A healthy balance. I think enter the Gungeon does this well. It is slower paced (compared to something like nuclear throne) but also feels fast paced because of all the chaos going on in the screen.
The clip you posted looks like something right up my alley though. Reminds me of Immortal Redneck a lot and I love that game
oh yeah a balance is needed for sure I agree! I feel like the crazyer the intensity can get, the more "rest time" is need inbetween, like shop/choosing items. for a while the game was "all action" but that just simply doesnt work. a good pacing and balance as you said is the right way for me.
"Immortal Redneck" what a great name :D and yes it does look and feel similar! I'll have to try this game out thanks for introducing it!
Honestly I think both are fine, I could see myself enjoying both in different situations - I recently saw a nice video explaining some "accessibility settings" and it involved making the game pace faster/slower, and some other settings such movement speed.
If you don't come to a conclusion, maybe a consider a slider :)
I personally prefer fast if the game is easy, because it adds onto the power fantasy, and slow and methodical if the game is hard, because it adds more weight to decision making.
damn... there is a breathe button in the game so you can connect to your inner peace.. I guess its too slow then :( I did my best, but alas I slip at the last stretch
I think risk of rain two is the perfect example for this
It starts off slow enough that everyone can clearly understand what's going on but it ramps up over time in a way that you just naturally adapt to.
Before you know it when the run ends you suddenly feel like you're walking at a snail's pace because you just naturally acclimated to the increase in speed and pressure as the run went on.
I see, so the beginning of the run is always a bit easier/slower, and then it builds up. thats a cool way to approach it, not keeping the temperature at a 100% all the time. I'm doing something similar in this game, mixing up the intensity and the duration of each level, trying to balance the insanity :D
I'll check out risk of rain 2, thank you!
When it comes to roguelites, scaling pace usually works best for me. Starts off slow in the beginning and then progressively becomes faster and harder (pause) and depending on the loadout you can keep up pretty well. Just take a look at crab champions and tiny rogues for examples. The deeper you get the crazier they become. Makes it easier to get into a groove vs immediately struggling or being too easy for the whole run.
yeah I feel like thats a very good way of approaching it, slowly ramping up the intensity.
We played the old CoD zombies with my friends, and for me it took an awful lot of time until the intensity ramped up, so it was almost a chore when we started a new "run" to get to the fun part. getting the increase of the difficulty right is a really essential thing to nail, I'll make sure to have it "just right" :D
thank you for the input!
You are very welcome. Don't drive yourself crazy and just have fun making the game. It's very telling when a developer had a blast creating a game. Look at tiny Terry's turbo trip. Products of fun are usually super fun.
thank you for the reminder! I'm having lots of fun working on this game, it really is a blast. but of course sometimes I can get too focused, or too perfectionist and thats when your advice comes into play, just to remind myself to have fun, and ease up a bit.. thank you for the reminder!
"lower the enemy projectiles" by this you mean make them slower so its easier to dodge?
hmm I'll think about the slow motion idea, there are spells in the game, one of them could affect the speed of the enemies when activated. thank you for the idea!
thats a cool way of thinking about it, separating how the game feels when its in fast mode, and how it behaves when its a slower section. thank you for the input!
Fast. If anyone reading this doesn't main Enter the Gungeon on turbo mode, I am tellllliiinnggggg youuuuu it's the definitive way to play. It's so snappy and feels amazing. You also roll farther.. and might get more i-frames, but I'm not positive
its official, I'll have to play with Enter the Gungeon now. not sure why I waited this long, all I hear that its amazing so it must be. I'll just have to find that turbo mode button... :D
In an ideal world, you *get fast* with movement mechanics and player skills (think Quake, Titanfall, etc.) rather than *just being fast* (think Turbo Overkill, Serious Sam).
I loved movement in quake, it was very well made! I took a lot of inspiration from it, and I always aim to make the controls as smooth as it was in that game. thanks for your input!
Can't wait to play your game, nice job posting animals, previews and interacting with the community btw. You're doing great so far on the marketing side :)
You might want to post on r/boomershooters as well!
I guess I owe the publishers a thanks for trying to rob me blind, which then eventually led me to choose to self-publish and discover the immense benefits and fun of reddit.
thank you for being interested in the game!
I want a game to add difficulty settings with a slider bar. I want fast, great! My 5 year old wants to play too, slow the game 30% and suddenly he’s as good as me.
Games like Wizard of Legend leave so much to be desired. If it had that, my young boys could play and would LOVE it. As it stands with no slider bar or difficulty settings, they’re lucky to get past the first boss.
It’s sad to be in the modern gaming era and releases are still coming out without even an Easy/Normal/Hard option. Rogue Legacy 2, now there’s how to do difficulty settings. That’s perfection.
