on if you kept trying. Level 4-3 and 5-3 were really difficult for me, but I just kept going at them.
Hmm maybe it's a bit different because I'm playing the android version this time. Btw, Nick, if it isn't too much to ask, I'd love an android fix, too hehe . The only levels I still haven't beaten the speedrun timer are 3-6 and 5-6. I think lena has a view very similar to mine on this: your most hardcore players won't like it, the rest of them will, and the TA community certainly does not compose a statistically valid sample of your audience. Thinking as a fellow developer and considering all the nuances there are to this matter, my answer is: yes, it will make the game "better" (from a modern game design standpoint) and more accessible. I have the feeling that you may be losing a very big slice of those people that bought your game before they can even enjoy it and see how brilliant it is. You already have a game which is targeted towards a very niche audience - hardcore platform players that like pixel art and retro games - but then you thin this even further within the game with the extreme difficulty. Probably only the most hardcore of the hardcores are currently beating your game, and there aren't many of those (relatively speaking).
@Felipe: The thing is that I see Mos Speedrun 2 as being great and unique for its difficulty. I understand that, by being someone who doesn't give up on a game in ten minutes, I am in the minority. But, when do the "hardcore" players ever get their way? Every developer knows that by making a game more accessible, that makes it more marketable. But does that mean it's better? I don't think it does. People have gotten lazy. And the game market is a reflection of that. In an industry where challenge was once seen as a staple of games, it is now frowned upon EDIT: I reluctantly vote "yes". Unfortunately, the general gamer is turned off by challenge these days, so making it easier will probably be best for the game.
It would most likely make it more accessible but for me it wouldn't make it better. However, it would be ok if: There was an easy enough way for you make a separate "normal" mode. That mode would have the infinite checkpoints, while the current mode would stay the same. You could, for example, select the mode from the title screen and it would stay that way until you changed it manually. I enjoy it how it is, but I totally understand wanting to make it appealing to a broader audience. But some of the achievements wouldn't feel like such an.. er.. achievement. I.e. Getting the 30 day charms and so on...
I would like to weigh in on the idea of infinite checkpoints. My first thought is as someone who finally beat all the levels for the first time today that it invalidates all the reruns I did on 5-5 and other levels that I have stress blocked because of certain challenging areas. On the other hand for the hardcore players just beating the levels is not enough. I want that #1 spot on as many levels as I can get and it certainly takes a lot more than just beating the levels. If you ever miss anything you won't get a #1 time. As it stands on one of the later levels I have 16s over #2 and I made a bunch of mistakes, but since no one is playing that level but a select few it isn't as fun for me either. I think if you get more people feeling more accomplished by beating more levels they will in turn spend more time getting all the coins, looking for skulls, and maybe once they feel familiar enough go for a speedrun time. I don't expect everyone to beat all the speedrun times, especially on stages 4 and 5, but more activity is better for everyone.
