Right, just got to the last stage. Here are my thoughts:
- BROINK is all about the opening. Bad opening means disadvantage, disadvantage means exploitation, and exploitation means increasingly certain defeat. Other than that, the main guidelines are: focus, don't be overconfident, don't let the opponent intimidate you, and seize every possible opportunity with high accuracy.
- One easy way to beat the first 6 AI opponents is to mirror their movements, but with more momentum, because they are not as precise as the last AI opponent. This gives you an advantage, because you can mirror their tactics while also having the flexibility to perform them better.
- The only way to beat the final AI opponent is to exploit the centre line before it vanishes, as the AI was not designed to account for that. If it was, I can say with near certainty that it would be impossible. The AI is designed to make perfect mathematical decisions based on your position and velocity, assuming a clear board. Bouncing from the centre line allows you to deflect on your own terms, and doing this while it has momentum will give it a disadvantage, as it plans as though you are trying to avoid the edge based on the AI specifically. I have not been able to get more than one consecutive win on it, as it is very difficult to pull off.
- Straight up, this game is worse than Touhou and Sans Undertale - though, based on time, the first six stages were significantly easier as I had them beat in around 15 minutes or so. If this game was made into a unique soul mode, precision players everywhere would be tearing their hair out. In fact, I think it would actually work well for Patience, just because that trait would be required to master it. Well done
- You should make it playable with a mouse and maybe a choice of mouse up, mouse down or spacebar or something...playing with a keyboard isn't as precise and it's starting to hurt my fingers because I have an unpreventable psychological impulse that makes me push the keys harder trying to force the ball into a certain direction
- The final AI has the most intense, cliff-looking, superintelligent-AI-style T-bagging I've ever seen