This is a very unique puzzler. Fun and challenging too. I did have a little trouble telling if my scores were good or bad. With leaderboards for the Daily Board, I think this could be a really great mobile game.
Viewing post in Less tally cosmically jam comments
Thanks, glad you had fun with it :) .
For scoring, in the tutorial it brings up under 200, and even better getting below 50%. You'll also have effects come up when you get below those 2 targets to compliment you reaching them as good and great scores. For further reference, I like to set my goal as getting under 40% average for my last 3 boards, and this is one of my games I'm actually good at haha so take that for whatever it's worth. My best L3 of all time is 31% and I still can't believe I actually managed that, after the previous 33% I had I thought I wouldn't beat.
Generally I think it's better if you just try and improve at your own pace, and get a feel for how well you can do and how well you want to keep doing, knowing that there's a 'cap' for how well you can complete a level. Another option if possible is comparing with others. Today I managed to get 135/43% on the daily.
For leaderboards, I hope that I can explain why I don't think they'd work for my game.
- The goal here is to do your best at the puzzle and try to get the lowest score you can reach. There's a nice amount of variance and ways to reach lower scores and compete from potentially different angles, however boards naturally have a *best potential*. Unlike other action/strategy games with daily leaderboards that have a high score for people to try and reach that you want to compete with, having a score shown here would instead tell people 'this is the best score available, try and find this solution', which is counter to the feeling I'm aiming for. I'd rather people challenge themselves and/or others and go 'oh wow, I actually found a lower score!' Instead of feeling pressured to match what someone else discovered (assuming a large enough playerbase to to consider that solution discovered).
I recognize that different people engage with leaderboards in different ways, and sometimes personal goals aren't as motivating, but that's what seed's and daily's are here for-though they aren't leaderboards to easily access competing with others-they give you a way to tangibly compare scores when you do have someone to compare to. And the Last 3 boards average gives you a longterm goal to achieve and compare/compete for with yourself or others beyond single boards.
If you still think you'd desire a leaderboard with the above, and knowing if I could find a solution it may not be the leaderboard you imagine (there's no evident manageable cross-platform solution, and it'd likely be mobile, separate for android and IOS), honestly let me know. I could see a 'leaderboard' which if can be achieved just shows the best score achieved for the daily for you to compare against.
I'll consider it more if enough demand grows for it, but for now my most active player I know besides me specifically doesn't want a leaderboard. So the votes even out for now.
It will besides all that though be coming to mobile soon, though sorry IOS will be awhile off if you have that device as that's more complicated and will depend on when I'm in a position to go through the hurdles required for that.
EDIT: As a reference to my points above about the leaderboard, I was absolutely sure today's daily couldn't get below 43%, and the player I mentioned just came and showed off 126/40% and I had to do a double take, and they were over the moon when I was surprised about that, and I was real happy about that moment. You couldn't have moments like that with a leaderboard which could theoretically tell you the 'best score' for sure in a day.
Personally, when I gauge my own performance, I prefer to do it against what's possible for a given board rather than what sorts of scores I get on average, because it's possible some board just has a different limit on how well you can do. Leaderboards don't necessarily need to be the solution. Average scores from other players would work just as well for me. I generally am not personally motivated to try and top leaderboards. I am however motivated strongly by beating averages. That's all just my own taste though.
Just trying to dig into your goal some more, I'm a bit confused. You're generally not motivated to top leaderboards, but you'd like to beat averages. Do you mean, a leaderboard that would average the daily scores, kind of like the zachtronic games, rather than trying to compare directly against the best outcome of a daily? So you'd be comparing against the average of those that submitted their score to the daily?
Yeah. I initially said leaderboard because it's the standard way of letter people compare scores that also accomplishes what I'd personally like. I don't use leaderboards like most people. I scroll down quite a ways through them to get a sense of what counts as a high score, not necessarily the best scores, and a sense of the curve of scores so I can roughly estimate how I did. A simple Daily Average accomplishes what I want far better, although I'm sure plenty will still want to know they got the best score possible.
Although ultimately I advise you not introduce anything that goes against what you personally are trying to accomplish with your game. Don't muddle your game by taking every person's suggestion in a doomed attempt to appeal to everyone. Daily Average would make the game more appealing to me, but if you want to avoid making players feel pressured, then you might want to say screw what Enchessency wants haha.
Thanks so much for taking the time to really detail what you were meaning and how you interact with leaderboards yourself.
Appreciate your understanding that it's not always the right choice to add in every request to a game, but regardless I really wanted to understand your perspective better to take that consideration alongside what other opinions may arise. That way I could more thoroughly consider if some additions could improve the game for the majority of people or not, and see if I could design it to try and catch both sides.
For now I'm sorry to say it would be safest to assume it won't be added, but if it is I'll have been able to take all this into consideration.