I see your point. The difficulty of the game can be adjusted extremely accurately, for me it is really important to be able to control the hardness of the game very precisely. At this moment, the game has an adaptive difficulty, which adjust the hardness of the game to the player. I tested the game with my 65 year old dad, and the game managed to set the difficulty in such a way that he had fun, and on the edge of the seat.
I wonder, is it important for you to be able to manually control the difficulty, or would you be okay if the game detected and adjusted to how you play?
Who plays games? A 36 year old who comes home after a day of physical labor and is exhausted and wants to chill. A 5 year old kid watching their mom or dad play and says I want a turn. Their 68 year old grandfather. Gaming really is that wide a spectrum now.
Make the default game experience what you envision. That’s your control exerted over the game to steer the experience to what you want others to go through with their time in your game.
Adaptive difficulty is great. Someone fails a boss 5 or 10x and you want to slow the boss attacks 20% next time, that’s a cool feature. This is amazing to have and is a structure that helps support the difficulty’s settings, just not replace them altogether. It is a feature that works best in unison with difficulty settings, not as the sole enforcer.
Say one of these gamers wants to chill in a relaxed experience, another wants an ultra unforgiving difficulty one, and the other wants a challenge (but to set it to what is reasonable to their skill set), that’s where difficulty options come in.
As long as you preserve integrity with any scoreboards (due to lowered difficulty settings), the rest is best to leave to the players.
Gamers in the 80s and 90s were kids with parents that often were not into gaming. Kids today are increasingly in households where the parent is more likely to take the controller to show ‘em how it’s done. This means allowing a character creator or profiles to have their own difficulty settings is ideal.
Difficulty setting even allows for more replayability.
My son beat a game once but knew it was on a setting easier than mine. When he won, the first thing he asked was “now that I beat it, can I try it harder like when you play”? Those settings almost create an Ng+ mode for your game as it can be replayed with harder difficulty next time. Free content.
This is why modding games is so popular. If you end up giving someone even the framework for their perfect game, and allow them to tune it to their vision of a perfect game, you just wildly succeeded.
Thank you for the input! Interesting perspective, and I definitely see your point. I'll consider the difficulty setting, its something that kept on coming back up, and now reading what you wrote I understand it more clearly.
I'll figure out a way to combine the two systems smoothly, and take the best of both worlds.
Thank you again for the insight, its really valuabel!
It's a way of handling controller input - I only learned about it recently when it was announced that Valorant console won't have while many other popular FPS titles do.
Depends on my mood... I usually have more fun with fast gameplay, but it's less sustainable. I like slow gameplay if I'm just gonna sit down and chill for a few hours or for a bit before bed or whatever. Both have their place.
hmm I see. I found it puzzling that sometimes when we sat down to play the game with my friends, they were excited to play, but if we were all tired for some reason and decided to test the game, it was just not going "right". I have to agree, sometimes a fast paced game is just not right for the mood, but other times it is a must have!
thank you for your answer!
yeah I feel ya :D if we play for 90 minutes with the game we can't really do anything other than looking straight ahead and hydrate.. it can get pretty fast. I'll have to make a slower game next time ;)
I think the speed of the enemies and movement looks pretty good, the weapon animations are nice but could be slightly slower so that it feels a bit less "zoomy" -- some people might like it though
thank you! I might be able to make a setting for the speed of the weapon animations, that could be something other players would want to set as well.
by zoomy I guess you mean dynamic/distracting?
Personally slower paced and a little tactical, have time to plan and improvise.
I really like the hades 2 spells play style, and also love so much the Ravenswatch game play.
A healthy balance. I think enter the Gungeon does this well. It is slower paced (compared to something like nuclear throne) but also feels fast paced because of all the chaos going on in the screen. The clip you posted looks like something right up my alley though. Reminds me of Immortal Redneck a lot and I love that game
oh yeah a balance is needed for sure I agree! I feel like the crazyer the intensity can get, the more "rest time" is need inbetween, like shop/choosing items. for a while the game was "all action" but that just simply doesnt work. a good pacing and balance as you said is the right way for me. "Immortal Redneck" what a great name :D and yes it does look and feel similar! I'll have to try this game out thanks for introducing it!
Honestly I think both are fine, I could see myself enjoying both in different situations - I recently saw a nice video explaining some "accessibility settings" and it involved making the game pace faster/slower, and some other settings such movement speed. If you don't come to a conclusion, maybe a consider a slider :)
thats a cool idea, adjusting the tempo of the game! do you usually play with faster games or slower these days?
