I don’t really like this spaced checkpoint. It feels like its contribution towards the game is extending longevity while frustrating players. Some may call it a challenge or adds tension, but it’s not really fun for me to be rolled back few levels just by taking 2 hits.
Sorry to hear that, I understand your frustration with it. It was a difficult balance to get right when designing the game: some players feel it is too frustrating, but if I made more checkpoints then players might feel they finish the game too quickly. I did get my testers to try with more and less checkpoints, how they are currently felt like the best balance. I appreciate your input!
Giving it some thought... do you think a difficulty setting would help? Current version could be Hard mode. Normal mode could be checkpoints every 2 levels maybe?
Many games, particularly late 90s attempted the same approach as you did, hoping to make games harder and prolong its longevity by limiting the number of saves available. Majority of them ended up releasing patches to lower the hurdle by allowing saves or increasing the number of saves allowed due to player complaints. While limiting the save is an effective way to make games harder and extending its longevity, it’s not entertaining for players. If you want to add hard mode, make the gameplay harder. If you want to extend the longevity, provide contents. I am sure you have better use of those over a dozen of character models other than player character model swap.
@Jstorm Regarding the saves: I like the way it’s set up with the checkpoints and don’t feel it’s frustrating. The idea @monteboyd mentioned about difficulty modes that change the checkpoint frequency seemed like a good compromise to me but these are just my opinions. I noticed some small bugs with my character getting stuck in the walls a couple times (first 2 images) and a few occasions where enemies were stuck floating in the air (third image): I made it to the checkpoint at level 13 and broke 100 kills \o/ Do the gold coins do anything for your score? Or are they used for something else? I was surprised all the characters were already unlocked from the start. It might have been cool to have to save up for some of them..
Ack! I thought I got rid of all the wall bugs. I’ll see if I can fix them. At the moment coins are just points. I did have plans to include a shop where you could buy more weapons, other characters etc. But I had to stop adding features at some point. The coins you have collected are being saved in the background though, so I may still do an update that adds a shop and you wouldn’t start from zero coins!
Thanks for the explanation, I definitely like the variety of weapons and spells. The mace seems a little underpowered in my experience, I might be missing something there though. I may be a tad obsessed with the game, check the pic lmao. A shop or inventory system would be very cool. I dunno if this is outside the scope of the game, but it’d be cool to be able to swap equipment for different playstyles like: -Weapon with shorter reach but higher attack -Long range weapon with higher ATK, but has to recharge -Armor that lowers ATK, but gives extra HP -Armor that only takes one hit, but gives +2 ATK, etc Anyway, I’m around Lv51 and I’ve definitely enjoyed the game so far. Definitely one of my favorite releases this year. I don’t mind the checkpoint system at all, once you learn the enemy types and attack patterns, it’s basically just a puzzle and it’s possible to not lose a single HP between levels. My favorite technique is hitting all of the splitting enemies (Slimes, Bushguys, spiders, etc) and then just standing under a ledge and have them walk into the sword (By the way: just putting this out there, I would absolutely pay for DLC if that’s part of your post-launch plan. )
Thanks so much! I really appreciate the feedback and really glad you like the game so much. I do have an idea for an extra area that I’d like to add as an update. But my plan is to include it as a free update! Just hoping for enough downloads to make it worthwhile. So far no Apple feature so the tumbleweeds are starting to roll in.
I really enjoy small titles like this on mobile. This game is barely a year or two old, and it’s already delisted. I went download this gem onto my newer iPad and got the sad notification. I still have it on my phone, but really wish it was available for other people to discover too.
