Thanks for the reply.
Yeah there is a bit of a clutter of mechanics at the moment, as I was trying out several things.
There are three ways to get a 'gameover.'
- Dead end, no valid moves
- Wait too long and run out the move timer (5 seconds right now)
- Wait too long and have your tail catch up to you.
Most likely I am going to remove the move timer and just have the tail catch up. How it is set up now, half the time the tail will catch you almost the same time as the timer. So the timer is a bit redundant. I'll probably turn that timer into a multiplier timer. It is probably not obvious atm but the faster you move the more multiplier you gain, and that is based on that same move timer. If you move when the timer bar is green you gain the biggest mutliplier.
I've been trying to promote the style of play where you can sit an wait for a bit and plan a route, and then depending on how fast you execute that route and how long you keep it up, the bigger the reward.
The design goal is to balance the risk/reward of giving big rewards for moving very fast, but that of course limits path planning and increases risk of a dead end. The tail also reinforces that as the faster you move the longer your tail gets and we get the old school snake game mechanics of risk making our own dead ends. The timer was initialy to punish being too slow before I got the tail implemented.
I am a fan of those sorts of mechanics where, to some degree, the player controls the difficulty by trying to get as close to failure as possible without failing. So as they approach that failing line, they find the biggest rewards. And they can also play 'zen' and casual like by just not pushing so hard.
Its a WIP for sure.
I appreciate your feedback.