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Lestavol182 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

This is a very unique concept and I think it could be fun with more polish. I love the aesthetics of the pixel art.

As it stands I think it's a little bit too hard and chaotic to manage all of them together. Maybe it can be fine for a later level or something but as a first level I think it feels too daunting.

I also thought at first the up/down buttons supposed to be clicked repeatedly before I find out that you can hold it down with your mouse, so I thought it could somehow be communicated better.

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BurgerWithCheese182 days ago

Thank you, this feedback is very helpful! When we were planning this game, we aimed to achieve a sense of chaos that still felt fun.

Based on your, and other players', feedback, it seems that the game feels unfair or frustrating because it is almost impossible to get less than 50 crashes, let alone 0 crashes. Would you say the frustration comes from the most chaotic moments, when it feels like you're 'losing,' due to it being almost impossible to avoid crashes?

Our intention was for the goal of the game to be minimizing crashes, not necessarily avoiding all of them, since the level of chaos we wanted would make that impossible. But, I think we missed the mark on communicating that; since there is no feedback of whether the player is doing good or bad, every crash feels like you are losing the game. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding the source of the frustration, though!

I've thought of a new scoring system that could give a better sense of progression, and give the player a better idea of how they are doing, with a score that's balanced to be fair for the chaos of the game. I'm thinking of something like the Guitar Hero health bar, where plane crashes decrease health and saved planes increase health.

Thanks again for the feedback! Also, based on another player's feedback, we are planning on adding stronger visuals when pressing a button, that I think might better communicate that they should be held down!

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Lestavol182 days ago(+1)

I couldn't tell you for sure how I would design it differently. What I can say is that it is my understanding that most people have a loss-aversion tendency that overpowers their wanting-of-gains tendency (I'm not using the correct scientific term for sure haha).

For example, if you come up to people and tell them if you flip a coin, heads they get $10 and tails they gain nothing, everyone will take that bet. However, if you tell them heads they get $20, but tails they lose $10, a large portion of people will then not want to take that bet, even if the expected value is the same, because they value the $10 they already have more than the potential $20 they stand to gain.

Applied in your game, I reckon most players feel like the pain of crashing 2 planes is disproportionately worse more than the joy they feel when they pilot the air traffic expertly. If it's still the design you want to keep, I think there's a lot of feedback you need to design into the UI so that the players get rewards much more often, or disproportionately bigger than the crashes to counteract this emotion.

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BurgerWithCheese182 days ago(+1)

Thank you so much for the detailed reply! That is genuinely so helpful - thank you.

I completely agree; in its current state, the game gives no feedback for a successfully piloted plane, but gives very noticeable feedback for a crashed plane! I'm hoping that the health bar, since it adds tangible stakes to the game, will help with the problems you discussed. Since there would be a concrete losing condition, crashing 2 planes is no longer the worst single event that can happen in the game - losing is! A crash should still be painful, but saving enough planes will 'heal' back the damage taken from the crash, which I hope will make individual crashes feel much less discouraging, while also providing more value and satisfaction from successfully piloted planes.

I think crashes should build a feeling of tension and chaos, but not build a feeling of defeat.

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