Comments on: Lessons Learned From Comments, Victors & Everyone Else

By: DruLeeParsec

DruLeeParsec — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:30:32 +0000

#6 is an often overlooked piece of advice. When somebody says “My game sucks. There’s no collisions at all but here’s what I have if you want to look at it” it gives me no reason to spend my time looking at their game.

If, instead, they said “More progress. Bullets now have particle trails to simulate smoke and the mines explode correctly. I don’t have to collision detection up and running yet but it’s starting to look like something” NOW I want to see what they have.

By: digital_sorceress

digital_sorceress — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:08:20 +0000

A famous jumping platformer which contradicts this advice is Manic Miner. The first level was harder and twice as long as levels 2 & 3. It was made that way deliberately.

It set the pace of the game, by presenting challenge from the beginning. It meant that players didn’t have to wade through several boring minutes waiting for the challenge to pick up.

With what they say about first impressions, I would think that having challenge from the outset is rather important. And especially so if you want players to return to your game again and again.

Being just challenging enough is a difficult balance to find though.

By: SusanTheCat

SusanTheCat — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:31:17 +0000

Quote: If your game is based on levels and you only have an hour to do them, you are probably going to need to cut down on your vision. A common mistake is to drop the latter half of the game, where the levels become more difficult.

The corollary to that is “Don’t do the opposite and drop off all the easy starting levels.”

There were a bunch of games where I never made it off the first screen because it was a jumping platformer. The first level should be short and get the player used to the controls.

Susan