I haven't made any changes to Ahab's Revenge in a while, but I had a breakthrough idea that was so easy to implement and obvious that I've been kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner.
The awkward, incongruous "3 strikes, you're out" system is gone. Ahab doesn't have "lives" anymore. What you have instead is a slowly decreasing oxygen supply. This makes sense thematically, since Ahab is underwater. When you're in the coral, your oxygen supply decreases much more rapidly, because it's...er... smothering you, or something. Okay, it doesn't make 100% sense, but this is fantasy, and I think this approach is a lot more intuitive than having the coral steal a life.
The scoring now makes more sense. You can't just camp out on the first level and destroy coral for eternity to get the high score, since you're now on a timer, and your score after killing Moby is now bigger depending on how much oxygen you had left when you finished.
And finally, a new power-up has been added. It, rather predictably, gives you a small oxygen boost.
Try it out:
AHAB'S REVENGE: OXYGEN EDITION
As usual, tell me what you think. Really, do not hesitate to leave a comment if you feel that there are balance issues; it's always incredibly helpful. Another question: do you think it would be too frustrating to lose a bit of oxygen when a whale hits Ahab?
nathan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey! Kevin here! Sup.
ReplyDeleteI do think there are balance issues, namely that it doesn't seem to be possible to destroy the block curtain (or punch a hole in it large enough to stand in) faster than it descends. The block curtain descends really quickly and the whales spawn really slowly, so by the time you get the color of whale you need the whale's already behind the curtain (and thus no longer harpoonable). Since the color of each new whale is random, and the color distribution of blocks in the wall is also random, it always feels like it's entirely up to chance whether I can ascend to the next floor before the wall crushes it.
If the bottom layer of the wall is mostly yellow bricks, for example, and two red whales spawn on the floor above me, I'm screwed. This is a little frustrating since I've died purely due to luck and not due to poor strategy or skill.
Furthermore, the odds of getting the whale I need to progress to the next floor are pretty bad.
Chances of getting the whale I need to proceed if the bricks on the bottom few layers of the curtains are made of:
* Mostly one color: 1 in 4
* Mostly two colors: 2 in 4
* Mostly 3 or 4 colors: Close to 0 in 4 (since a shot isn't likely to clear enough room for Ahab to stand)
Some suggestions for making the game feel less chancy:
* Allow harpoons to pass through bricks (and decrease whale depth so that whales appear in front of bricks, not behind them)
* Decrease the number of brick/whale colors
* Decrease the speed at which the brick curtain descends
* Spawn whales more quickly
* Spawn whales at random Y-positions, not just on every floor
* Introduce multicolor whales
* Allow Ahab to shish-kebab a few whales on his harpoon (melee attack?) to fire later, to reduce the amount of time he needs to spend waiting for whales to walk into the right position