Its all about the stars, or is it cubes.....
Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Discussion/Its all about the stars, or is it cubes.....
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| I'm thinking out loud in the hope that some one else might have a better idea, at the I have gotten to the stage where I have implemented my level select, part of this little system is dependent on how well you do a level. For example gain 1 star on level 1 and it unlocks level 2, and so on and on until you have the whole stage complete (35 levels) Here is the thinky part where I hope some one might have a better idea, my initial method to judge how well some one has done a level is to count how many time they have hit their primary ball with their bat, this number is then compared to the total number of hex to clear. For example if I only bounce the primary ball 10 or less times and the level has 10 hex to clear I would give 3 stars, if I bounce 13 times I get 2 stars 16 times I get 1 star, I'm essentially thirding the total number of bounces. I figure for most levels the challenge for the player will be getting their ball up behind the hex where it can rattle around and do more damage before it drops back for another bounce...... SO.. Any thoughts of a better way to quantifying how well some one has done on a given level ? let me know. |
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| It needs to be something the user can directly understand. Your suggested mechanism seems a bit obscure. I'd suggest tying it to a score. Add a combo mechanism for multiple hexes hit between bat contacts and the score will generally reflect your idea while being clear to the user (as long as you bust out some "Combo 7x!" style notifiers, which are nice to have anyway). |
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| I was actually trying to totally avoid any kinda of score with the star's per level as the only indication of how well the player is doing, that and how many levels they have unlocked. at a push I will add score's unless some one has a better idea, I can get when you mean about it being obscure I guess it really does need to be evident to the player exactly what they need to do to perform better otherwise they could bang their head against a level for ages not really understanding why they were not getting the extra stars. glad you mentioned that. |
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| Surely the better they do the faster they will go... What's wrong with time to completion? Maybe you could add seconds under par to bonuses collected and then subtract the number of times they hit the ball. |
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| Yes, time seems good, so long as on most levels the hexes are near the top so bouncing off the back wall destroys them faster than bouncing off the bat. |
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| I thought about time, my main issue with it is figuring out how to alot enough time for each level to be completed and how to calculate the period required for each star award, for example I may have 5 levels all with the same total number of Hex but each of them could be radically different in terms of difficulty and as a result the required time needed to clear them, I would need to factor that into any time allotment given to each level, I would need to time and play test myself playing each level dozens of times to narrow it down and with over 150 levels planned that's a logistical nightmare I want to avoid. Another possible option might be to Hide three stars in each level, give them a faster drop rate so their a bit harder to catch with the bat, so gaining 3 stars would require clearing the level and then catching all three stars that drop, I could make them static in terms of where they are each level or I could make them random per run so the player cant learn their locations, not sure. Still very much open to suggestions at this point, I think I will be adding some form of score so that I can have a SHARE button that will post a players score to facebook, in terms of earning score at the moment I am thinking gaining points via power up pickups, and hex's destroyed with as suggested bonuses for multi hits, I think I will then act on this number based on the number of stars from the level, so say you score 1pt per hex and clear a 100 hex level if you then collected 2 stars that dropped I might do something like 100*2+bonus's or something... |
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