Floating … design notes.

N’ayant pas trop le temps de squatter mon ordi, très sollicité par les vaisselles, je gribouille mes pensées dans un carnet jaune. Comment ajuster le fonctionnement des power-up dans “School Rush” pour améliorer la prise en main par les joueurs ?

I have the setup to generate pseudo-random item when stunning a pendat. I took some time this week-end to think about what were the barriers to the adoptions of these power-ups are. It make me re-consider the pause and animation when Super Mario gains powers. To be reliable, it’s important that the player can keep track of whether he has the power-up or not … which was so far an abstract counter. I think it could also be important that one finds, in-game, a “free” power-up, whithout having to stun a pendat — especially given that stunning pendats with bladors is quite difficult. Being able to have hint on what pendat will release could help, too … Although it would require much work to reverse the monster engineering.

Et tant que j’y suis, même genre de notes pour la mise en place des générations de power-ups. Là, j’ai quelque-chose de correct pour la perte de power-ups (on les voit quitter Bilou et tomber dans le bas de l’écran).

And for the fun, I used a similar sunshiny hour last week-end to select the way power-ups are released, and how they interfere with Bilou’s behaviour. The current trigger to start floating is now a double-tap on the “JUMP” button. This may not be mis-interpreted as a bounce-to-be on an eraser, a monster or whatever. And this remains ergonomic enough.