Game Development

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user92578

3:59 AM

@Almo :)

9:34 AM

@Almo super meat boy gives you a couple of seconds of cooldown between lives—one second of death animation, one second of reforming—during which you can reset your grip and let go of buttons.

doppelgreener

9:57 AM

@Almo having sampled DotA, LoL, and HotS, HotS is my favorite specifically on account of how much it removed that i didn't have to manage.

dota: "here, micromanage this chicken AND your hero in order to buy things at multiple different shops. when you're combining things, micromanage both those things AND your inventory."
lol: "have a shop! it will manage upgrades for you, but you need to pick what to buy and there's tons of things and a newbie won't know what on earth they should go for but we'll make a couple of suggestions."
hots: "get out there and beat stuff up."

i am here to get out there and beat stuff up, so hots is the game i will play.

i am not here to micromanage 2 things (the harder one being not even my own character) so i am not playing dota.

4 hours later…

Almo

1:45 PM

@doppelgreener Yeah, that extra management layer in DotA really sucks. I'm ok with LoL's, but I admit that I was already used to that. You're right about HotS focusing on fighting, which is nice.

2 hours later…

Alexandre Vaillancourt

3:36 PM

You know when your profiler does not work as you'd want... :'(

user92578

So yeah Super Meat Boy does not have a restart menu

Almo

50% time taken by profiler. fuck.

@Tyyppi_77 it just restarts automatically, right?

user92578

yup

Almo

if you want to get out, you use pause menu

right?

user92578

3:37 PM

yeah

Almo

fuck yeah

do that

(well that's my opinion anyway)

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Almo I would be glad about, it would mean that the profile can instrument my app, at least :P

user92578

I have just one concern with it

user92578

Later in the game, there are these hostages that you need to carry with you onto the truck

user92578

If you don't, the truck starts, and you get a game over screen that says "Game Over - You didn't rescue the hostage!"

Almo

3:38 PM

and you need time to read that

user92578

And my worry is that it might not be apparent why the level failed if it's not displayed

Almo

I'd say give them a little time to read that

like 1.5 sec or something

or 2 sec

user92578

I guess could only display the menu in that case? But is that odd?

user92578

Hmm and actually yeah, there is also a message when the hostage dies

Alexandre Vaillancourt

What's the concern? You think that the player will not be able to read the message?

doppelgreener

3:40 PM

@Tyyppi_77 add a level that makes it impossible to proceed until they load a hostage into a truck, then reinforce that, before that late game thing?

user92578

@doppelgreener It's already impossible to proceed, but the reason why they can't proceed might not be apparent

user92578

My concern is that if I just respawn "instantly", there won't be a message

Almo

I wouldn't display a menu

don't respawn instantly if there's a message. then wait for like 2 sec

to make sure they know

these truck with no hostage failures are probably not super common?

user92578

Yeah those are not super common, the hostage dying is though

Almo

oh, here's another

Geometry Wars 3 has a thing where when you blow up, it waits 1-2 sec and goes to a menu.

during the wait, Square restarts instantly

square is not something you ever press during a normal game

so you could always say Game Over for 2-3 sec, but if they hit a button, restart immediately

otherwise it goes back to level select

you learn pretty fast that when you're having trouble, you're respnosbile for the quick restarts

possibility

DMGregory

3:45 PM

Your message could also linger into the new spawn, so it's on-screen longer. Depending on how much of the screen it takes up and what else might be vying for the player's attention at the start of a fresh run.

user92578

Yeah I think lingering the message is a great idea.

user92578

Now just to decide between instant respawn or a system where instead of buttons you need to press a certain key to either respawn or quit

user92578

I feel like the latter might be a bit annoying, since those who rebind their keys will need to possibly reconfigure two more keys now?

Almo

People who rebind keys don't care

as long as they can rebind everything they want

I am one of them

first thing I do with any game is hit the settings to rebind most of the controls

user92578

To me it seems like instant respawn with a new message display system would be the smoothest. Would you prefer the one where you have to hit a key to respawn?

Almo

3:50 PM

Me personally, I would prefer that

it's as fast (or as slow) as I like

DMGregory

Depends if anything's going to be immediately shooting at me / counting down / other urgent threats immediately upon respawn. If so, I'd like an "I'm ready" button.

user92578

lol thats actually very good question

user92578

i cant remember if I have levels that require immediate action

user92578

I feel like no, but it's possible i guess

user92578

but yeah sounds like it's best if I go with a respawn button

user92578

5:14 PM

decided that this is too big of a project to work on here, I'll get to that next weekend I think

user92578