TumbleSeed is a deceptively deep roguelike about balancing a seed up a dangerous and ever-changing mountain. · By
I agree they are really difficult (talking about the 'bomb' ones right?). I find that if they happen to be generated for your run is make or break for me, as in just not having them spawn makes the game waaaay easier. They probably are too powerful? Maybe if they had a very large turning radius or something?
I just had a really frustrating situation happen.
I was being followed by 3 of those purple fliers, so I decided to see if the boomarang would save me. I made 3 attempts (3 seperate plots) and the boomarang each time flew out in comepletely useless directions, deftly avoiding all enemies on the screen each time. (The screen had more than just the 3 fliers).
Because I was giving the boomarang a fair shake, circumstances forced me against the wall with an overhang. Like this:
(Those plots were boomarang attempts)
Needless to say, I got hit. Problem was that I immediately went up against the ceiling, the game treated me as if I landed on the balance beam, and I was instantly hit a second time (this all happened at the same time). Sooooo I lost 2 hearts and somehow got out without losing a third. Very discouraging.
Don't quite know the solution, but this whole situation (from the boomarang being pretty useless and not acting in a predictable way to being hit twice for an inescapable situation) really took the wind out of my sails...
I'm really sorry about that. We're going to add an invincibility period after getting slammed into a wall if the wall is directly above you :( This is a known issue and we sort of just play around it since we know it exists, but we absolutely need to fix it since it's a heartbreaker.
For the boomerang -- the direction the boomerang fires is related to where you are relative to the plot when you plant it. It'll always shoot out in the direction that you're "pointing" (i.e. draw a line between the seed and the center of the plot when you roll over it, that is the direction it'll fire). Good to hear you're not enjoying it, though! Always interested to hear what people dislike.
I think the first quest should not be specific as to how you kill yourself.
I like this. My initial reasoning was that spikes killing players instantly is sometimes a frustrating gotcha, but that might be solvable through other means. Thinking about it a little harder I realize that the first quest might be the way it is because it was the fastest quest for me to test and it's the first one I implemented and just wanted some task I could repeat quickly which is not a good reason behind a design but is kinda a funny epiphany haha
Perhaps moving the hit box out (with an obvious marker) would make it feel better?
Good idea!
The bomb seed might be too powerful with the increased number of enemies. With the aura that takes 7 crystals instead of damage, I still had 40 crystals by the third camp (along with 8 hearts).
Hahaha yeah that could be. I've been having a lot of fun with the latest build because you sometimes get overpowered stuff like that happening, but it's definitely too much in some cases.
Really like your boss suggestions as well! Definitely one of the far less polished sections of the game so ideas for that stuff are really appreciated
In the forest having an easier first couple hundred feet/meters seems like it would make it more approachable to new players
Agreed
The spawning algorithm does not seem to take this into account, so sometimes you make have 3 homing enemies (pink spiders and large pink fly's)
It does take it into account, but not in a way that is as effective as it could be. Right now every enemy has a weight. We spawn zones of enemies, and each zone has a weight sum. Homing enemies have a much higher weight than non-homing. The idea being that ideally a single homing enemy (or other more-difficult enemy) spawns in the zone, and then another high-weight enemy can't fit under the weight limit, so the rest of the zone gets filled with smaller enemies.
In reality what happens is we get bad spawns when homing enemies happen to *just* fit into an enemy's weight-sum so they are the only enemies in that zone. And of course two or three homing enemies with no filler enemies is MUCH harder than one homing enemy with a commensurate amount of filler enemies.
All this to say that we are trying, it's not working as well as it should, and it should definitely be improved! Limiting the number of homing enemies per zone is definitely one approach on the table right now, and should probably be the system since it is what the weight system is attempting to do right now, and failing quite often.
All this to say that you're right!
Ah cool yeah that all makes sense. I guess the problem is non-linear difficulty of multiple homing enemies. 3x pink spiders is more than 3x as difficult as 1, but it is any homing enemy that effects this not just individual types. An exponential weight multiplier would probably do something. Also that they will persist and follow from the previous zones. Tracking homing enemies close to the player and including it in the new zones spawn weight to reduce it etc. Give you a hope of running away when under pressure from them with a slightly easier zone.
Yeah the goal was to de-emphasize quests and ensuring that people didn't think they were sort of "the game". They're mostly there as bite-sized guideposts for improving skill and exploring everything the game has to offer. Thanks for the catch on the difficulty spike with non-default seed planting!
We were planning on adding some text that hopefully would point to the quest being de-emphasized like "Remember, it's not about the quests it's about getting to the top!" Or something along that line of communication. Does that feel like it'd help?
It also might potentially be a little different for someone who's not already an expert like you? The quest system has been simplified since the do-one-quest-at-a-time thing was a part of it so it's feasible to have them chain together one after another, but the de-emphasis is still somewhat important to me.
I've been thinking about this, I think the text you suggested would be a good idea. Like you said, I'm in a weird place because I got good at the game before quests were even introduced, so I don't really have the proper experience--I'm trying to power through the quests because I want to see what they are, so something like this that gets in my way feels awkward.
I have another idea, and maybe this defeats the purpose entirely (trying not to play backseat game designer here) but I figure I'll suggest it anyway. Maybe you could streamline the quests, but find a way to mechanically emphasize that getting to the top is more important. Like, if a player regularly makes it well past the teleporter quest block they're working on, they could skip straight to the next block. Like if I'm working on the Jungle teleporter but I've already made it to the Desert a dozen times, let's just skip ahead. This is sort of similar to the approach Spelunky had with teleporters. Does that make any sense?
Hmmmm, thanks for the insightful thoughts. I have a bunch of fears with secretly skipping quests
- The game experience will silently vary between players in a way that makes conversations about the game weird
- There's an achievement for doing all the quests
- I'm afraid of introducing complex state into a the game that complicates save files and changes a linear go-from-one-thing-to-the-next into something *more* than that
The case where a player has mastered the game but hasn't unlocked the teleporters is one I hadn't fully considered, but on the same token teleporters are hopefully not very enticing to someone in that situation in the first place.
Super appreciate your thoughts on this. I'll definitely be adding a dialogue bubble that appears after completing a quest that explains.
good call on sending you back to leaderboards post-daily.
for difficulty: so yea, i just played to prove your wrong and got iced in the desert so hahha, my usual strategy sorta failed there and i took a few too many risks that bit me. desert definitely needs a look at for sure, esp. with the node/plot flies. there are tons. i'll take a look at snow as well, we did a bit of a big shift recently to try and make those biomes much more unique feeling by introducing enemies in each as opposed to sorta having a lot of haphazard overlap, but yea, certainly could use a pass or two. thanks mike. our head's have been mostly focused on other parts of the game balance wise so this was needed. :)
