In Super Mario RPG there are no sliders. You press the button a bit before hitting the enemy, or pressing the button several times, like the Mario's fireball attack, or one of the Geno's attack.
I will buy episode 2 as soon as this update hits! Thanks for making this change. I'll be taking option 3. LOL.
You're right. I was trying to say that I liked it's "hit it first or you're out of luck" setup on the single butting attacks especially.
After further thought... Why not completely remove the Attack Slider and make the attack mechanic more like the defense mechanic where you simply defend just before impact then get a message (Good Defense of Righteous Defense ETC)? When attacking the player simply hits just at impact to maximize damage. I'm thinking you could use a lot of the same code just remove the visual slider (I've found it distracting anyways). The battles would still be very interactive and we could watch the fight instead of a scrolling cursor. I'm actually really digging the Floppy Disk for this very reason.
For punching I didn't find watching the slider helpful as it moves too fast. Only way I could do it was to watch the timing of the punch animation and when it hits. Still, I think the slider is useful to verify how close you were to success after the fact. So I wouldn't want to see that go away.
We actually tried a similar mechanic to defense for attacking in an earlier build of the game (circa October 2011, I think). It just didn't work well and threw off balance too much. I think the new adjustments to the slider will make it much more appealing to players. The slider is now larger, it bounces back before ending, and it also gives you a rating in the same way defense does. The slider has been made easier for punching with the target area now in the middle of a big safety area. We've also adjusted the difficulty for the slider on the scissors, baseball card, and laserdisc. They all feel pretty satisfying now - even rhythmically challenged people shouldn't have too much trouble with them. There's also a few new achievements being added for the update: Punch-Out - Defeat an enemy with a critical punch. 5 points Tyson - Defeat 10 enemies with a punch. 5 points Electric Slide - Get a righteous rating on a weapon slider 10 times. 10 points Charged with Battery - Try all three charging methods. 5 points BADGES!? - Win a fight without scratching any stickers. 5 points
Figured it would be neat to post statistics from the game's first week on the market for those interested. Total Unique Players: 55,795 (49,584 downloads from iTunes, 6,211 from other sites) Total Episode 2 Purchases: 707 Stickers Scratched: 429,888 Battles Won: 114,466 Righteous Defenses: 105,980 Achievements Unlocked: 23,738 Hood Soldiers Defeated: 79,382 Lizard Men Defeated: 78,488 Players knocked out by The Wizard during tutorial: 1,579 Total battles lost: 12,798 Players defeated by Skeleboar: 1,594 Nearly five times as many players chose to side with May over Stanley during the "Grueling" side quest of Episode 2 (234:51).
Cool seeing the stats... I can't even imagine how many I have. I've wondered how many times I've played Ep 1. Seriously awesome game. You guys rock. Best of luck on sales!
I would love some stats in game so I could keep track of how many hours playtime and how many times you finished each episode etc. About the side quest I took the side quest for the Stanley and didn't even see may until It was to late on my first time through
Total Episode 2 purchases will go up by one once the update hits. Maybe others who try it will be more compelled to buy once options other than voluminous rapid tapping is there.
Agreed! I'm glad that you guys can still work on the game and making it better, its a slow start but it'll keep growing. SMRPG is just my idea of an awesome game. Love it. Sadly it sounds like you guys have to delay the update just a bit (heard via twitter)? That's too bad, hope you're up and going soon!
I'd love to see the "Achievement Unlocked" box persist until I tap it, too many times I unlock something and never get a chance to see what it is. Oops, I seemed to have sold my Stripe Gum, how can I get it back? Is it in a machine someplace?
We just added a vending machine to Episode 1 that rectifies this - neither the LaserDisc or Gum were available to re-buy. That's fixed now. You're really doing good work for us by finding all this stuff, Tim.
Happy to help. Really, I just love your game. I'm glad I can support your project (of which you guys have obviously poured your heart and souls into) really I have the good end of the stick, I just get to play and have fun. On the up side the battle issue we've discussed has seemed to gone away (I've replayed Ep 1 several times successfully). Occasionally I will see a slight delay in the loading of the battle animation but it still loads. Seems incredibly random.
With the new update we're also going to change the icon. We think the current icon probably hasn't helped sales much as it doesn't pop. Not to mention we didn't realize we could disable that stupid glossy layer that Apple used to require (the only games that seem to have that now are usually pretty low quality). In any case, here is the new icon!
Oh yeah, I like the new icon MUCH more. Captures Marty much better. Very much looking forward to the update.
