Trello has been existing for years, it's a very flexible way to organize information. Markdown isn't new either. I'd say there's a trend to simpler software that works locally, but that might simply be my bubble.
1. I'll improve the onboarding, but it's a balance between too much text and too little. I think i'll "unlock" some things like the default perk, extra upgrades by playing better, etc.. after a while, and explain them at that time.
2. You can click menu/unlocks/perk name to try the perk, but only for one level. Maybe i could instead start a normal run with that perk.
3. clicking the score at the top right lets you see what perk you have and restarts the game. The button didn't work at some points, but in the latest version (web) it definitely works. Again, it's a "missing tutorial" issue, more than "missing features"
4. The game indeed has a dominant strategy, I haven't reached 66k high score at all, but I can see some perks work better than others. I was thinking about a challenge of not using a perk. So, high score without multiball. High score without hot start. This would make alternative strategies more interesting to develop. Another option would be "hard mode", where the bricks take more hits, perks are rarer, missing resets the level score, missing a coin reduces score... some new level of challenge basically.
I think all those points can wait a bit though, except the ball stuck one, where i'd love to have more details. If you play on web, you can turn game recording on in the menu, and share the video of any odd behavior. This bug is at the top of my todo, but I also have a job and it's not easy to reproduce, so it might take a little while to fix it.
1. I agree about the balance, and I also like the ideas you suggested.
2. Yeah, I noticed. It'd be great if the run would continue from there!
3. Oh, I had never noticed that (maybe because it doesn't really look like a button nor a link). Totally not a "missing feature" issue then (and maybe more like an affordance issue).
4. All nice ideas, but as you mentioned they can definitely wait. Also, let me reiterate that the game is already great, no big change is needed in my opinion. A few small additions might be nice, but I'd keep it simple (and from what I could gather we should definitely agree on this one).
As for the bug, I'll see if I manage to reproduce it on the web version when I have a bit more time. And don't worry about the fix, there's no hurry of course.
Update on the bug: I could not reproduce it on the web version, but in the process I have found something else.
(I already emailed the videos to Renan, I'm posting this here to the benefit of all future lurkers).
1. The ball goes through Sturdy bricks sometimes, but it does not break nor bounce back after hitting them (and indeed this does not cause a miss). I guess this is somehow related to Color Piercing or Piercing (or both).
2. Easy Cleanup activates twice if the latest Respawn happens before all the coins have been caught or fallen off screen (I had Lv 1 on both perks). Here's what happened: the ball hit the second to last brick, the last one is automatically destroyed, but then another one gets respawned and quickly destroyed again.
The first one is a bit jarring, the second one is so marginal that I doubt it even warrants the time investment (but I thought you better knew about it).
Also, two more non-bug related updates:
3. Boring cheat – I found out a way to farm points: if you have Respawn Lv 3 or 4 you can endlessly hit the same cluster of bricks, and if you manage to put the pluck in a comfortable position (i.e. straight line) it's very easy to farm plenty of coins with the aid of appropriate combo perks. No video though, this happened on the app while I was playing casually (it's quite easy to reproduce, though). I wouldn't do that because it's mind-numbingly dull, but still I'm not sure this kind of play is intended or if it should even be allowed.
4. Combo balancing – one thing that makes the best strategy overly dominant is the way combo resets abruptly with everything other than Compound Interest, which pairs exceptionally well to Coin Magnet (which is in itself instrumental to scoring high). If the other combos would scale down accordingly (i.e. 1 coin less when you hit the walls/ceiling/puck – or at least drop some percentage, but not all of the combo at once). This would instantly make many more strategies and combinations viable, because right now it doesn't make much sense to pair Compound Interest to any other combo perks (except in very specific circumstances).
Thanks. I guess one perk i could add is "3 random perks" where you have to figure out what you got haha. The flashing lines you see are signaling that you missed the bricks and didn't hit any. That will reset your combo. If you manage to never miss in a level, you'll get and extra upgrade and choice. If you miss less than 3 times, you'll just get an extra choice.
A/ I had a current level display before, but now the menu is in its place. I guess once you pass level 1 i could display your current level instead of "menu" at the top right. I also want to show the score and multiplier, i'll have to do hard choices.
B/ Yes, letting users pick the next level is a great perk, it's a bit of a code change but not that hard, i added it to the possible new perks list.
C/ This perk already exists (menu/unlocks/+1 level) but you need to score a bit to get it.
I've played a lot of nova drift where the is a lot of complexity to the upgrades system in-run. In previous versions of breakout 71 you would permanently unlock perks level by level but that was a lot of code and not contributing much to the fun, so I got rid of it and you for example just unlock all 3 levels of "extra level" at total score 13000 (all run scores summed).
I did restrict some perks about ball to ball interactions (ball_repulse_ball, ball_attract_ball to having first picked the multiball perk) because otherwise they'd do absolutely nothing.
The misses, coin catch % and level clearing speeds are already tied to an in-game behavior of having more options and being able to upgrade more than once after a level, so I don't know if I'd also add another thing that depends on it. Keyboard users (where it's really hard to not miss 50% of shots) will be mad :)
I never heard of Mario style time unlocks, that sounds like silly fun. You get something for finishing the level in a sepecific amount of seconds, no matter how many minutes?
It seems I misremembered about mario or that i'm just bad at searching, the only thing I could find now is that the trigger for the fireworks is ending on specific number, oh well :)
Obviously you know your game better and have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. For me it was mostly a case of seeing a long list of unlocks and the only way forward was play another game (repeated a lot of times).
One thing I like about Vampire Survivors is that you can try to figure stuff out and for me that is a much more enjoyable way to play "just one more" run (even though I still haven't found even close to everything, which I would have if it was only time that was needed)
Anyway, thanks again for the game and good luck going forward!
That's the spirit, I actually also play it while tests runs. I used to play nuclear throne for such short intermissions, i liked how quickly it started up, the lack of filler, variety and limited run length. I just tried to get a similar feel from a breakout game.
Keyboard play is now supported. Use left/right arrow to move puck, shift+arrow to move it faster, space to start/stop, M for menu, S for score menu, and up/down arrows and space/enter/escape to navigate menus.
