Post by Doom Ninja in Ricochooter comments

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Cute! I feel like the middle part was the hardest, with the braziers, because before that it's easy to keep the ricochets under control, and after that there are many health pick-ups. With how unpredictable the ricochets could be, and how the enemies weren't themselves all that dangerous, it did feel like the only winning strategy is to just not shoot that much.

If you wanted to expand on this, I wonder where you'd take it? I was thinking maybe some permanent upgrades, like a directional shield that also splits the bullets, or blocks you can place to alter the geometry, ideally in your favour. Maybe some enemies that actually put pressure on to shoot more. I suppose that goes against the game jam theme though!

ceyedev2 days ago

Hey, first of all, thanks for the detailed feedback and all the ideas for the game! I’m glad you enjoyed it ;)

Not shooting as much was actually our favorite strategy as well. We also tried focusing on only walking into areas where there weren’t any bullets at the moment and simply hiding behind walls, but those strategies didn’t work nearly as well as the first one, mainly because of the speed and density of the bullets over time.

Yes, we definitely want to expand on this idea, and I really like your suggestions! We need to move away from our current static environment towards some kind of dynamic system, with the ability to both place and remove certain blocks.

Permanent upgrades sound great, too. However, we also want to explore the “luck” element a bit more by adding temporary buffs or weapons that you can get during each run. We’re also considering taking the game in more of a puzzle direction, with different levels, in which case temporary random upgrades wouldn’t really fit.

But I agree with you - in either case, we’d need more interesting and creative enemies. We just didn’t really have enough time to think them through and create them as complex as we wanted to. However, I think that if we go with the wave-based approach, the game will be really difficult to balance...

I hope my rambling kind of answered your questions. If not, feel free to comment again ;) And who knows, maybe we’ll drop some prototypes next year 👀

Doom Ninja2 days ago

Time-based temporary upgrades feel kind of irrelevant when the strategy is to take it so slowly. Like the temporary shield that is in right now maybe encourages you to go in and shoot a lot while it lasts, but then the ricochets are still around afterwards. But a ricochet shield could maybe last a number of hits instead of a number of seconds. And a weapon could last a number of shots.

If it's puzzle-like, you don't strictly need enemies. The goal could simply be something like shooting a tunnel through to a destination, while surviving your own ricochets that last indefinitely, or something. Not saying that is better but something to think about. Kind of a twist on Breakout.

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