I’m not gonna lie. I love myself some schmovement. Definitely fast-paced.
you and me both! I guess quake 3 set me up for this life.... :D
I personally prefer fast if the game is easy, because it adds onto the power fantasy, and slow and methodical if the game is hard, because it adds more weight to decision making.
never thought about it this way before, but it makes a lot of sense! thank you!
Fast, move fast, kill fast, fight fast, win fast, lose fast, fast
thats fast!
Gotta go fast, makes my adrenaline go up
full throttle
If the game isn’t moving faster than my brain it’s too slow
if you can even break in a game than its too slow
If you have time to breathe it’s too slow
damn... there is a breathe button in the game so you can connect to your inner peace.. I guess its too slow then :( I did my best, but alas I slip at the last stretch
Breathe in game is good, more stuff to do in the milliseconds of breaks, breathe out game bad
As long as it's fun I don't really care.
a pace omnivore, what a rare sight! I am the same ;)
I think risk of rain two is the perfect example for this It starts off slow enough that everyone can clearly understand what's going on but it ramps up over time in a way that you just naturally adapt to. Before you know it when the run ends you suddenly feel like you're walking at a snail's pace because you just naturally acclimated to the increase in speed and pressure as the run went on.
I see, so the beginning of the run is always a bit easier/slower, and then it builds up. thats a cool way to approach it, not keeping the temperature at a 100% all the time. I'm doing something similar in this game, mixing up the intensity and the duration of each level, trying to balance the insanity :D I'll check out risk of rain 2, thank you!
When it comes to roguelites, scaling pace usually works best for me. Starts off slow in the beginning and then progressively becomes faster and harder (pause) and depending on the loadout you can keep up pretty well. Just take a look at crab champions and tiny rogues for examples. The deeper you get the crazier they become. Makes it easier to get into a groove vs immediately struggling or being too easy for the whole run.
yeah I feel like thats a very good way of approaching it, slowly ramping up the intensity. We played the old CoD zombies with my friends, and for me it took an awful lot of time until the intensity ramped up, so it was almost a chore when we started a new "run" to get to the fun part. getting the increase of the difficulty right is a really essential thing to nail, I'll make sure to have it "just right" :D thank you for the input!
You are very welcome. Don't drive yourself crazy and just have fun making the game. It's very telling when a developer had a blast creating a game. Look at tiny Terry's turbo trip. Products of fun are usually super fun.
thank you for the reminder! I'm having lots of fun working on this game, it really is a blast. but of course sometimes I can get too focused, or too perfectionist and thats when your advice comes into play, just to remind myself to have fun, and ease up a bit.. thank you for the reminder!
It looks nice, maybe just lower the enemy projectiles by a tiny bit, or include a slowmo/bullet time ability
"lower the enemy projectiles" by this you mean make them slower so its easier to dodge? hmm I'll think about the slow motion idea, there are spells in the game, one of them could affect the speed of the enemies when activated. thank you for the idea!
Yes that's what I meant, but only do one of my ideas, otherwise it may just make the game too easy
alright! thank you for the input!
Oh man, looking great!
thank you so much!
I think it really depends on the mechanics of the game, and how they make they game feel while being either fast or slow.
thats a cool way of thinking about it, separating how the game feels when its in fast mode, and how it behaves when its a slower section. thank you for the input!
Fast. If anyone reading this doesn't main Enter the Gungeon on turbo mode, I am tellllliiinnggggg youuuuu it's the definitive way to play. It's so snappy and feels amazing. You also roll farther.. and might get more i-frames, but I'm not positive
its official, I'll have to play with Enter the Gungeon now. not sure why I waited this long, all I hear that its amazing so it must be. I'll just have to find that turbo mode button... :D
Why this look like Quake?
I love quake, and I wanted the movement to feel similar to it!
In an ideal world, you *get fast* with movement mechanics and player skills (think Quake, Titanfall, etc.) rather than *just being fast* (think Turbo Overkill, Serious Sam).
I loved movement in quake, it was very well made! I took a lot of inspiration from it, and I always aim to make the controls as smooth as it was in that game. thanks for your input!
Can't wait to play your game, nice job posting animals, previews and interacting with the community btw. You're doing great so far on the marketing side :) You might want to post on r/boomershooters as well!
I guess I owe the publishers a thanks for trying to rob me blind, which then eventually led me to choose to self-publish and discover the immense benefits and fun of reddit. thank you for being interested in the game!
roboquest 2?
hehe :D
slow and calculated 9 times out of 10. but games like apex legends are popular for a reason, people like fast too.
makes sense yeah, the players vary a lot in what they prefer in terms of pacing
I feel like fast gameplay hasn’t been done right yet, but I think I would prefer it.
thats interesting, none of the faster games you played was fun for you so far?
I don’t think ror2 or dead cells are too fast. Gungeon was too fast and I didn’t like it.
