Here is build 39 - and of course the link back to the (still ugly!) official Space Squid website.
Fair warning: I'm going to reset the high score tables on Build 40 (next update!) because the difficulty curve is changing so much between builds.
Edit: Looks like Level 10 and 11 in Hard Mode are neigh impossible. I'll have to fiddle with the numbers again - in the meantime, if anyone beats them I owe them a beer.
Posts
I'm not sure why you added the "Level + Stars left" layout. It was a bit confusing at first
ReplyDeleteI still think a volume control/pause button should be in effect. (build 40?)
Maybe some music, as well.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteA few items:
1) I'd like to echo the desire for a pause button. Space bar would be good.
2) Have you considered having each new level start automatically after a few seconds (show the countdown on screen) instead of requiring a button press to proceed? You can always pause if you need a break.
3) Using [ and ] to skip levels seems a little odd to me. How about having various start buttons on the main screen: Start at level 1, start at level 5, start at level 10, etc?
4) I like how you get more boost when you grab a star. In fact, I'd like to see the amount of boost you get per star go way up. How about trying it with a 50% boost regen per star?
5) Boost seems to get used up very very fast for me. It takes about one second to use it all up. I think it might be worth trying to have boost used up less quickly, perhaps with a less potent effect.
6) The random placement of the stars is sometimes a little too random. That is, the next star may be waaaaay across the board, or up in the sky or right next to the last one. It might be worth smoothing this out a bit, requiring each star to be within a certain range (not too close or too far) from the last one. Also, it might be worth exerting tighter control over how many big jumps appear per level.
7) Did you try it where you get a couple extra seconds added to the clock for each star you grab? I like the way that works with boost and I don't remember playing a version where you did it with time.
8) The Level + Stars readout is a little weird and confusing. I'd prefer the level readout to be a relatively low key thing in a corner somewhere. The number of stars left is critical info, and I'd like to see it in giant letters (or maybe pictures) at top center. (Except that's where the clock is. Can we design a widget that shows both, readable from the corner of the eye while driving a squid?)
9) It appears to me that my score goes up just by my moving around. That seems a little odd. The incentive is to use up every second on the clock wiggling around and grabbing the last star at the last instant. How about having score based on amount of time left at the end of each level?
Sorry for dumping all this on you now. I was out of town for the weekend and got swamped with stuff when I came back.
Had a few of your ideas on my plate already! Implemented a lot of those suggestions in v40 just posted a few minutes ago. I think the biggest problem with score was the lack of clarity on how it works. Now it's in the menu!
ReplyDelete@Rob: Thanks for all the suggestions! I did indeed try the "grab a star, get more seconds" model a while ago. Problem with it is that your seconds accumulate much too quickly and the game gets easier and easier the longer you play. Plus it's rather unforgiving - if you miss one jump you can't make it up with a sequence of 5 more perfect jumps! The game just ended.
The way I worked around that issue is I gave you slightly *less* time than is necessary to grab a far away star, and it would average out your points when you grab the closer stars. Robbing peter to pay paul, so to speak.