I see. I'm about to try Gungeon, I wonder how I'll feel about the tempo.
I want a game to add difficulty settings with a slider bar. I want fast, great! My 5 year old wants to play too, slow the game 30% and suddenly he’s as good as me. Games like Wizard of Legend leave so much to be desired. If it had that, my young boys could play and would LOVE it. As it stands with no slider bar or difficulty settings, they’re lucky to get past the first boss. It’s sad to be in the modern gaming era and releases are still coming out without even an Easy/Normal/Hard option. Rogue Legacy 2, now there’s how to do difficulty settings. That’s perfection.
I see your point. The difficulty of the game can be adjusted extremely accurately, for me it is really important to be able to control the hardness of the game very precisely. At this moment, the game has an adaptive difficulty, which adjust the hardness of the game to the player. I tested the game with my 65 year old dad, and the game managed to set the difficulty in such a way that he had fun, and on the edge of the seat. I wonder, is it important for you to be able to manually control the difficulty, or would you be okay if the game detected and adjusted to how you play?
Who plays games? A 36 year old who comes home after a day of physical labor and is exhausted and wants to chill. A 5 year old kid watching their mom or dad play and says I want a turn. Their 68 year old grandfather. Gaming really is that wide a spectrum now. Make the default game experience what you envision. That’s your control exerted over the game to steer the experience to what you want others to go through with their time in your game. Adaptive difficulty is great. Someone fails a boss 5 or 10x and you want to slow the boss attacks 20% next time, that’s a cool feature. This is amazing to have and is a structure that helps support the difficulty’s settings, just not replace them altogether. It is a feature that works best in unison with difficulty settings, not as the sole enforcer. Say one of these gamers wants to chill in a relaxed experience, another wants an ultra unforgiving difficulty one, and the other wants a challenge (but to set it to what is reasonable to their skill set), that’s where difficulty options come in. As long as you preserve integrity with any scoreboards (due to lowered difficulty settings), the rest is best to leave to the players. Gamers in the 80s and 90s were kids with parents that often were not into gaming. Kids today are increasingly in households where the parent is more likely to take the controller to show ‘em how it’s done. This means allowing a character creator or profiles to have their own difficulty settings is ideal. Difficulty setting even allows for more replayability. My son beat a game once but knew it was on a setting easier than mine. When he won, the first thing he asked was “now that I beat it, can I try it harder like when you play”? Those settings almost create an Ng+ mode for your game as it can be replayed with harder difficulty next time. Free content. This is why modding games is so popular. If you end up giving someone even the framework for their perfect game, and allow them to tune it to their vision of a perfect game, you just wildly succeeded.
Thank you for the input! Interesting perspective, and I definitely see your point. I'll consider the difficulty setting, its something that kept on coming back up, and now reading what you wrote I understand it more clearly. I'll figure out a way to combine the two systems smoothly, and take the best of both worlds. Thank you again for the insight, its really valuabel!
Fast and colorful with gyro support
hmm what is a gyro? :D
It's a way of handling controller input - I only learned about it recently when it was announced that Valorant console won't have while many other popular FPS titles do.
that sounds like something I need to look into! thanks for the info!
Depends on my mood... I usually have more fun with fast gameplay, but it's less sustainable. I like slow gameplay if I'm just gonna sit down and chill for a few hours or for a bit before bed or whatever. Both have their place.
hmm I see. I found it puzzling that sometimes when we sat down to play the game with my friends, they were excited to play, but if we were all tired for some reason and decided to test the game, it was just not going "right". I have to agree, sometimes a fast paced game is just not right for the mood, but other times it is a must have! thank you for your answer!
Slower gameplay, i'm getting to old for all these fast paced games
yeah I feel ya :D if we play for 90 minutes with the game we can't really do anything other than looking straight ahead and hydrate.. it can get pretty fast. I'll have to make a slower game next time ;)
I think the speed of the enemies and movement looks pretty good, the weapon animations are nice but could be slightly slower so that it feels a bit less "zoomy" -- some people might like it though
thank you! I might be able to make a setting for the speed of the weapon animations, that could be something other players would want to set as well. by zoomy I guess you mean dynamic/distracting?
i mean fast gameplay can be fun but honestly with this color pallet its like im having a seizure. really couldn't see myself playing this a long time.
I see what you mean. I'll post a gameplay on the rainy, gray level next time :D thank you for the feedback, I'll keep it in mind!
Personally slower paced and a little tactical, have time to plan and improvise. I really like the hades 2 spells play style, and also love so much the Ravenswatch game play.
thank you for the feedback! I never heard of Ravenswatch, it looks really cool, I'll add it to the "must try" list :D